This essay examines the role of metaphoric thought at the symposium Beyond reductionism: New perspectives in the life sciences organised by the Hungarian-born writer Arthur Koestler in 1968. The symposium can be interpreted in part as a protest against the metaphor of man as a machine, which was connected by the participants to reductionism in a broader, cosmological sense. Metaphors were widely utilised by the participants to communicate scientific and philosophical ideas, but the use of metaphors was also criticised for over-simplifying a complex reality. Different variants of general system theory were explored by some participants as a way of avoiding the limits of specific metaphoric imagery. Analogies based on modern linguistics were repeatedly used to explain biological and behavourial processes, as an alternative to the established mechanistic, reductionist models. Reductionism was also connected to existential concepts of meaning and alienation in connection with the concurrent student riots. Using Max Black's interactive theory of metaphor, this essay argues that the symposium produced a more coherent anti-reductionist position than is apparent at first sight, while also highlighting the importance of metaphors and analogies in the life sciences discourse of the late 1960's.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-503399 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Schönberg, Josef |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för idé- och lärdomshistoria |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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