ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explain the sense in which all human thought is metaphorical, and how this fact manifests itself in scientific enquiry and in religious belief. It also aims to distinguish this metaphorical feature of human thought from metaphor as a figure of speech and hence as a feature of language. The metaphorical nature of human thought is fundamental to scientific discovery and explanation. One of the fundamental procedures of scientific enquiry consists in turning certain metaphorical comparisons into conceptual models, i.e. ‘sustained and systematic metaphors.’ In Modern Greek the word ‘metaphor’ is used to refer to a city bus as a vehicle for transferring people from point A to point B. A more plausible view is that metaphor deviates from the usual use of words to which participants in the linguistic community have become accustomed through a process of linguistic socialisation.
