Substance Metaphors

August 25th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Liquid, Metaphor, Mind, Science, Sense, Substance |

One of the most extensive groups of conceptual metaphors that we use to structure and organise our thoughts about phenomena which would otherwise be incomprehensible and inexpressible is that set of metaphors which use SUBSTANCE as their source. Sometimes the substance used is quite specific, as for example when we talk about the abstract concept of genetic inheritance by using the metaphor of blood. In other instances we use more generic substances to stand for abstract concepts and exploit the general properties of substances to think and talk about concepts about which we would otherwise have to remain mentally and actually silent. A clear example of this latter type of generic substance metaphor is that of the type MIND IS A LIQUID which is explored in detail elsewhere and which shows itself in our use of such terms as flow, absorb, stream of consciousness, oceanic awareness, etc, all of which describe mental states or processes through the application of the one substance metaphor. It is inevitable that our use of such metaphors is based on our vernacular embodied understanding of substances, and not on an understanding of substance which requires specialist, non-embodiable knowledge. There is unlikely to be a metaphor group relating particularly to the halide elements for example, or to substances which form salts in the presence of acids. In other words, the ways in which substances are used as sources for metaphor is not dependent upon technical knowledge, of chemistry for example, but on the experiential knowledge of handling different substances and encountering different substances directly with the sensorimotor system. At this level of analysis, the body is the template for categorisation, not the chromatograph or the tunneling electron microscope. Unsurprising, the primary categories that the body forms are those familiar to all of us from Primary School science class, the categories of solids, liquids, and gases, and it is from this threesome that most of our substance metaphors are drawn. (Please note the inclusion of the caveat ‘most’ in the preceding sentence. I will be arguing that on special occasions we do invent, postulate, or imagine, a fourth state of matter outside of the big three.)