Abstract

I argue that imagination is central to cognition not merely as a heuristic device but essentially. This claim rests on an interpretation of the role of metaphor in creative thinking, and of the role of the image in the experience of metaphor. The term "imagination" includes here the construction of external representations and the process of "seeing as" as well as internal visualization. Metaphorical meaning and truth are taken to have both a making and a seeing dimension. ;I begin by contrasting Arnheim's defense of visual thinking against Gombrich's insistence that "making comes before matching". While Arnheim emphasizes the role of seeing in thinking this should be supplemented with Gombrich's emphasis on the made schemata. I then critically consider the origins of anti-psychologism in the work of Frege and the early Husserl. Whereas the anti-mentalist denies imagination a central role in thinking, anti-psychologism denies its primacy in cognition. ;Following this, I analyze various theories of the role of metaphor in cognition. Here I follow a method which is phenomenological in that it attends to the experience of metaphor; dialectical in that it studies theories in their historical/logical context; and romanticist in that it sees the key concepts of theories as essentially metaphorical. This method is consistent with two of my main conclusions: That abstract concepts and philosophical definitions are themselves metaphorical and that the metaphorical meaning of a term is its contextual meaning. Because of this contextualism I am critical of Davidson's rejection of metaphorical meaning which is based on a questionable concept of literal meaning. My own theory of metaphor is derived from a discussion of Croce, Cassirer, Richards, Wheelwright, Black, and Lakoff and Johnson. I distinguish four stages of the experience of metaphor: premetaphorical identification; metaphor construction; elaboration of metaphor; and interpretation of metaphor. Finally, I contrast Ricoeur and Goodman on metaphorical reference, suggesting that though Ricoeur is right that the ground of powerful metaphor is a function of perception, Goodman is also right that it is a function of making.