The paper discusses the metaphorical nature and meaning of a concept, inhibition, ubiquitous in physiological, psychological and everyday descriptions of the controlling organization of human conduct. There are three parts. The first reviews the established argument in the theory of knowledge that metaphor is not ‘merely’ figure of speech but intrinsic to language use. The middle section provides an introduction to the history of inhibition as a concept in nervous physiology and in psychology. This emphasizes the conjoined descriptive and normative character the concept has had, integrating science and the ordinary person's understanding of the achievement of top-down control in organized systems. The last section introduces a different dimension to the history and logic of control, pointing out that ‘economic’, as opposed to hierarchical, models of control also exist. The conclusion asserts the flexible, particular character of metaphor, encompassing mental and bodily realms – and hence the importance of historical work for its comprehension.

本文讨论了隐喻的本质和含义，抑制的概念，它在人类行为控制组织的生理，心理和日常描述中无处不在。分为三个部分。第一部分回顾了知识理论中的既定论点，即隐喻不仅仅是“仅”的语言形象，而是语言使用所固有的。中间部分介绍了抑制的历史，它是神经生理学和心理学中的一个概念。这强调了该概念具有的连贯的描述性和规范性，将科学和普通人对有组织的系统中自顶向下控制的实现的理解相结合。最后一部分介绍了控制的历史和逻辑的另一个方面，指出与分层，控制模型也存在。结论断言隐喻具有弹性，特殊性，涵盖了精神和身体领域，因此历史作品对其理解具有重要意义。