Material Foundations of Scientific Metaphors: A New Materialist Metaphor Studies

ABSTRACT:Across field areas, studies of metaphor repeatedly emphasize the social and political functioning of metaphors, neglecting the role of materiality in the appearance and circulation of metaphors. This article argues for greater ecological and material engagement when examining metaphors. A material-discursive analysis of the origination of the mirror metaphor as deployed in the cognitive neurosciences demonstrates how metaphors are generated from situated practices and not easily divorced from bodies and affects in a time and place. The case study shows the benefit of rethinking metaphors as always to some extent outside the head; objects in unruly environments have a say in a metaphor's origination and success, making appeals to the overwhelming power of the social field or to the strategic maneuvering of the scientist insufficient. The paper ends with a call for new materialist metaphor studies.