ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the trends of thought in some of the disciplines, with a focus on experimental psychology, psychodynamic psychology, linguistic theory, and philosophy. It discusses certain “landmark papers” within these disciplines that appear to be relevant to the Zeitgeist in cognitive psychology in the 1970s. The book reviews treatments of figurative language in linguistics and philosophy and presents the major theories of metaphor in philosophy from Plato and I. Kant to modern times, including the logical positivists’ view that metaphor possesses connotative value but not truth value. It also reviews standard theories of metaphor comprehension from the perspective of attitudes about epistemology, such as Phenomenalism and Realism. The book argues that there may be a trade-off between abstract understanding and imaging, and that their results define boundary conditions on the role of imagery as described by the dual-coding view.
