[4] His father, David Livingston Turbayne, was a banker and his mother, Alice Eva Rene Lahey, was descended from an early pioneer family in Queensland.

[6] After emigrating to the United States following the conclusion of World War II in 1947, he undertook graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

[10] In addition, he provides a critical analysis of the simplistic Cartesian and Newtonian depictions of the universe as little more than a "machine", a concept that underlies much of the scientific materialism which prevails in the modern Western world.

[9] He also provides evidence that the philosophical concept of "material substance" or "substratum" has limited meaning at best and that modern man has unknowingly fallen victim to an unnecessary literal interpretation of one of many potentially beneficial metaphorical models of the universe.

[11][12][13][9][14] With this in mind, Turbayne argues that one can identify at least three instances of sort-crossing in which both René Descartes and Isaac Newton became victimized by metaphors which they incorporated into their scientific methodology while attempting to explain the natural world.

In the first example, Turbayne notes that both men rely upon the certainty of the use of deduction while demonstrating the relationship between principles and theorems in their respective methodologies.

This principle describes an evolutionary process through which those things which are observed to "go-together" subsequently suggest each other, acquire the same names and finally are thought of as being the same or examples of the same sort.

Turbayne argues that both philosophers mistakenly concluded that any deductive explanation of the natural world must first be founded upon a causal relationship between these different sorts.

While mathematical computations, differential equations or the study of geometric lines may indeed prove beneficial within the scientific method, one must avoid the temptation to call upon them to serve as the sole defining featuring of the process itself to the exclusion of alternate terms of explanation.

[19] Turbayne provides a review of the early philosophical writings of both Plato and Aristotle, while illustrating the manner in which Platonic metaphors have influenced the works of both Berkeley and Immanuel Kant.

[20][21] In addition, he demonstrates the manner in which Plato's procreation model as outlined within his Timaeus has influenced modern theories of thought and language.

He concludes by attempting to restore the original model which describes a mind in which both the female and male hemispheres function in concert to participate in the act of creation.

As Turbayne notes, Berkeley publicly embraced several doctrines which are compatible with Christian theology in an effort "to use utmost caution not to give the least handle of offense to the Church or Church-men (715)."

In this view, Berkeley's public defense of the terms "mental substance" and God was intended to be interpreted purely in a metaphorical sense rather than as a literal expression of his private philosophical beliefs.

[13] In addition, he has been cited as supporting the view that metaphors are properly characterized as "categorical mistakes" that may lead an unsuspecting user to considerable obfuscation of thought.