This paper presents a historical examination of the influence of the Darwinian metaphor ‘the struggle for existence’ on a variety of scientific theories which inform our current understanding of the prospects for sustainable development. The first part of the paper traces the use of the metaphor of struggle through two distinct avenues of thought relevant to the search for sustainable developme...

How does our brain organize knowledge? Traditional theories assume that our knowledge is represented abstractly in an amodal conceptual network of formal logic symbols. The theory of embodied cognition challenges this view and argues that conceptual representations that constitute our knowledge are grounded in sensory and motor experiences. We tested this hypothesis by examining how the concept...

Abstract. Vagueness is blamed for the Sorites Paradox. But the nature of vagueness is not well understood. Initially characterizing vagueness in terms of Sainsbury’s boundary metaphor, I argue that all semantic theories failing to do justice to this boundary metaphor are false. However, it is unclear what kind of semantic theory of vagueness is immune to this charge. I explore the boundary meta...

We provide an overview of metaphor theory and explore implications for systems practice by building on claims that metaphors are central to our ways of understanding. As stakeholders will have different understandings, each metaphor will reveal and conceal different aspects of their understandings. These differences need to be accommodated within systems practice. Our contribution in this paper...

The social coordination of geographic information technologies relies on collaboration between actors from the public, private, and education sectors. Diffusion, implementation, information sharing, and studies of the use of geographic information systems (GISs) examine the collaboration in relation to specific activities. Applying concepts from actor network theories, this article examines the...

the present article explains the notion of symbol and metaphor in ricoeur's philosophy and tries to consider the relation between them in his whole philosophical perspective to answer the following questions: whether this two notions are the same or each one belongs to completely different realms? what kind of relation is there between tham? whether there is any conceptual or functional re...

Abstract This article deals with the powerful role of metaphors in process Language Making throughout history linguistics. It departs from assumption that play an essential both formation scientific theories and common conceptions language. We want to illuminate what extent are involved language ideologies, we investigate their linguistic theory formation. After introducing different approaches...

Considering that there are many different syntactic and semantic theories, this article is concerned with entering enough information into a generic lexicon to provide each of these theories with what it needs to work. Providing information for different uses implies organizing that information into a hierarchy of pieces of information. The first part of the article is devoted to this question....

For over 2,500 years, innovation was a contested idea. It became de-contested in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two types of argument contributed to this rehabilitation: an economic one (utility) and a cultural one (creativity). Over time, the former became dominant in theories, public policy and discourses. Yet many writers on innovation continue to define innovation as creativity. Wh...