Abstract
Overton (1976) has criticized those perspectives that subordinate scientific metaphors to scientific inquiries themselves. From such perspectives, the use of metaphor in the context of discovery must be followed by acts of verification, and the use of metaphor is permitted only until it can be reduced to empirical concepts. In agreement with Overton, however, we claim that metaphor is an essential part of the activity of science, guiding the relationship between scientists and the object of their study. As Overton (1976) himself suggests, the metaphors one employs to capture the essential character or image of one’s object of study may have “a continuing determining influence on the formulation of more concrete models and ultimately on the types of theories constructed; the questions asserted as significant or nonsignificant; and even the types of methods preferred” (p. 76). In this chapter, the use of two metaphors, dialectics and transaction, is explored.
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Riegel, K.F., Meacham, J.A. (1978). Dialectics, Transaction, and Piaget’s Theory. In: Pervin, L.A., Lewis, M. (eds) Perspectives in Interactional Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3997-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3997-7_2
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