This book opens up a new route to the study of knowledge dynamics and the sociology of knowledge. The focus is on the role of metaphors as powerful catalysts and the book dissects their role in the construction of theories of knowledge and will therefore be of vital interest to social and cognitive scientists alike.

Peter Weingart holds a chair in sociology at the University of Bielefeld and heads the Institute for Science and Technology Studies.

List of figures and tables

vii

Acknowledgements

viii

Foreword

ix

Metaphors and the dynamics of knowledge: preliminary thoughts

1

(150)

Analysing knowledge dynamics, in general, and the role of metaphors, in particular

7

(17)

Observing the dynamics of `ideas' in society

7

(9)

Changing the observatory: a systems-theoretical and discourse-analytical approach

16

(8)

Metaphors as targets and tools in the analysis of knowledge dynamics

24

(17)

Troubling terms

24

(4)

Metaphor analysis from `above', from `below', and from `in between'

28

(9)

Metaphor analyses of knowledge dynamics

37

(4)

`Struggle for existence': selection, retention and extinction of a metaphor

41

(22)

Vignette

41

(1)

Functions and dysfunctions of metaphors in science

42

(2)

Kampf ums Dasein - popularization and contexts of usage

44

(9)

A change of context: Weismann and the Krupp competition

53

(4)

The metadiscourse on `struggle for existence'

57

(6)

Of paradigms, shifts, and changes - the Kuhnian metaphor

63

(28)

Vignette

63

(1)

Thomas Kuhn's Structure - `The right text at the right time'

64

(4)

The `Kuhnianization' of the social sciences

68

(7)

Paving the way for postmodernism - the Kuhnian metaphor at work

75

(12)

Kuhn, bartenders, theologians, and ice-cream parlours

87

(4)

The order of meaning: the career of chaos as a metaphor

91

(43)

Vignette

91

(1)

Introduction

92

(3)

The career of chaos as a metaphor

95

(10)

Chaos in contemporary social science discourses

105

(22)

Metaphor transfer - discursive order out of/within chaos?

127

(7)

Metaphors and the dynamics of knowledge

134

(17)

Struggle, Kuhn, and chaos: changing metaphors denoting change

135

(3)

Struggle, Kuhn, and chaos: how metaphors create something new

138

(5)

Dynamics of knowledge: from memes to metaphors

143

(8)

Notes

151

(10)

References

161

(16)

Author index

177

(4)

Subject index

181

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