The Psychometaphor

Abstract

The concept of the metaphor and its theorisation have proved to be crucial elements within the framework of cross-disciplinary thought, capable of carrying out a thorough investigation into all the consequences of the epistemological transformations brought about by the so-called “linguistic shift” in our “conception of the world” (Weltanschauung). As far as psychology is concerned, the metaphor represents the hope that research will not be centred overwhelmingly on studies of a quantitative nature, or probabilism, which, expressed in a Husserlian manner, would entail reducing the concept of science to the science of facts, thus inevitably implying a restriction of the very concept of science.¹ In this sense it must not be forgotten that in his Investigaciones Lógicas,² E. Husserl dispensed with philosophy’s distortion by the field of psychology, guided exclusively by natural science. This allowed for the recreation of a reflexive structure through the use of concepts such as the metaphor, which possesses a proven capacity for both transgressing the limits of specialised discourse and for linguistic renovation, thereby affording us a congruent perspective of reality. Consequently, the psychometaphor can be taken as any integrating model which may result from a “metaphorical transposition” within the framework of cross-disciplinary study. Its most immediate consequence is its effect on specialised discourse whose cognitive procedures have been altered: namely cognitive psychology, linguistics, anthropology, hermeneutics, etc.