The fuzzy processing of metaphors

Abstract

The question under investigation about verbal metaphor is what kind of thinking and reasoning can help catching the metaphorical target category (e.g., octopus meaning citrus press, child meaning son or daughter, pizzas meaning people) from a source category (children, pizzas or octopuses); knowing that this kind of “logically false” way of talking/understanding and of reasoning appears to be the most prominent kind of human of thinking. We are reviewing some of the prominent work of Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier with her team to evaluate how much the fuzzy logic computation of metaphorical reasoning and schemes can be used to model the human computation of metaphors.