Metaphor and the Dynamics of Knowledge (Hardcover, New)

A striking characteristic of modern knowledge society is the rapid spread of certain ideas and concepts back and forth from everyday to scientific discourses, and across many different contexts of meaning. This work attempts to open up a new road to the study of these "dynamics of knowledge". Sociologists of knowledge and recently evolutionary theorists have offered explanations that either attribute social attention to particular ideas or shifts of meaning to the predominance of certain groups. Maasen and Weingart, however, offer a radical new explanation that explores knowledge dynamics by reference to the interaction between metaphors and discourses. The study focuses on three major case studies: the spread of Darwin's phrase "struggle for existence" in the popularizing literature in turn of the century Germany; the reception of Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolution" and its identification with the term "paradigm" in the sciences and humanities; and the diffusion of the concept of "chaos" from scientific to everyday discourses.