Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
forward; literal truth has no permanent status as literal and its lifespan is not known
in advance of its employment. The creative power of metaphor is its
liminality
; this
is also the source of its disruptive power. Paul Ricouer has noted that metaphor,
like poetry, plays on the boundary between dogmatic commitment and speculative
distance:
What is given to thought in this way by the
truth of poetry is the primordial,
most hidden dialectic - the dialectic that reigns between the experience of belonging as
a whole and the power of distantiation that opens up the space of speculative thought.
(
1981
, 371)
Metaphor enables the participation mystique of true dogma while maintaining a
potential distance from the matter at hand (e.g., from the theoretical framework or
model used in a given research project), thus providing a cognitive wedge that
opens a space for speculation.
Awareness of metaphor
as metaphor
renders its semantic frame
labile
—an
important feature during times of conceptual fluctuation and growth
tensional
'
'
which
come at an increasingly rapid pace for new areas of research. For Rom Harr´ the
necessity of resorting to metaphor can be stated very simply:
We need metaphor because in some cases it is the only way to say what we mean since the
existing semantic fields of current terminology referentially related to the subject in
question are inadequate to our own thought. (Harr´ and Martin
1982
, 95)
...
He considers metaphor to be an interventional tool rather than representational
one.
8
Metaphor
s capacity to make a difference for a given inquiry is what matters,
not its ability to accurately represent phenomena in various circumstances.
The pragmatic aspect of metaphor puts its semantic lability to work to facilitate
inquiry. Therefore, epistemological commitment to metaphor is justifiably flexible.
A metaphor that is successfully put to use for a specific purpose may lose its
usefulness, only to find it again if a new problem activates its multivalent potentials.
'
9.2 The Metaphor at the Foundations of Chemistry:
Defining Element
A self-reflexive commitment to metaphor remains aware of its opportunities and
limits, even when these have yet to be discovered with precision. This way of
holding metaphor in mind makes particular sense in the context of chemistry.
A significant case is found in the official International Union of Pure and Applied
Chemistry (IUPAC) definition of chemical element, which, in an unusual turn,
embodies a key duality.
9
On the one hand element is defined as
atom
, on the other
hand as
substance
:
8
As does Ian Hacking
s(
1983
)
Representing and Intervening
.
9
A full discussion of the development of this definition and its impact on chemical research and
education appears Sect.
9.6
of this chapter.
'
