Object Thinking

4. Metaphor: Bridge to the Unfamiliar

Along the philosophical fringes of science we may find reasons to question basic conceptual structures and to grope for ways to refashion them. Old idioms are bound to fail us here, and only metaphor can begin to limn the new order.

— Willard Van Orman Quine

Explanations without metaphor would be difficult if not impossible, for in order to describe the unknown, we must resort to concepts that we know and understand, and that is the essence of metaphor.

— Earl MacCormac

Object philosophy generates a different view of the world, one that is strange to most and especially to developers trained in conventional methods and ideas. This raises the question of how best to assist developers to understand the new world ...