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"The creative individual pursues (or is pursued by) a number of dominant
metaphors. These figures are images of wide scope, rich, and susceptible
to considerable exploration, exposing the investigator to aspects of
phenomena that might otherwise remain invisible to him. Often the key to
the individual's most important innovations inhere in these images. In
Darwin's case, the most fecund metaphor was the branching tree of
evolution, on which he could trace the rise and fate of various species.
Gruber's students have uncovered other such metaphors of wide scope.
William James had a penchant for viewing mental processes as a stream or
river, rather than in terms of the associationist images of a train or a
chain. Any consideration of John Locke should focus on his falconer,
whose release of a bird symbolized the quest for human knowledge.
Finally, in conveying his own emerging view of the creative process,
Gruber finds himiself attracted to the Mosaic image of the bush that is
always burning but never consumed" Howard Gardner, Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity. |