Why metaphor?

It amazes me sometimes that I have studied metaphors for three decades and have never asked the simplest questions. Metaphor is such a fascination and perplexing thing, once you notice it in every nook and cranny, that you can spend all of your time figuring out how it works. Since we see that we think metaphorically almost all of the time, we want to know: How does this odd form of thought work? And why does it happen this way and not that? And where does it come from?

But in the midst of this fascination, you can also forget to ask a very simple question: If we have other ways of thinking, e.g., literal, conceptual, categorical thinking, why do we ever resort to metaphor? Clearly we do, but this is apparently a choice on some level. What then is the advantage of thinking metaphorically over other forms of thought? What does metaphor do for us, for our efforts to understand our experience, that leads us to choose it--and so often--?

I have not found this question posed in contemporary metaphor theory. The reason that we think metaphorically is somehow taken for granted; it is not explored. I can see two reasons for this curious oversight. 1) Since Metaphor Theory views metaphorical thought as conceptual, it sees no need to ask why we think metaphorically, as opposed to literally or conceptually. If metaphor is just a different way of using concepts, we do not need a reason to distinguish it from other kinds of thinking. 2) The sources of metaphor seem to be patterns of meaning established in childhood, e.g., walking, chewing, building, swimming, in and out, containment, etc.--so metaphorical thought merely uses the materials available to it. As Johnson puts it, "the body is in the mind." We think this way because these image schemas are "there."

But literal thought uses resources that are "there" in the mind and the language. Every way of thinking relies on available sources. So the fact that image schemas are available does not explain why we use them for metaphor. The question remains: When we turn to metaphor and to these particular resources, what is the point? What are we hoping to achieve? Why metaphor?

 Copyright © Tim Adamson, 2026. All Rights Reserved. Please do not distribute without the author’s permission.