Metaphor is at the core of nearly all scientific breakthroughs and acts of genius.
Celebrated scientists like Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, and Albert Einstein relied on metaphor to help them make new discoveries.
Clearly, fundamental change depends upon our ability to engage with metaphor.
In other words, metaphor is an act of genius.
In a meeting in late December 2006, the President of a small university asked me what course I wanted to teach in their Ph.D. Psychology program. Instead of responding with the curricula that I was already prepared to teach, to my surprise I found myself blurting out… “metaphor.” The topic was right there; there was…
I recently met someone who is an international expert on social change movements. Over breakfast at my favorite café we talked about how successful social protests open up space in places where we think there isn’t any space. The conversation fascinated me because I’ve spent the past two years writing a book about metaphor and the…
I’m a huge fan of Top Chef, the reality tv show where gifted chefs from across the country compete with each other in elimination challenges. The show has hooked me into cooking as an art form. (I think I like the titles of the dishes almost as much as the visual…) Watching Top Chef has…
In alphabetical order, 17 potent, inspiring, and relatively unknown books on the power of art, imagination, learning, and metaphor. (These are books not commonly known, so that’s why some popular books on creativity and imagination aren’t listed.) Enjoy. THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION: Towards a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics by Herbert Marcuse ALONE WITH THE ALONE: Creative…
It has been said that love does not want to destroy, but to preserve. Quietistic love has been praised, [yet]…mere passivity is surely no true love. The process of love is a creative drive, a force which, in spite of its tranquility of the present, lives a life of active realization. I’ve often told the…
Metaphor is at the core of nearly every scientific breakthrough throughout history, and celebrated scientists like Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein relied on metaphor to help them make new discoveries. At all levels of society—personal, cultural, scientific, social, political—fundamental change depends upon our ability to engage with metaphor. Aristotle claimed that his soul…