Metaphor can be studied in many different ways and at many different levels, any one of which may lead to valid insights into the nature of metaphoric generation, comprehension, and appreciation. The insights of any one approach to metaphor are perhaps most convincingly validated when they converge with the insights of a distinctly different approach, leading the student of metaphor to much the same conclusions without regard to the particular method from which the conclusions derived.

In his lucid and enlightening analysis of generative metaphor, Schön has reached conclusions strikingly similar in many ways to those we have reached in our analyses of metaphor and induction. As anyone might expect, where two independent research programs are involved, there are a number of theoretical issues that are addressed by one of the research programs but not by the other. However, in the central core of overlapping issues, there is clear convergence in the conclusions we have independently drawn. In this chapter we should like to point out and discuss the sources of convergence.

What follows is divided into three sections. In order to relate our world to Schön's, it is necessary in the first section to say something about the motivation, approach, theory, and methods that underlie the work in our laboratory on metaphor and induction. These underpinnings of our research differ in many respects from Schön's. Then, it is possible in the second section to draw parallels between our conclusions and those of Schön regarding metaphor, induction, and social policy.