Re: [xmca] creativity, and metaphor

[Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu>]

>
> Zinchenko who is reflecting on the centrality of metaphor in creativity.
>


> Vygotsky wrote, "Whereas above we compared an idea to a suspended cloud
> poring out a torrent of words, to pursue this figurative comparison we
> would have to liken motivation to the wind setting this cloud in motion"
> [Collected works, Volume 2, p. 357]
>
> Zinchenko then amplifies the centrality of metaphor for conceptual
> development when he writes,
>


> We constantly encounter in Vygotsky such LIVING metaphors qua concepts
> ... In my opinion, the heuristic role of such 'artificial concepts' (the
> term is Vygotsky's) IN human knowledge is NO LESS IMPORTANT than the role
> of irrational terms in the exact sciences" [Zinchenko, 1999 p.9 of the
> foreward]
>

Been reading some Zinchenko too, alongside Ingold, and thinking about CHAT,
DCOG, and Actor Network Theory.  Seems to me that metaphors innervate
consciousness and imagination as much as the world and artifacts.  But
"irrational terms" catches my attention, since they seem to me to oppose
the harmony of metaphor, pointing to unholy mixtures and an element of the
grotesque.

If the latter are antimetaphors (in the sense of antimatter in physics),
might it be that instead of annihilating one another, it is creativity that
issues forth when they meet?
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