Researchers have used metaphors to shed light on learning advising, yet these metaphors are rarely evaluated for how well they illuminate. Our contribution is to evaluate these pedagogical metaphors. We first explain our understanding of metaphor based on Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) work, then we describe the philosophical method we used to evaluate which metaphors are bright and illuminating for learning advising and which are dull and obscuring. In the second half of the article we present

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... philosophical evaluation. Our conclusion is that the brightest metaphors for illuminating the practice of Learning Advisors were the doctor-mentor, builder-mentor, architect, coach and guide, and the dullest metaphors, so dull they should be rejected entirely, were the fixer and counsellor.