Kone, organismi, kone

miten metaforat jäsentävät todellisuuttamme

• Liisa Saariluoma Turun yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74671

Abstract

Machine, organism, machine: how metaphors mould our understanding of the world

The point of departure of this paper is the claim that knowledge in the humanities is not only based on defined concepts, but also on metaphors, which are important in the cognitive construction of the object of knowledge. As examples, metaphors of machine and organism, which have been widely used as a means for understanding the nature of social and cultural processes and artistic creativity are analysed.

In the natural sciences, since the beginning of the 17th century, the whole of nature has been seen as a huge piece of mechanical machinery. Consequently during the Enlightenment man was also seen both as a machine, as a natural being, and as a free subject of action and cognition who rules over the machinery of nature. A work of art, then, is a creation of the artist, it functions in a similar manner as the machinery of nature does but in a more lucid way it shows the causal relationships in the realm of happenings. During the Romantic era, the machine metaphor is replaced by the organism metaphor. An organism is seen as an entity that follows its own inner law of development and action. Also, literature is then seen as being created in a natural, ‘organic’ way as an expression of the individuality and expression of its author. In Foucault's post-structuralistic thinking, the organism metaphor is again replaced by the machine metaphor. The contents of this metaphor have, however, changed in comparison to the Enlightenment's use of it, in the way that man is no longer seen as a subject who freely rules over the machine but who has become a part of the machinery of society himself,