Metaphors We Live By 

by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson

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Last annotated on April 23, 2016

Preface  

that the dominant views on meaning in Western philosophy and linguistics are inadequate—that “meaning” in these traditions has very little to do with what people find meaningful in their lives. We were brought together by a joint interest in metaphor. Mark had found that most traditional philosophical views permit metaphor little, if any, role in understanding our world and ourselves. George had discovered linguistic evidence showing that metaphor is pervasive in everyday language and thought—evidence that did not fit any contemporary Anglo-American theory of meaning within either linguistics or philosophy. Metaphor has traditionally been viewed in both fields as a matter of peripheral interest.  Read more at location 46

we discovered that certain assumptions of contemporary philosophy and linguistics that have been taken for granted within the Western tradition since the Greeks precluded us from even raising the kind of issues we wanted to address. The problem was not one of extending or patching up some existing theory of meaning but of revising central assumptions in the Western philosophical tradition. In particular, this meant rejecting the possibility of any objective or absolute truth and a host of related assumptions.  Read more at location 54

1 Concepts We Live By  

metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.  Read more at location 98

********  (Note: premise)  Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.  Read more at location 101

****  Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.  Read more at location 103

To give some idea of what it could mean for a concept to be metaphorical and for such a concept to structure an everyday activity, let us start with the concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. This metaphor is reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions:

 ARGUMENT IS WAR        

Your claims are indefensible.        

He attacked every weak point in my argument.        

His criticisms were right on target.        

I demolished his argument.        

I’ve never won an argument with him.        

You disagree? Okay, shoot!        

If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.        

He shot down all of my arguments.  Read more at location 111

we don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war.  Read more at location 123

Imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way.  Read more at location 130

But we would probably not view them as arguing at all: they would simply be doing something different.  Read more at location 132

****  (Note:   embodied self-referential pyramid of learning)  The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.  Read more at location 137

But ARGUMENT is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of WAR. The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured.  Read more at location 139

The metaphor is not merely in the words we use—it is in our very concept of an argument. The language of argument is not poetic, fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literal. We talk about arguments that way because we conceive of them that way—and  Read more at location 143

****  This is what we mean when we say that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person’s conceptual system.  Read more at location 147

2 The Systematicity of Metaphorical Concepts

Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities.  Read more at location 158

let us consider the metaphorical concept TIME IS MONEY as it is reflected in contemporary English. TIME IS MONEY        

You’re wasting my time.        

This gadget will save you hours.        

I don’t have the time to give you.        

How do you spend your time these days?        

That flat tire cost me an hour.        

I’ve invested a lot of time in her.  Read more at location 161

This isn’t a necessary way for human beings to conceptualize time; it is tied to our culture. There are cultures where time is none of these things.  Read more at location 191

TIME IS MONEY entails that TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, which entails that TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY. We are adopting the practice of using the most specific metaphorical concept, in this case TIME IS MONEY, to characterize the entire system. Of the expressions listed under the TIME IS MONEY metaphor, some refer specifically to money (spend, invest, budget, profitably, cost), others to limited resources (use, use up, have enough of, run out of), and still others to valuable commodities (have, give, lose, thank you for). This is an example of the way in which metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent system of metaphorical concepts  Read more at location 195

3 Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding

The very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another (e.g., comprehending an aspect of arguing in terms of battle) will necessarily hide other aspects of the concept. In allowing us to focus on one aspect of a concept (e.g., the battling aspects of arguing), a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor.  Read more at location 202

Someone who is arguing with you can be viewed as giving you his time, a valuable commodity, in an effort at mutual understanding. But when we are preoccupied with the battle aspects, we often lose sight of the cooperative aspects.  Read more at location 207

**********  (Note:   premise)   Reddy observes that our language about language is structured roughly by the following complex metaphor:        

IDEAS (or MEANINGS) ARE OBJECTS.        

LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS.        

COMMUNICATION IS SENDING.

The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/objects out of the word/containers.  Read more at location 210

The CONDUIT Metaphor        

It’s hard to get that idea across to him.        

I gave you that idea.        

Your reasons came through to us.        

It’s difficult to put my ideas into words.        

When you have a good idea, try to capture it immediately in words.        

Try to pack more thought into fewer words.        

You can’t simply stuff ideas into a sentence any old way.        

The meaning is right there in the words.        

Don’t force your meanings into the wrong words.        

His words carry little meaning.        

The introduction has a great deal of thought content.        

Your words seem hollow.        

The sentence is without meaning.  Read more at location 219

First, the LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANINGS aspect of the CONDUIT metaphor entails that words and sentences have meanings in themselves, independent of any context or speaker. The MEANINGS ARE OBJECTS part of the metaphor, for example, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and contexts.  Read more at location 239

But there are many cases where context does matter. Here is a celebrated one recorded in actual conversation by Pamela Downing:        

Please sit in the apple juice seat.

In isolation this sentence has no meaning at all, since the expression “apple-juice seat” is not a conventional way of referring to any kind of object. But the sentence makes perfect sense in the context in which it was uttered. An overnight guest came down to breakfast. There were four place settings, three with orange juice and one with apple juice. It was clear what the apple-juice seat was.  Read more at location 247

The CONDUIT metaphor does not fit cases where context is required to determine whether the sentence has any meaning at all and, if so, what meaning it has.  Read more at location 258

It is important to see that the metaphorical structuring involved here is partial, not total. If it were total, one concept would actually be the other, not merely be understood in terms of it.  Read more at location 261

Thus, if ideas are objects, we can dress them up in fancy clothes, juggle them, line them up nice and neat, etc. So when we say that a concept is structured by a metaphor, we mean that it is partially structured and that it can be extended in some ways but not others.  Read more at location 266

4 Orientational Metaphors 

****  (Note:  another premise)   there is another kind of metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another. We will call these orientational metaphors, since most of them have to do with spatial orientation:  Read more at location 271

These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they function as they do in our physical environment. Orientational metaphors give a concept a spatial orientation;  Read more at location 273

Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary. They have a basis in our physical and cultural experience.  Read more at location 277

These accounts are meant to be suggestive and plausible, not definitive. HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN I’m feeling up. That boosted my spirits. My spirits rose. You’re in high spirits. Thinking about her always gives me a lift. I’m feeling down. I’m depressed. He’s really low these days. I fell into a depression. My spirits sank. Physical basis: Drooping posture typically goes along with sadness and depression, erect posture with a positive emotional state. CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN Get up. Wake up. I’m up already. He rises early in the morning. He fell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He’s under hypnosis. He sank into a coma. Physical basis: Humans and most other mammals sleep lying down and stand up when they awaken. HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN He’s at the peak of health. Lazarus rose from the dead. He’s in top shape. As to his health, he’s way up there. He fell ill. He’s sinking fast. He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.  Read more at location 281

HAVING CONTROL OR FORCE IS UP;

BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL OR FORCE IS DOWN 

MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN 

FORESEEABLE FUTURE EVENTS ARE UP (and AHEAD)

 All up coming events are listed in the paper. What’s coming up this week? I’m afraid of what’s up ahead of us. What’s up? Physical basis: Normally our eyes look in the direction in which we typically move (ahead, forward). As an object approaches a person (or the person approaches the object), the object appears larger. Since the ground is perceived as being fixed, the top of the object appears to be moving upward in the person’s field of vision.

HIGH STATUS IS UP; LOW STATUS IS DOWN 

GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN 

VIRTUE IS UP; DEPRAVITY IS DOWN 

RATIONAL IS UP; EMOTIONAL IS DOWN

The discussion fell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational plane. We put our feelings aside and had a high-level intellectual discussion of the matter. He couldn’t rise above his emotions. Physical and cultural basis: In our culture people view themselves as being in control over animals, plants, and their physical environment, and it is their unique ability to reason that places human beings above other animals and gives them this control.

CONTROL IS UP thus provides a basis for MAN IS UP and therefore for RATIONAL IS UP. Conclusions  Read more at location 335

—Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors. —There is an internal systematicity to each spatialization metaphor. For example, HAPPY IS UP defines a coherent system rather than a number of isolated and random cases.  Read more at location 345

—There is an overall external systematicity among the various spatialization metaphors, which defines coherence among them. Thus, GOOD IS UP gives an UP orientation to general well-being, and this orientation is coherent with special cases  Read more at location 350

****  —Spatialization metaphors are rooted in physical and cultural experience; they are not randomly assigned. A metaphor can serve as a vehicle for understanding a concept only by virtue of its experiential basis.  Read more at location 354

—There are many possible physical and social bases for metaphor. Coherence within the overall system seems to be part of the reason why one is chosen and not another.  Read more at location 357

—In some cases spatialization is so essential a part of a concept that it is difficult for us to imagine any alternative metaphor that might structure the concept. In our society “high status” is such a concept. Other cases, like happiness, are less clear. Is the concept of happiness independent of the HAPPY IS UP metaphor, or is the up-down spatialization of happiness a part of the concept? We believe that it is a part of the concept within a given conceptual system. The HAPPY IS UP metaphor places happiness within a coherent metaphorical system,  Read more at location 364

****  —So-called purely intellectual concepts, e.g., the concepts in a scientific theory, are often—perhaps always—based on metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural basis. The high in “high-energy particles” is based on MORE IS UP. The high in “high-level functions,” as in physiological psychology, is based on RATIONAL IS UP.  Read more at location 370

—Our physical and cultural experience provides many possible bases for spatialization metaphors. Which ones are chosen, and which ones are major, may vary from culture to culture. —It is hard to distinguish the physical from the cultural basis of a metaphor,  Read more at location 376

Experiential Bases of Metaphors 

*********   we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented independently of its experiential basis. For example, MORE IS UP has a very different kind of experiential basis than HAPPY IS UP OR RATIONAL IS UP. Though the concept UP is the same in all these metaphors, the experiences on which these UP metaphors are based are very different.  Read more at location 382

Take, for example, a metaphor like UNKNOWN IS UP; KNOWN IS DOWN. Examples are “That’s up in the air” and “The matter is settled.” This metaphor has an experiential basis very much like that of UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING, as in “I couldn’t grasp his explanation.” With physical objects, if you can grasp something and hold it in your hands, you can look it over carefully and get a reasonably good understanding of it. It’s easier to grasp something and look at it carefully if it’s on the ground in a fixed location than if it’s floating through the air (like a leaf or a piece of paper). Thus UNKNOWN IS UP; KNOWN IS DOWN is coherent with UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING.  Read more at location 397

5 Metaphor and Cultural Coherence 

******  (Note:  cultural metaphors and paradigm are recursively reflective)  The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture.  Read more at location 410

some cultural values in our society that are coherent with our UP-DOWN spatialization metaphors and whose opposites would not be. “More is better” is coherent with MORE IS UP and GOOD IS UP. “Less is better” is not coherent with them. “Bigger is better” is coherent with MORE IS UP and GOOD IS UP. “Smaller is better” is not coherent with them. “The future will be better” is coherent with THE FUTURE IS UP and GOOD IS UP. “The future will be worse” is not. “There will be more in the future” is coherent with MORE IS UP and THE FUTURE IS UP. “Your status should be higher in the future” is coherent with HIGH STATUS IS UP and THE FUTURE IS UP.  Read more at location 411

The values listed above hold in our culture generally—all things being equal. But because things are usually not equal, there are often conflicts among these values and hence conflicts among the metaphors associated with them. To explain such conflicts among values (and their metaphors), we must find the different priorities given to these values and metaphors  Read more at location 430

The priority of MORE IS UP over GOOD IS UP can be seen in examples like “Inflation is rising” and “The crime rate is going up.” Assuming that inflation and the crime rate are bad, these sentences mean what they do because MORE IS UP always has top priority. In general, which values are given priority is partly a matter of the subculture one lives in and partly a matter of personal values.  Read more at location 434

typical of groups that are out of the mainstream culture. Virtue, goodness, and status may be radically redefined, but they are still UP.  Read more at location 453

Individuals, like groups, vary in their priorities and in the ways they define what is good or virtuous to them. In this sense, they are subgroups of one.  Read more at location 457

****  (Note:   taoism and wu wei jump to mind)  Not all cultures give the priorities we do to up-down orientation. There are cultures where balance or centrality plays a much more important role than it does in our culture. Or consider the nonspatial orientation active-passive. For us ACTIVE IS UP and PASSIVE IS DOWN in most matters. But there are cultures where passivity is valued more than activity.  Read more at location 460

6 Ontological Metaphors Entity and Substance Metaphors 

Understanding our experiences in terms of objects and substances allows us to pick out parts of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind. Once we can identify our experiences as entities or substances, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify them—and, by this means, reason about them.  Read more at location 469

****  (Note:  exactly)  Human purposes typically require us to impose artificial boundaries that make physical phenomena discrete just as we are: entities bounded by a surface.  Read more at location 473

Ontological metaphors serve various purposes, and the various kinds of metaphors there are reflect the kinds of purposes served.  Read more at location 477

****  (Note: Verb as a noun)  INFLATION IS AN ENTITY      

Inflation is lowering our standard of living.        

If there’s much more inflation, we’ll never survive.        

We need to combat inflation.        

Inflation is backing us into a corner.        

Inflation is taking its toll at the checkout counter and the gas pump.        

Buying land is the best way of dealing with inflation.        

Inflation makes me sick.

In these cases, viewing inflation as an entity allows us to refer to it, quantify it, identify a particular aspect of it, see it as a cause, act with respect to it, and perhaps even believe that we understand it. Ontological metaphors like this are necessary for even attempting to deal rationally with our experiences.  Read more at location 480

Referring        

My fear of insects is driving my wife crazy.        

That was a beautiful catch.        

We are working toward peace.        

The middle class is a powerful silent force in American politics.  Read more at location 493

Quantifying        

It will take a lot of patience to finish this book.        

There is so much hatred in the world.        

DuPont has a lot of political power in Delaware.        

You’ve got too much hostility in you.  Read more at location 500

Identifying Aspects        

The ugly side of his personality comes out under pressure.        

The brutality of war dehumanizes us all.        

I can’t keep up with the pace of modern life.        

His emotional health has deteriorated recently.  Read more at location 507

Identifying Causes      

The pressure of his responsibilities caused his breakdown.      

He did it out of anger.        

Our influence in the world has declined because of our lack of moral fiber.  Read more at location 514

Setting Goals and Motivating Actions        

He went to New York to seek fame and fortune.        

Here’s what you have to do to insure financial security.        

I’m changing my way of life so that I can find true happiness.        

The FBI will act quickly in the face of a threat to national security.        

She saw getting married as the solution to her problems.  Read more at location 519

different metaphorical models for what the mind is and thereby allow us to focus on different aspects of mental experience. The MACHINE metaphor gives us a conception of the mind as having an on-off state, a level of efficiency, a productive capacity, an internal mechanism, a source of energy, and an operating condition. The BRITTLE OBJECT metaphor is not nearly as rich. It allows us to talk only about psychological strength. However, there is a range of mental experience that can be conceived of in terms of either metaphor. The examples we have in mind are these:        

He broke down. (THE MIND IS A MACHINE)        

He cracked up. (THE MIND IS A BRITTLE OBJECT)  Read more at location 546

Container Metaphors Land Areas  

There are few human instincts more basic than territoriality. And such defining of a territory, putting a boundary around it, is an act of quantification. Bounded objects, whether human beings, rocks, or land areas, have sizes. This allows them to be quantified in terms of the amount of substance they contain. Kansas, for example, is a bounded area—a CONTAINER—which is why we can say, “There’s a lot of land in Kansas.”  Read more at location 573

The Visual Field  

The metaphor is a natural one that emerges from the fact that, when you look at some territory (land, floor space, etc.), your field of vision defines a boundary of the territory, namely, the part that you can see. Given that a bounded physical space is a CONTAINER and that our field of vision correlates with that bounded physical space, the metaphorical concept VISUAL FIELDS ARE CONTAINERS emerges naturally.  Read more at location 581

Events, Actions, Activities, and States

Events and actions are conceptualized metaphorically as objects, activities as substances, states as containers. A race, for example, is an event, which is viewed as a discrete entity. The race exists in space and time, and it has well-defined boundaries. Hence we view it as a CONTAINER OBJECT,  Read more at location 594

Activities in general are viewed metaphorically as SUBSTANCES and therefore as CONTAINERS:  Read more at location 610

activities are viewed as containers for the actions and other activities that make them up. They are also viewed as containers for the energy and materials required for them and for their by-products, which may be viewed as in them or as emerging from them:  Read more at location 619

have examples like these:        

He’s in love.        

We’re out of trouble now.        

He’s coming out of the coma.      

I’m slowly getting into shape.        

He entered a state of euphoria.        

He fell into a depression.  Read more at location 625

7 Personification 

the most obvious ontological metaphors are those where the physical object is further specified as being a person. This allows us to comprehend a wide variety of experiences with nonhuman entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities.  Read more at location 634

some examples:        

His theory explained to me the behavior of chickens raised in factories.        

This fact argues against the standard theories.        

Life has cheated me.        

Inflation is eating up our profits.        

His religion tells him that he cannot drink fine French wines.        

The Michelson-Morley experiment gave birth to a new physical theory.        

Cancer finally caught up with him.  Read more at location 636

Each personification differs in terms of the aspects of people that are picked out. Consider these examples.        Inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy.        

Inflation has pinned us to the wall.        

Our biggest enemy right now is inflation.        

The dollar has been destroyed by inflation.        

Inflation has robbed me of my savings.        

Inflation has outwitted the best economic minds in the country.        

Inflation has given birth to a money-minded generation.

Here inflation is personified, but the metaphor is not merely INFLATION IS A PERSON. It is much more specific, namely, INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY.  Read more at location 646

The INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY metaphor therefore gives rise to and justifies political and economic actions on the part of our government: declaring war on inflation, setting targets, calling for sacrifices, installing a new chain of command, etc.  Read more at location 658

When we are suffering substantial economic losses due to complex economic and political factors that no one really understands, the INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY metaphor at least gives us a coherent account of why we’re suffering these losses.  Read more at location 664

8 Metonymy 

using one entity to refer to another that is related to it. This is a case of what we will call metonymy.  Read more at location 673

some further examples:        

He likes to read the Marquis de Sade. (= the writings of the marquis)        

He’s in dance. (= the dancing profession)        

Acrylic has taken over the art world. (= the use of acrylic paint)        

The Times hasn’t arrived at the press conference yet. (= the reporter from the Times)        

Mrs. Grundy frowns on blue jeans. (= the wearing of blue jeans)        

New windshield wipers will satisfy him. (= the state of having new  Read more at location 674

Metaphor and metonymy are different kinds of processes. Metaphor is principally a way of conceiving of one thing in terms of another, and its primary function is understanding. Metonymy, on the other hand, has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand for another. But metonymy is not merely a referential device. It also serves the function of providing understanding.  Read more at location 692

in the case of the metonymy THE PART FOR THE WHOLE there are many parts that can stand for the whole. Which part we pick out determines which aspect of the whole we are focusing on. When we say that we need some good heads on the project, we are using “good heads” to refer to “intelligent people.”  Read more at location 695

For example, we have in our conceptual system a special case of the metonymy THE PART FOR THE WHOLE, namely, THE FACE FOR THE PERSON. For example:        

She’s just a pretty face.        

There are an awful lot of faces out there in the audience.        

We need some new faces around here.

This metonymy functions actively in our culture. The tradition of portraits, in both painting and photography, is based on it. If you ask me to show you a picture of my son and I show you a picture of his face, you will be satisfied.  Read more at location 706

Thus the metonymy THE FACE FOR THE PERSON is not merely a matter of language. In our culture we look at a person’s face—rather than his posture or his movements—to get our basic information about what the person is like. We function in terms of a metonymy when we perceive the person in terms of his face and act on those perceptions.  Read more at location 715

THE PART FOR THE WHOLE 

PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT        

I’ll have a Löwenbräu.        

He bought a Ford.  Read more at location 726

OBJECT USED FOR USER        

The sax has the flu today.        

The BLT is a lousy tipper.  Read more at location 731

CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED        

Nixon bombed Hanoi.        

Ozawa gave a terrible concert last night.  Read more at location 737

INSTITUTION FOR PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE        

Exxon has raised its prices again.        

You’ll never get the university to agree to that.  Read more at location 744

THE PLACE FOR THE INSTITUTION        

The White House isn’t saying anything.        

Washington is insensitive to the needs of the people.  Read more at location 751

THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT      

Let’s not let Thailand become another Vietnam.        

Remember the Alamo.  Read more at location 759

Nixon himself may not have dropped the bombs on Hanoi, but via the CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED metonymy we not only say “Nixon bombed Hanoi” but also think of him as doing the bombing and hold him responsible for it.  Read more at location 772

like metaphors, metonymic concepts structure not just our language but our thoughts, attitudes, and actions. And, like metaphoric concepts, metonymic concepts are grounded in our experience. In  Read more at location 776

9 Challenges to Metaphorical Coherence 

An Apparent Metaphorical Contradiction 

English appears to have two contradictory organizations of time. In the first, the future is in front and the past is behind:        

In the weeks ahead of us . . . (future)        

That’s all behind us now. (past) In the second, the future is behind and the past is in front:        

In the following weeks . . . (future)        

In the preceding weeks . . . (past)

This appears to be a contradiction in the metaphorical organization of time.  Read more at location 796

Moving objects generally receive a front-back orientation so that the front is in the direction of motion (or in the canonical direction of motion, so that a car backing up retains its front). A spherical satellite, for example, that has no front while standing still, gets a front while in orbit by virtue of the direction in which it is moving.  Read more at location 811

time in English is structured in terms of the TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor, with the future moving toward us:        

The time will come when . . .        

The time has long since gone when . . .        

The time for action has arrived.  Read more at location 814

By virtue of the TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor, time receives a front-back orientation facing in the direction of motion, just as any moving object would. Thus the future is facing toward us as it moves toward us, and we find expressions like:      

I can’t face the future.        

The face of things to come . . .      

Let’s meet the future head-on.  Read more at location 823

Since future times are facing toward us, the times following them are further in the future, and all future times follow the present. That is why the weeks to follow are the same as the weeks ahead of us.  Read more at location 833

Coherence versus Consistency 

there is another way in which we conceptualize the passing of time:

TIME IS STATIONARY AND WE MOVE THROUGH IT      

 As we go through the years, . . .        

As we go further into the 1980s, . . .  Read more at location 841

What we have here are two subcases of TIME PASSES US: in one case, we are moving and time is standing still; in the other, time is moving and we are standing still.  Read more at location 846

the connections between metaphors are more likely to involve coherence than consistency.  Read more at location 854

10 Some Further Examples 

The English expressions are of two sorts: simple literal expressions and idioms that fit the metaphor and are part of the normal everyday way of talking  Read more at location 881

THEORIES (and ARGUMENTS) ARE BUILDINGS

Is that the foundation for your theory? The theory needs more support. The argument is shaky. We need some more facts or the argument will fall apart. We need to construct a strong argument for that.  Read more at location 883

IDEAS ARE FOOD

What he said left a bad taste in my mouth. All this paper has in it are raw facts, half-baked ideas, and warmed-over theories. There are too many facts here for me to digest them all. I just can’t swallow that claim. That argument smells fishy.  Read more at location 891

IDEAS ARE PEOPLE

The theory of relativity gave birth to an enormous number of ideas in physics. He is the father of modern biology. Whose brainchild was that? Look at what his ideas have spawned. Those ideas died off in the Middle Ages.  Read more at location 900

IDEAS ARE PLANTS

His ideas have finally come to fruition. That idea died on the vine. That’s a budding theory. It will take years for that idea to come to full flower. He views chemistry as a mere offshoot of physics. Mathematics has many branches.  Read more at location 905

IDEAS ARE PRODUCTS

We’re really turning (churning, cranking, grinding) out new ideas. We’ve generated a lot of ideas this week. He produces new ideas at an astounding rate.  Read more at location 910

IDEAS ARE COMMODITIES

It’s important how you package your ideas. He won’t buy that. That idea just won’t sell. There is always a market for good ideas. That’s a worthless idea.  Read more at location 915

IDEAS ARE RESOURCES

He ran out of ideas. Don’t waste your thoughts on small projects. Let’s pool our ideas. He’s a resourceful man. We’ve used up all our ideas.  Read more at location 920

IDEAS ARE MONEY

Let me put in my two cents’ worth. He’s rich in ideas. That book is a treasure trove of ideas.  Read more at location 923

IDEAS ARE CUTTING INSTRUMENTS 

IDEAS ARE FASHIONS 

UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING; IDEAS ARE LIGHT-SOURCES; DISCOURSE IS A LIGHT-MEDIUM

I see what you’re saying. It looks different from my point of view. What is your outlook on that? I view it differently. Now I’ve got the whole picture. Let me point something out to you. That’s an insightful idea. That was a brilliant remark. The argument is clear. It was a murky discussion.  Read more at location 936

LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE (ELECTROMAGNETIC, GRAVITATIONAL, etc.)

 I could feel the electricity between us. There were sparks. I was magnetically drawn to her. They are uncontrollably attracted to each other. They gravitated to each other immediately. His whole life revolves around her.  Read more at location 942

LOVE IS A PATIENT 

LOVE IS MADNESS 

LOVE IS MAGIC 

LOVE IS WAR 

WEALTH IS A HIDDEN OBJECT 

SIGNIFICANT IS BIG 

SEEING IS TOUCHING; EYES ARE LIMBS 

THE EYES ARE CONTAINERS FOR THE EMOTIONS 

EMOTIONAL EFFECT IS PHYSICAL CONTACT

PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL STATES ARE ENTITIES WITHIN A PERSON

VITALITY IS A SUBSTANCE 

LIFE IS A CONTAINER

I’ve had a full life. Life is empty for him. There’s not much left for him in life. Her life is crammed with activities. Get the most out of life. His life contained a great deal of sorrow.  Read more at location 996

LIFE IS A GAMBLING GAME 

**** If you say “The odds are against us” or “We’ll have to take our chances,” you would not be viewed as speaking metaphorically but as using the normal everyday language appropriate to the situation. Nevertheless, your way of talking about, conceiving, and even experiencing your situation would be metaphorically structured.  Read more at location 1011

11 The Partial Nature of Metaphorical Structuring 

The metaphorical structuring of concepts is necessarily partial and is reflected in the lexicon of the language, including the phrasal lexicon, which contains fixed-form expressions such as “to be without foundation.” Because concepts are metaphorically structured in a systematic way, e.g., THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, it is possible for us to use expressions (construct, foundation) from one domain (BUILDINGS) to talk about corresponding concepts in the metaphorically defined domain (THEORIES).  Read more at location 1017

The parts of the concept BUILDING that are used to structure the concept THEORY are the foundation and the outer shell. The roof, internal rooms, staircases, and hallways are parts of a building not used as part of the concept THEORY.  Read more at location 1023

what of the linguistic expressions that reflect the “unused” part of a metaphor like THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS? Here are four examples:        

His theory has thousands of little rooms and long, winding corridors.        

His theories are Bauhaus in their pseudofunctional simplicity.        

He prefers massive Gothic theories covered with gargoyles.        

Complex theories usually have problems with the plumbing.

These sentences fall outside the domain of normal literal language and are part of what is usually called “figurative” or “imaginative” language. Thus, literal expressions (“He has constructed a theory”) and imaginative expressions (“His theory is covered with gargoyles”) can be instances of the same general metaphor (THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS).  Read more at location 1029

the foot of the mountain is the only used part of the metaphor A MOUNTAIN IS A PERSON. In normal discourse we do not speak of the head, shoulders, or trunk of a mountain, though in special contexts it is possible to construct novel metaphorical expressions based on these unused parts. In fact, there is an aspect of the metaphor A MOUNTAIN IS A PERSON in which mountain climbers will speak of the shoulder of a mountain (namely, a ridge near the top) and of conquering, fighting, and even being killed by a mountain.  Read more at location 1057

Examples like the foot of the mountain are idiosyncratic, unsystematic, and isolated. They do not interact with other metaphors, play no particularly interesting role in our conceptual system, and hence are not metaphors that we live by.  Read more at location 1066

It is important to distinguish these isolated and unsystematic cases from the systematic metaphorical expressions we have been discussing. Expressions like wasting time, attacking positions, going our separate ways, etc., are reflections of systematic metaphorical concepts that structure our actions and thoughts. They are “alive” in the most fundamental sense: they are metaphors we live by.  Read more at location 1071

12 How Is Our Conceptual System Grounded? 

****  (Note:  Experience itself is fundamental. Embodiment is primary experiential form)  Are there any concepts at all that are understood directly, without metaphor? If not, how can we understand anything at all? The prime candidates for concepts that are understood directly are the simple spatial concepts, such as UP. Our spatial concept UP arises out of our spatial experience.  Read more at location 1078

****  Human spatial concepts, however, include UP-DOWN, FRONT-BACK, IN-OUT, NEAR-FAR, etc. It is these that are relevant to our continual everyday bodily functioning, and this gives them priority over other possible structurings of space—for us. In other words, the structure of our spatial concepts emerges from our constant spatial experience, that is, our interaction with the physical environment. Concepts that emerge in this way are concepts that we live by in the most fundamental way.  Read more at location 1085

UP is not understood purely in its own terms but emerges from the collection of constantly performed motor functions having to do with our erect position relative to the gravitational field we live in. Imagine a spherical being living outside any gravitational field, with no knowledge or imagination of any other kind of experience. What could UP possibly mean to such a being?  Read more at location 1089

************  what we call “direct physical experience” is never merely a matter of having a body of a certain sort; rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions. It can be misleading, therefore, to speak of direct physical experience as though there were some core of immediate experience which we then “interpret” in terms of our conceptual system. Cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our “world” in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself.  Read more at location 1093

While our emotional experience is as basic as our spatial and perceptual experience, our emotional experiences are much less sharply delineated in terms of what we do with our bodies.  Read more at location 1103

Since there are systematic correlates between our emotions (like happiness) and our sensory-motor experiences (like erect posture), these form the basis of orientational metaphorical concepts (such as HAPPY IS UP). Such metaphors allow us to conceptualize our emotions in more sharply defined terms  Read more at location 1106

In this sense, we can speak of emergent metaphors and emergent concepts.  Read more at location 1109

basic ontological metaphors are grounded by virtue of systematic correlates within our experience.  Read more at location 1117

Events and actions are correlated with bounded time spans, and this makes them CONTAINER OBJECTS. Experience with physical objects provides the basis for metonymy. Metonymic concepts emerge from correlations in our experience between two physical entities (e.g., PART FOR WHOLE, OBJECT FOR USER) or between a physical entity and something metaphorically conceptualized as a physical entity (e.g., THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT, THE INSTITUTION FOR THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE).  Read more at location 1122

****  (Note:   a fundamental urge for dualities, judgement, discreteness)  what we are claiming about grounding is that we typically conceptualize the nonphysical in terms of the physical—that is, we conceptualize the less clearly delineated in terms of the more clearly delineated.  Read more at location 1128

Harry is in the kitchen.        

Harry is in the Elks.        

Harry is in love.

The sentences refer to three different domains of experience: spatial, social, and emotional. None of these has experiential priority over the others; they are all equally basic kinds of experience. But with respect to conceptual structuring there is a difference. The concept IN of the first sentence emerges directly from spatial experience in a clearly delineated fashion. It is not an instance of a metaphorical concept. The other two sentences, however, are instances of metaphorical concepts.  Read more at location 1131

What these cases show is that it is possible to have equally basic kinds of experiences while having conceptualizations of them that are not equally basic.  Read more at location 1142

13 The Grounding of Structural Metaphors

Metaphors based on simple physical concepts—up-down, in-out, object, substance, etc.—which are as basic as anything in our conceptual system and without which we could not function in the world—could not reason or communicate—are not in themselves very rich.  Read more at location 1143

****  (Note:   recursive building, like 'self')  Structural metaphors (such as RATIONAL ARGUMENT IS WAR) provide the richest source of such elaboration. Structural metaphors allow us to do much more than just orient concepts, refer to them, quantify them, etc., as we do with simple orientational and ontological metaphors; they allow us, in addition, to use one highly structured and clearly delineated concept to structure another.  Read more at location 1150

structural metaphors are grounded in systematic correlations within our experience. To see what this means in detail, let us examine how the RATIONAL ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor might be grounded. This metaphor allows us to conceptualize what a rational argument is in terms of something that we understand more readily, namely, physical conflict.  Read more at location 1154

Part of being a rational animal, however, involves getting what you want without subjecting yourself to the dangers of actual physical conflict. As a result, we humans have evolved the social institution of verbal argument. We have arguments all the time in order to try to get what we want, and sometimes these “degenerate” into physical violence. Such verbal battles are comprehended in much the same terms as physical battles.  Read more at location 1163

In a no-holds-barred argument, you attack, defend, counterattack, etc., using whatever verbal means you have at your disposal—intimidation, threat, invoking authority, insult, belittling, challenging authority, evading issues, bargaining, flattering, and even trying to give “rational reasons.” But all of these tactics can be, and often are, presented as reasons;  Read more at location 1169

example:        

. . . because I’m bigger than you. (intimidation)        

. . . because if you don’t, I’ll . . . (threat)      

. . . because I’m the boss. (authority)      

. . . because you’re stupid. (insult)        

. . . because you usually do it wrong. (belittling)      

. . . because I have as much right as you do. (challenging authority)        

. . . because I love you. (evading the issue)        

. . . because if you will

. . . , I’ll . . . (bargaining)        

. . . because you’re so much better at it. (flattery)  Read more at location 1171

The academic world, the legal world, the diplomatic world, the ecclesiastical world, and the world of journalism claim to present an ideal, or “higher,” form of RATIONAL ARGUMENT, in which all of these tactics are forbidden. The only permissible tactics in this RATIONAL ARGUMENT are supposedly the stating of premises, the citing of supporting evidence, and the drawing of logical conclusions. But even in the most ideal cases, where all of these conditions hold, RATIONAL ARGUMENT is still comprehended and carried out in terms of WAR.  Read more at location 1186

Not only are all the “rational” arguments that are assumed to actually live up to the ideal of RATIONAL ARGUMENT conceived of in terms of WAR, but almost all of them contain, in hidden form, the “irrational” and “unfair” tactics that rational arguments in their ideal form are supposed to transcend. Here are some typical examples:        

It is plausible to assume that . . . (intimidation)        

Clearly, . . .        

Obviously, . . .        

It would be unscientific to fail to . . . (threat)        

To say that would be to commit the Fallacy of . . .        

As Descartes showed, . . . (authority)        

Hume observed that . . .      

The work lacks the necessary rigor for . . . (insult)        

Let us call such a theory “Narrow” Rationalism.        

In a display of “scholarly objectivity,” . . .        

The work will not lead to a formalized theory. (belittling)        

His results cannot be quantified.      

Few people today seriously hold that view.      

Lest we succumb to the error of positivist approaches, . . . (challenging authority)        

Behaviorism has led to . . .        

He does not present any alternative theory. (evading the issue)        

But that is a matter of . . .        

The author does present some challenging facts, although . . .        

Your position is right as far as it goes, . . . (bargaining)        

If one takes a realist point of view, one can accept the claim that . . .        

In his stimulating paper, . . . (flattery)        

His paper raises some interesting issues . . .  Read more at location 1196

Let us now consider other structural metaphors that are important in our lives: LABOR IS A RESOURCE and TIME IS A RESOURCE. Both of these metaphors are culturally grounded in our experience with material resources.  Read more at location 1231

the material gets used up progressively as the purpose is served. To summarize:

A material resource is a kind of substance          

can be quantified fairly precisely          

can be assigned a value per unit quantity          

serves a purposeful end          

is used up progressively as it serves its purpose  Read more at location 1237

This provides a grounding for the LABOR IS RESOURCE metaphor, as follows:

LABOR is a kind of activity (recall: AN ACTIVITY IS A SUBSTANCE)          

can be quantified fairly precisely (in terms of time)          

can be assigned a value per unit          

serves a purposeful end          

is used up progressively as it serves it purpose

Since labor can be quantified in terms of time and usually is, in an industrial society, we get the basis for the TIME IS A RESOURCE metaphor:

TIME is a kind of (abstract) SUBSTANCE          

can be quantified fairly precisely          

can be assigned a value per unit          

serves a purposeful end          

is used up progressively as it serves its purpose  Read more at location 1248

*****  These two complex structural metaphors both employ simple ontological metaphors. LABOR IS A RESOURCE uses AN ACTIVITY IS A SUBSTANCE. TIME IS A RESOURCE uses TIME IS A SUBSTANCE. These two SUBSTANCE metaphors permit labor and time to be quantified—that is, measured, conceived of as being progressively “used up,” and assigned monetary values; they also allow us to view time and labor as things that can be “used” for various ends.  Read more at location 1266

These metaphors highlight those aspects of labor and time that are centrally important in our culture. In doing this, they also deemphasize or hide certain aspects of labor and time.  Read more at location 1273

In viewing labor as a kind of activity, the metaphor assumes that labor can be clearly identified and distinguished from things that are not labor. It makes the assumptions that we can tell work from play and productive activity from nonproductive activity. These assumptions obviously fail to fit reality much of the time, except perhaps on assembly lines, chain gangs, etc. The view of labor as merely a kind of activity, independent of who performs it, how he experiences it, and what it means in his life, hides the issues of whether the work is personally meaningful, satisfying, and humane.  Read more at location 1275

The quantification of labor in terms of time, together with the view of time as serving a purposeful end, induces a notion of LEISURE TIME, which is parallel to the concept LABOR TIME. In a society like ours, where inactivity is not considered a purposeful end, a whole industry devoted to leisure activity has evolved. As a result, LEISURE TIME becomes a RESOURCE too—to be spent productively, used wisely, saved up, budgeted, wasted, lost, etc. What is hidden by the RESOURCE metaphors for labor and time is the way our concepts of LABOR and TIME affect our concept of LEISURE, turning it into something remarkably like LABOR.  Read more at location 1280

14 Causation: Partly Emergent and Partly Metaphorical 

Direct Manipulation: The Prototype of Causation Standard theories of meaning assume that all of our complex concepts can be analyzed into undecomposable primitives. Such primitives are taken to be the ultimate “building blocks” of meaning. The concept of causation is often taken to be such an ultimate building block. We believe that the standard theories are fundamentally mistaken in assuming that basic concepts are undecomposable primitives.  Read more at location 1302

****  (Note:   causation as gestalt impression derived from confluence of certain factors)  We would like to suggest instead that causation is best understood as an experiential gestalt. A proper understanding of causation requires that it be viewed as a cluster of other components. But the cluster forms a gestalt—a whole that we human beings find more basic than the parts.  Read more at location 1307

Though each of these actions is different, the overwhelming proportion of them share features of what we may call a “prototypical” or “paradigmatic” case of direct causation. These shared features include: The agent has as a goal some change of state in the patient. The change of state is physical. The agent has a “plan” for carrying out this goal. The plan requires the agent’s use of a motor program. The agent is in control of that motor program. The agent is primarily responsible for carrying out the plan. The agent is the energy source (i.e., the agent is directing his energies toward the patient), and the patient is the energy goal (i.e., the change in the patient is due to an external source of energy). The agent touches the patient either with his body or an instrument (i.e., there is a spatiotemporal overlap between what the agent does and the change in the patient). The agent successfully carries out the plan. The change in the patient is perceptible. The agent monitors the change in the patient through sensory perception. There is a single specific agent and a single specific patient.  Read more at location 1314

The twelve properties given above characterize a prototype of causation in the following sense. They recur together over and over in action after action as we go through our daily lives. We experience them as a gestalt; that is, the complex of properties occurring together is more basic to our experience than their separate occurrence. Through their constant recurrence in our everyday functioning, the category of causation emerges with this complex of properties characterizing prototypical causations. Other kinds of causation, which are less prototypical, are actions or events that bear sufficient family resemblances to the prototype.  Read more at location 1337

When there is an insufficient family resemblance to the prototype, we cease to characterize what happens as causation.  Read more at location 1344

Since it is defined in terms of a prototype that is characterized by a recurrent complex of properties, our concept of causation is at once holistic, analyzable into those properties, and capable of a wide range of variation. The terms into which the causation prototype is analyzed (e.g., control, motor program, volition, etc.) are probably also characterized by prototype and capable of further analysis.  Read more at location 1354

Metaphorical Extensions of Prototypical Causation 

instances of making: As a result of the manipulation, we view the object as a different kind of thing. What was a sheet of paper is now a paper airplane. We categorize it differently—it has a different form and function. It is essentially this that sets instances of making apart from other kinds of direct manipulation.  Read more at location 1360

****  We conceptualize changes of this kind—from one state into another, having a new form and function—in terms of the metaphor THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE. This is why the expression out of is used  Read more at location 1368

In a sentence like “I made a statue out of clay,” the substance clay is viewed as the CONTAINER (via the SUBSTANCE IS A CONTAINER metaphor) from which the object—namely, the statue—emerges. Thus the concept MAKING is partly, but not totally, metaphorical. That is, MAKING is an instance of a directly emergent concept, namely, DIRECT MANIPULATION, which is further elaborated by the metaphor THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE.  Read more at location 1371

the object is viewed as a container for the material. The SUBSTANCE GOES INTO THE OBJECT metaphor occurs far more widely than in the concept of MAKING.  Read more at location 1380

the two metaphors we use to elaborate direct manipulation into the concept of MAKING are both used independently to conceptualize various concepts of CHANGE. These two metaphors for CHANGE, which are used as part of the concept of MAKING, emerge naturally from as fundamental a human experience as there is, namely, birth. In birth, an object (the baby) comes out of a container (the mother). At the same time, the mother’s substance (her flesh and blood) are in the baby (the container object). The experience of birth (and also agricultural growth) provides a grounding for the general concept of CREATION, which has as its core the concept of MAKING a physical object but which extends to abstract entities as well. We can see this grounding in birth metaphors for creation in general:        

Our nation was born out of a desire for freedom.        

His writings are products of his fertile imagination.        

His experiment spawned a host of new theories.        

Your actions will only breed violence.        

He hatched a clever scheme.        

He conceived a brilliant theory of molecular motion.        

Universities are incubators for new ideas.  Read more at location 1390

Summary 

*****  the concept of CAUSATION is based on the prototype of DIRECT MANIPULATION, which emerges directly from our experience. The prototypical core is elaborated by metaphor to yield a broad concept of CAUSATION, which has many special cases. The metaphors used are THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE, THE SUBSTANCE GOES INTO THE OBJECT, CREATION IS BIRTH, and CAUSATION (of event by state) IS EMERGENCE (of the event/object from the state/container).  Read more at location 1422

****  the prototypical core of the concept CAUSATION, namely, DIRECT MANIPULATION, is not an unanalyzable semantic primitive but rather a gestalt consisting of properties that naturally occur together in our daily experience of performing direct manipulations. The prototypical concept DIRECT MANIPULATION is basic and primitive in our experience, but not in the sense required by a “building-block” theory.  Read more at location 1426

there are three ways in which CAUSATION is not an unanalyzable primitive: —It is characterized in terms of family resemblances to the prototype of DIRECT MANIPULATION. —The DIRECT MANIPULATION prototype itself is an indefinitely analyzable gestalt of naturally cooccurring properties. —The prototypical core of CAUSATION is elaborated metaphorically in various ways.  Read more at location 1434

15 The Coherent Structuring of Experience

Experiential Gestalts and the Dimensions of Experience 

In order to see in detail what is involved in metaphorical structuring, we must first have a clearer idea of what it means for an experience or set of experiences to be coherent by virtue of having a structure.  Read more at location 1443

To see the difference between a conversation and an argument, we first have to see what it means to be engaged in a conversation.  Read more at location 1447

Even in as simple a case as a polite two-party conversation, several dimensions of structure can be seen: Participants: The participants are of a certain natural kind, namely, people. Here they take the role of speakers. The conversation is defined by what the participants do, and the same participants play a role  Read more at location 1451

Parts: The parts consist of a certain natural kind of activity, namely, talking. Each turn at talking is a part of the conversation as a whole,  Read more at location 1455

Stages: Conversations typically have a set of initial conditions and then pass through various stages, including at least a beginning, a central part, and an end.  Read more at location 1458

Linear sequence: The participants’ turns at speaking are ordered in a linear sequence, with the general constraint that the speakers alternate.  Read more at location 1461

Causation: The finish of one turn at talking is expected to result in the beginning of the next  Read more at location 1465

Purpose: Conversations may serve any number of purposes, but all typical conversations share the purpose of maintaining polite social interaction in a reasonably cooperative manner.  Read more at location 1466

If you are engaged in a conversation (which has at least these six dimensions of structure) and you perceive it turning into an argument, what is it that you perceive over and above being in a conversation? The basic difference is a sense of being embattled. You realize that you have an opinion that matters to you and that the other person doesn’t accept it. At least one participant wants the other to give up his opinion, and this creates a situation where there is something to be won or lost.  Read more at location 1470

Your perceptions and actions correspond in part to the perceptions and actions of a party engaged in war. We can see this in more detail in the following list of characteristics of argument: You have an opinion that matters to you. (having a position) The other participant does not agree with your opinion. (has a different position) It matters to one or both of you that the other give up his opinion (surrender) and accept yours (victory). (he is your adversary) The difference of opinion becomes a conflict of opinions. (conflict) You think of how you can best convince him of your view (plan strategy) and consider what evidence you can bring to bear on the issue (marshal forces). Considering what you perceive as the weaknesses of his position, you ask questions and raise objections designed to force him ultimately to give up his position and adopt yours. (attack) You try to change the premises of the conversation so that you will be in a stronger position. (maneuvering) In response to his questions and objections, you try to maintain your own position. (defense) As the argument progresses, maintaining your general view may require some revision. (retreat) You may raise new questions and objections. (counterattack) Either you get tired and decide to quit arguing (truce), or neither of you can convince the other (stalemate), or one of you gives in. (surrender)  Read more at location 1480

What is added from the concept WAR to the concept CONVERSATION can be viewed in terms of the same six dimensions of structure that we gave in our description of conversational structure.  Read more at location 1500

Understanding a conversation as being an argument involves being able to superimpose the multidimensional structure of part of the concept WAR upon the corresponding structure CONVERSATION. Such multidimensional structures characterize experiential gestalts, which are ways of organizing experiences into structured wholes. In the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor, the gestalt for CONVERSATION is structured further by means of correspondences with selected elements of the gestalt for WAR. Thus one activity, talking, is understood in terms of another, physical fighting. Structuring our experience in terms of such multidimensional gestalts is what makes our experience coherent.  Read more at location 1504

****  Understanding such multidimensional gestalts and the correlations between them is the key to understanding coherence in our experience. As we saw above, experiential gestalts are multidimensional structured wholes.  Read more at location 1511

We have already seen that CAUSATION is a directly emergent concept, and the other dimensions in terms of which we categorize our experience have a fairly obvious experiential basis: Participants: This dimension arises out of the concept of the SELF as an actor distinguishable from the actions he performs. We also distinguish kinds of participants  Read more at location 1514

Parts: We experience ourselves as having parts (arms, legs, etc.) that we can control independently.  Read more at location 1518

Stages: Our simplest motor functions involve knowing where we are and what position we are in (initial conditions), starting to move (beginning), carrying out the motor function (middle), and stopping (end),  Read more at location 1523

Linear sequence: Again, the control of our simplest motor functions requires us to put them in the right linear sequence. Purpose: From birth (and even before), we have needs and desires, and we realize very early that we can perform certain actions (crying, moving, manipulating objects)  Read more at location 1525

What Does It Mean for a Concept to Fit an Experience? 

*********  (Note:  multidimensional metaphor)  we classify particular experiences in terms of experiential gestalts in our conceptual system. Here we must distinguish between: (1) the experience itself, as we structure it, and (2) the concepts that we employ in structuring it, that is, the multidimensional gestalts like CONVERSATION and ARGUMENT. The concept (say, CONVERSATION) specifies certain natural dimensions (e.g., participants, parts, stages, etc.) and how these dimensions are related.  Read more at location 1538

It is by means of conceptualizing our experiences in this manner that we pick out the “important” aspects of an experience.  Read more at location 1544

Metaphorical Structuring versus Subcategorization 

our criteria for subcategorization were (a) same kind of activity and (b) enough of the same structural features.  Read more at location 1552

our criteria for metaphor were (a) a difference in kind of activity and (b) partial structuring (use of certain selected parts).  Read more at location 1556

The point here is that subcategorization and metaphor are endpoints on a continuum. A relationship of the form A is B (for example, AN ARGUMENT IS A FIGHT) will be a clear subcategorization if A and B are the same kind of thing or activity and will be a clear metaphor if they are clearly different kinds of things or activities. But when it is not clear whether A and B are the same kind of thing or activity, then the relationship A is B falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum.  Read more at location 1567

There are also complex gestalts, which are structured partially in terms of other gestalts. These are what we have been calling metaphorically structured concepts. Certain concepts are structured almost entirely metaphorically. The concept LOVE, for example, is structured mostly in metaphorical terms: LOVE IS A JOURNEY, LOVE IS A PATIENT, LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE, LOVE IS MADNESS, LOVE IS WAR, etc. The concept of LOVE has a core that is minimally structured by the subcategorization LOVE IS AN EMOTION  Read more at location 1577

16 Metaphorical Coherence Specialized Aspects of a Concept 

there is a distinction between an argument as a process (arguing) and an argument as a product (what has been written or said in the course of arguing). In this case, the process and the product are intimately related aspects of the same general concept, neither of which can exist without the other, and either of which can be focused on. Thus we speak of the stage of an argument as applying indifferently to the process or the product. A ONE-PARTY RATIONAL ARGUMENT is a specialized branch of the general concept ARGUMENT and, as such, has many special constraints on it. Since there is no particular adversary present, an idealized adversary must be assumed.  Read more at location 1602

The further restrictions placed on one-party rational arguments require us to pay special attention to certain aspects of argument which are not so important (or perhaps not even present) in everyday argument. Among them are: Content: You have to have enough supporting evidence and say enough of the right things in order to make your point and to overcome any possible objections. Progress: You have to start with generally agreed upon premises and move in linear fashion toward some conclusion. Structure: RATIONAL ARGUMENT requires appropriate logical connections among the various parts. Strength: The ability of the argument to withstand assault depends on the weight of the evidence and the tightness of the logical connections. Basicness: Some claims are more important to maintain and defend than others, since subsequent claims will be based upon them. Obviousness: In any argument there will be things which are not obvious. These need to be identified and explored in sufficient detail. Directness: The force of an argument can depend on how straightforwardly you move from premises to conclusions. Clarity: What you are claiming and the connections between your claims must be sufficiently clear for the reader to understand them.  Read more at location 1611

As a result, the concept RATIONAL ARGUMENT is further defined by means of other metaphors which do enable us to focus on these important aspects: AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY, AN ARGUMENT IS A CONTAINER, and AN ARGUMENT IS A BUILDING.  Read more at location 1629

No one of them is sufficient to give us a complete, consistent, and comprehensive understanding of all these aspects, but together they do the job of giving us a coherent understanding of what a rational argument is.  Read more at location 1632

Coherence within a Single Metaphor 

Here we have a set of cases that fall under the metaphor AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY. What makes them systematic is a pair of metaphorical entailments that are based on two facts about journeys. The facts about journeys:        

A JOURNEY DEFINES A PATH        

THE PATH OF A JOURNEY IS A SURFACE

The metaphorical entailments:        

AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY      

 A JOURNEY DEFINES A PATH      

 Therefore, AN ARGUMENT DEFINES A PATH      

 AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY      

 THE PATH OF A JOURNEY IS A SURFACE      

 Therefore, THE PATH OF AN ARGUMENT IS A SURFACE  Read more at location 1679

Coherence between Two Aspects of a Single Concept 

use the ARGUMENT IS A CONTAINER metaphor when we want to highlight any of these aspects of an argument.

AN ARGUMENT IS A CONTAINER        

Your argument doesn’t have much content.        

That argument has holes in it.        

You don’t have much of an argument, but his objections have even less substance.        

Your argument is vacuous.        

I’m tired of your empty arguments.        

You won’t find that idea in his argument.  Read more at location 1700

Overlap between JOURNEY and CONTAINER metaphors:        

At this point our argument doesn’t have much content.        

In what we’ve done so far, we have provided the core of our argument.        

If we keep going the way we’re going, we’ll fit all the facts in.  Read more at location 1719

As the path of the journey unfolds, more and more of the surface defined by that path is created, just as more and more of the surface of the container is created. The overlap between the two metaphors is the progressive creation of a surface. As the argument covers more ground (via the JOURNEY surface), it gets more content (via the CONTAINER surface).  Read more at location 1733

The difference between coherence and consistency is crucial. Each metaphor focuses on one aspect of the concept ARGUMENT: in this, each serves a single purpose. Moreover, each metaphor allows us to understand one aspect of the concept in terms of a more clearly delineated concept, e.g., JOURNEY or CONTAINER. The reason we need two metaphors is because there is no one metaphor that will do the job—there is no one metaphor that will allow us to get a handle simultaneously on both the direction of the argument and the content of the argument.  Read more at location 1760

For example, we can speak of the direction of the argument and of the content of the argument but not of the direction of the content of the argument nor of the content of the direction of the argument. Thus we do not get sentences like:        

We can now follow the path of the core of the argument.        

The content of the argument proceeds as follows.        

The direction of his argument has no substance.  Read more at location 1766

the JOURNEY metaphor highlights both direction and progress toward a goal. The CONTAINER metaphor highlights the content with respect to its amount, density, centrality, and boundaries. The progress aspect of the JOURNEY metaphor and the amount aspect of the CONTAINER metaphor can be highlighted simultaneously because the amount increases as the argument progresses.  Read more at location 1775

—Metaphorical entailments play an essential role in linking all of the instances of a single metaphorical structuring of a concept (as in the various instances of the AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY metaphor). —Metaphorical entailments also play an essential role in linking two different metaphorical structurings of a single concept (as in the JOURNEY and CONTAINER metaphors for ARGUMENT).

—A shared metaphorical entailment can establish a cross-metaphorical correspondence. For example, the shared entailment AS WE MAKE AN ARGUMENT, MORE OF A SURFACE IS CREATED establishes a correspondence between the amount of ground covered in the argument (which is in the JOURNEY metaphor) and the amount of content in the argument (which is in the CONTAINER metaphor).

—The various metaphorical structurings of a concept serve different purposes by highlighting different aspects of the concept. —Where there is an overlapping of purposes, there is an overlapping of metaphors and hence a coherence between them. Permissible mixed metaphors fall into this overlap. —In general, complete consistency across metaphors is rare; coherence, on the other hand, is typical.  Read more at location 1781

17 Complex Coherences across Metaphors 

a metaphor works when it satisfies a purpose, namely, understanding an aspect of the concept.  Read more at location 1799

(1) there are often many metaphors that partially structure a single concept and (2) when we discuss one concept, we use other concepts that are themselves understood in metaphorical terms, which leads to further overlapping of metaphors.  Read more at location 1802

Together, the JOURNEY, CONTAINER, and BUILDING metaphors focus on all of the above aspects of the concept ARGUMENT, as the following lists show:   Read more at location 1827

both journeys and containers define surfaces was the basis for the overlap between the JOURNEY and CONTAINER metaphors. The fact that a building also has a surface, namely, the foundation and the outer shell, makes possible further overlaps with the BUILDING metaphor. In each case the surface defines the content, but in different ways:  

JOURNEY: The surface defined by the path of the argument “covers ground,” and the content is the ground covered by the argument.  

CONTAINER: The content is inside the container, whose boundaries are defined by its surface.  

BUILDING: The surface is the outer shell and foundation, which define an interior for the building.

But in the BUILDING metaphor, unlike the CONTAINER metaphor, the content is not in the interior; instead, the foundation and outer shell constitute the content. We can see this in examples like: “The foundation of your argument does not have enough content to support your claims” and “The framework of your argument does not have enough substance to withstand criticism.”  Read more at location 1852

it is important to recognize that there are two different notions of depth operating here. In the BUILDING and CONTAINER metaphors, what is deeper is more basic. The most basic parts of the argument are the deepest: the foundation and the core. However, in the JOURNEY metaphor, deep facts are those that are not obvious.  Read more at location 1876

there is coherence among all three metaphors based on the fact that all three have content-defining surfaces. As the argument proceeds, more of a surface is created, and hence the argument gets more content. This overlap among the three metaphorical structurings of the concept allows mixed metaphors of the following sort:        So far we have constructed the core of our argument. Here “so far” is from the JOURNEY metaphor, “construct” is from the BUILDING metaphor, and “core” is from the CONTAINER metaphor.  Read more at location 1898

Part of the JOURNEY metaphor involves going deeply into a subject. The UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING metaphor applies in this case too.  Read more at location 1940

The MORE IS BETTER metaphor overlaps with all of the ARGUMENT metaphors and allows us to view quality in terms of quantity.  Read more at location 1962

By now it should be clear that the same kinds of coherence found in simple examples also occur in far more complex cases of the sort we have just examined. What may at first appear to be random, isolated metaphorical expressions—for example, cover those points, buttress your argument, get to the core, dig deeper, attack a position, and shoot down—turn out to be not random at all. Rather, they are part of whole metaphorical systems that together serve the complex purpose of characterizing the concept of an argument in all of its aspects, as we conceive them. Though such metaphors do not provide us with a single consistent concrete image, they are nonetheless coherent and do fit together when there are overlapping entailments,  Read more at location 1979

18 Some Consequences for Theories of Conceptual Structure

adequate theory of the human conceptual system will have to give an account of how concepts are (1) grounded, (2) structured, (3) related to each other, and (4) defined.  Read more at location 1987

Before we explore the implications of our views for definition, we need to look at two major strategies that linguists and logicians have used to handle, without any reference to metaphor, what we have called metaphorical concepts.  Read more at location 1990

two strategies are abstraction and homonymy.  Read more at location 1992

the abstraction view claims that there is a single, very general, and abstract concept  Read more at location 2000

a strong homonymy view, according to which BUTTRESS1 and BUTTRESS2 are entirely different and have nothing to do with each other, since one refers to physical objects (building parts) and the other to an abstract concept (a part of an argument). The weak homonymy view maintains that there are distinct and independent concepts BUTTRESS1 and BUTTRESS2 but allows that their meanings may be similar in some respects and that the concepts are related by virtue of this similarity. It denies, however, that either concept is understood in terms of the other.  Read more at location 2006

Inadequacies of the Abstraction View 

abstraction theory is inadequate in several respects. First, it does not seem to make any sense at all with respect to UP-DOWN orientation metaphors, such as HAPPY IS UP, CONTROL IS UP, MORE IS UP, VIRTUE IS UP, THE FUTURE IS UP, REASON IS UP, etc. What single general concept with any content at all could be an abstraction of HEIGHT, HAPPINESS, CONTROL, MORE, VIRTUE, THE FUTURE, REASON, and NORTH and would precisely fit them all?  Read more at location 2018

Second, the abstraction theory would not distinguish between metaphors of the form A is B and those of the form B is A, since it would claim that there are neutral terms covering both domains. For example, English has the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor but no JOURNEYS ARE LOVE metaphor.  Read more at location 2026

The abstraction hypothesis would seek a single general concept LOVE abstract enough to fit all of these aspects. Even if this were possible, it would miss the point that these metaphors are not jointly characterizing a core concept LOVE but are separately characterizing different aspects of LOVE. Fourth, if we look at structural metaphors of the form A is B (e.g., LOVE IS A JOURNEY, THE MIND IS A MACHINE, IDEAS ARE FOOD, AN ARGUMENT IS A BUILDING), we find that B (the defining concept) is more clearly delineated in our experience and typically more concrete than A (the defined concept).  Read more at location 2033

As we will show, LOVE is not a concept that has a clearly delineated structure; whatever structure it has it gets only via metaphors. But the abstraction view, which has no metaphors to do the structuring, must assume that a structure as clearly delineated as the relevant aspects of journeys exists independently for the concept LOVE.  Read more at location 2060

Inadequacies of the Homonymy View Strong Homonymy Homonymy is the use of the same word for different concepts, as in the bank of a river and the bank you put your money in.  Read more at location 2063

In general, the strong homonymy view cannot account for the relationships that we have identified in systems of metaphorical concepts; that is, it views as accidental all the phenomena that we explain in systematic terms. In the first place, the strong homonymy position cannot account for any of the internal systematicity that we have described.  Read more at location 2071

Weak Homonymy 

The most obvious difference between the weak homonymy position and ours is that it has no notion of understanding one thing in terms of another and hence no general metaphorical structuring. The reason for this is that most of those who hold this position are not concerned with how our conceptual system is grounded in experience and how understanding emerges from such grounding.  Read more at location 2088

First, we have suggested that there is directionality in metaphor, that is, that we understand one concept in terms of another. Specifically, we tend to structure the less concrete and inherently vaguer concepts (like those for the emotions) in terms of more concrete concepts,  Read more at location 2092

our account the concrete concept is being used to understand the more abstract concept; in theirs, there would be no reason for there to be more similarities between an abstract and a concrete concept than between two abstract concepts or two concrete concepts. Second, the claim that such similarities exist is highly questionable.  Read more at location 2104

Third, we have given an account of metaphorical grounding in terms of systematic correspondences in our experience,  Read more at location 2115

our knowledge, no one has ever begun to provide a detailed account of a theory of similarity that could deal with the wide range of examples we have discussed. Although virtually all homonymy theorists espouse the weak version, in practice there seem to be only strong homonymy theories, since no one has attempted to provide the detailed account of similarity necessary to maintain the weak version of the theory.  Read more at location 2124

19 Definition and Understanding 

students of meaning and dictionary makers have not found it important to try to give a general account of how people understand normal concepts in terms of systematic metaphors  Read more at location 2137

We are concerned primarily with how people understand their experiences. We view language as providing data that can lead to general principles of understanding. The general principles involve whole systems of concepts rather than individual words or individual concepts. We have found that such principles are often metaphoric in nature and involve understanding one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience.  Read more at location 2147

****  Definitions for a concept are seen as characterizing the things that are inherent in the concept itself. We, on the other hand, are concerned with how human beings get a handle on the concept—how they understand it and function in terms of it. Madness and journeys give us handles on the concept of love, and food gives us a handle on the concept of an idea. Such a concern for how we comprehend experience requires a very different concept of definition from the standard one.  Read more at location 2153

The Objects of Metaphorical Definition: Natural Kinds of Experience 

The fact that we have been led to hypothesize metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNEY, TIME IS MONEY, and ARGUMENT IS WAR suggests to us that the focus of definition is at the level of basic domains of experience like love, time, and argument. These experiences are then conceptualized and defined in terms of other basic domains of experience like journeys, money, and war.  Read more at location 2160

This raises a fundamental question: What constitutes a “basic domain of experience”? Each such domain is a structured whole within our experience that is conceptualized as what we have called an experiential gestalt. Such gestalts are experientially basic because they characterize structured wholes within recurrent human experiences.  Read more at location 2165

Domains of experience that are organized as gestalts in terms of such natural dimensions seem to us to be natural kinds of experience.  Read more at location 2168

We are proposing that the concepts that occur in metaphorical definitions are those that correspond to natural kinds of experience.  Read more at location 2176

****  the following would be examples of concepts for natural kinds of experience in our culture: LOVE, TIME, IDEAS, UNDERSTANDING, ARGUMENTS, LABOR, HAPPINESS, HEALTH, CONTROL, STATUS, MORALITY, etc. These are concepts that require metaphorical definition, since they are not clearly enough delineated in their own terms to satisfy the purposes of our day-to-day functioning.  Read more at location 2178

****  we would suggest that concepts that are used in metaphorical definitions to define other concepts also correspond to natural kinds of experience. Examples are PHYSICAL ORIENTATIONS, OBJECTS, SUBSTANCES, SEEING, JOURNEYS, WAR, MADNESS, FOOD, BUILDINGS, etc. These concepts for natural kinds of experience and objects are structured clearly enough and with enough of the right kind of internal structure to do the job of defining other concepts.  Read more at location 2181

Interactional Properties 

****  the dimensions in terms of which we structure our experience (e.g., parts, stages, purposes) emerge naturally from our activity in the world. The kind of conceptual system we have is a product of the kind of beings we are and the way we interact with our physical and cultural environments.  Read more at location 2197

our experience has led us to a view of definition that is very different from the standard view. The standard view seeks to be “objective,” and it assumes that experiences and objects have inherent properties and that human beings understand them solely in terms of these properties. Definition for the objectivist is a matter of saying what those inherent properties are by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the concept.  Read more at location 2199

*****  (Note:   metaphors give embodied life to vague concepts)  Against this view, we would claim that we comprehend love only partly in terms of such inherent properties. For the most part, our comprehension of love is metaphorical, and we understand it primarily in terms of concepts for other natural kinds of experience: JOURNEYS, MADNESS, WAR, HEALTH, etc. Because defining concepts (JOURNEYS, MADNESS, WAR, HEALTH) emerge from our interactions with one another and with the world, the concept they metaphorically define (e.g., LOVE) will be understood in terms of what we will call interactional properties.  Read more at location 2203

For example, take the difference between the modifiers BLACK and FAKE as applied to GUN. The principal difference for objectivist accounts of definition is that a BLACK GUN is a GUN, while a FAKE GUN is not a GUN.  Read more at location 2212

the modifier FAKE preserves certain kinds of the properties of GUNS and negates others.  Read more at location 2229

that we conceptualize a gun in terms of a multidimensional gestalt of properties where the dimensions are PERCEPTUAL, MOTOR ACTIVITY, PURPOSIVE, FUNCTIONAL, etc. If we look at what perceptual, motor-activity, and purposive properties are, we see that they are not inherent in guns themselves. Instead, they have to do with the way we interact with guns. This indicates that the concept GUN, as people actually understand it, is at least partly defined by interactional properties having to do with perception, motor activity, purpose, function, etc. Thus we find that our concepts of objects, like our concepts of events and activities, are characterizable as multidimensional gestalts whose dimensions emerge naturally from our experience in the world. Categorization  Read more at location 2240

(Note: Akin to Wittgenstein criticism of oversimplifying language)  The objectivist account of definition is inadequate to account for understanding in another way as well. On the objectivist view, a category is defined in terms of set theory: it is characterized by a set of inherent properties of the entities in the category. Everything in the universe is either inside or outside the category. The things that are in the category are those that have all the requisite inherent properties. Anything that fails to have one or more of the inherent properties falls outside the category. This set-theoretical concept of a category does not accord with the way people categorize things and experiences.  Read more at location 2250

Set-theoretical categorization, as a model for human categorization, misses the following:

1. As Rosch (1977) has established, we categorize things in terms of prototypes.  Read more at location 2255

3. Interactional properties are prominent among the kinds of properties that count in determining sufficient family resemblance.  Read more at location 2263

5. Categories are open-ended. Metaphorical definitions can give us a handle on things and experiences we have already categorized, or they may lead to a recategorization.  Read more at location 2288

Summary  

****  individual concepts are not defined in an isolated fashion, but rather in terms of their roles in natural kinds of experiences. Concepts are not defined solely in terms of inherent properties; instead, they are defined primarily in terms of interactional properties.  Read more at location 2297

****  concepts are defined by prototypes and by types of relations to prototypes. Rather than being rigidly defined, concepts arising from our experience are open-ended. Metaphors and hedges are systematic devices for further defining a concept  Read more at location 2301

20 How Metaphor Can Give Meaning to Form 

Since speaking is correlated with time and time is metaphorically conceptualized in terms of space, it is natural for us to conceptualize language metaphorically in terms of space. Our writing system reinforces this conceptualization. Writing a sentence down allows us to conceptualize it even more readily as a spatial object with words in a linear order.  Read more at location 2305

Because we conceptualize linguistic form in spatial terms, it is possible for certain spatial metaphors to apply directly to the form of a sentence, as we conceive of it spatially. This can provide automatic direct links between form and content, based on general metaphors in our conceptual system. Such links make the relationship between form and content anything but arbitrary,  Read more at location 2309

More of Form Is More of Content 

Many languages of the world use the morphological device of reduplication, that is, the repetition of one or two syllables of a word, or of the whole word, in this way. To our knowledge, all cases of reduplication in the languages of the world are instances where MORE OF FORM stands for MORE OF CONTENT.  Read more at location 2336

Closeness Is Strength of Effect 

English has the conventional metaphor        

CLOSENESS IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT.  Read more at location 2353

The negative prefix un- is closer to the adjective happy than is the separate word not. The negative has a stronger effect in Harry is unhappy than in Harry is not happy. Unhappy means sad, while not happy is open to the interpretation of being neutral—neither happy nor sad, but in between. This is typical of the difference between negatives and negative affixes, both in English and in other languages. The same metaphor can be seen at work in the following examples:        I taught Greek to Harry.        I taught Harry Greek. In the second sentence, where taught and Harry are closer, there is more of a suggestion that Harry actually learned what was taught him—  Read more at location 2380

The following examples are even subtler:        

I found that the chair was comfortable.        

I found the chair comfortable.

The second sentence indicates that I found out that the chair was comfortable by direct experience—by sitting in it.  Read more at location 2387

**********  (Note: grammar reflects conceptual structure)  The syntax of the sentence indicates the directness of the experience  Read more at location 2393

The same metaphor can be seen at work in examples like:        Sam killed Harry.        Sam caused Harry to die.  Read more at location 2397

****  The CLOSER the form indicating CAUSATION is to the form indicating the EFFECT, the STRONGER the causal link is. In Sam killed Harry, there is only a single form—the word kill—to indicate both the CAUSATION and the EFFECT (death). The forms for this meaning are as close as they can be: one word includes them both. This indicates that the causal link is as strong as it could be: a single event. In Sam caused Harry to die, there are two separate words—cause and die—indicating cause and effect. This indicates that the link between the cause and the effect is not as strong as it could be—the cause and the effect are not part of the same event. In Sam brought it about that Harry died, there are two separate clauses: Sam brought it about and that Harry died, which indicates a still weaker causal link.  Read more at location 2405

a difference in form indicates a subtle difference in meaning. Just what the subtle differences are is given by the metaphor CLOSENESS IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT, where CLOSENESS applies to elements of the syntax of the sentence, while STRENGTH OF EFFECT applies to the meaning of the sentence. The CLOSENESS has to do with form, while the STRENGTH OF EFFECT has to do with meaning.  Read more at location 2414

****  The subtle shades of meaning that we see in the examples given above are thus the consequences not of special rules of English but of a metaphor that is in our conceptual system applying naturally to the form of the language.  Read more at location 2420

The ME-FIRST Orientation  Read more at location 2422

****  The canonical person forms a conceptual reference point, and an enormous number of concepts in our conceptual system are oriented with respect to whether or not they are similar to the properties of the prototypical person. Since people typically function in an upright position, see and move frontward, spend most of their time performing actions, and view themselves as being basically good, we have a basis in our experience for viewing ourselves as more UP than DOWN, more FRONT than BACK, more ACTIVE than PASSIVE, more GOOD than BAD.  Read more at location 2424

****  This determines what Cooper and Ross call the ME-FIRST orientation: UP, FRONT, ACTIVE, GOOD, HERE, and NOW are all oriented toward the canonical person; DOWN, BACKWARD, PASSIVE, BAD, THERE, and THEN are all oriented away from the canonical person.  Read more at location 2432

The general principle is: Relative to the properties of the prototypical person, the word whose meaning is NEAREST comes FIRST. This principle states a correlation between form and content.  Read more at location 2443

Since we speak in linear order, we constantly have to choose which words to put first. Given an otherwise random choice between up and down and down and up, we automatically choose up and down.  Read more at location 2450

Metaphorical Coherence in Grammar An Instrument Is a Companion 

Likewise, in our conceptual system, there is the conventional metaphor AN INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION, which is reflected in the following examples:  Read more at location 2460

Why With Indicates Both INSTRUMENTALITY and ACCOMPANIMENT 

The fact that it is with and not some other word that indicates ACCOMPANIMENT is an arbitrary convention of English. In other languages, other words (or grammatical devices like case endings) indicate ACCOMPANIMENT (e.g., avec in French). But given the fact that with indicates ACCOMPANIMENT in English, it is no accident that with also indicates INSTRUMENTALITY, as in:  Read more at location 2473

*********  The reason that this is not arbitrary is that our conceptual system is structured by the metaphor AN INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION. It is a systematic, not an accidental, fact about English that the same word that indicates ACCOMPANIMENT also indicates INSTRUMENTALITY. This grammatical fact about English is coherent with the conceptual system of English.  Read more at location 2478

With few exceptions, the following principle holds in all the languages of the world:        The word or grammatical device that indicates ACCOMPANIMENT also indicates INSTRUMENTALITY.  Read more at location 2482

Where the INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION coherence does not appear in a language, it is common for some other conceptual coherence to appear in its place.  Read more at location 2487

The “Logic” of a Language 

Metaphors in the conceptual system indicate coherent and systematic relationships between concepts. The use of the same words and grammatical devices for concepts with systematic metaphorical correspondences (like TIME and SPACE) is one of the ways in which the correspondences between form and meaning in a language are “logical”  Read more at location 2496

Conclusion

Subtle Variations in Meaning 

****  Dwight Bolinger has spent most of his career showing that this is virtually impossible and that almost any change in a sentence—whether a change in word order, vocabulary, intonation, or grammatical construction—will alter the sentence’s meaning, though often in a subtle way. We are now in a position to see why this should be so. We conceptualize sentences metaphorically in spatial terms, with elements of linguistic form bearing spatial properties (like length) and relations (like closeness).  Read more at location 2501

Regularities of Linguistic Form 

Take, for example, the fact that questions typically end in what we perceive as a “rising” intonation, while statements typically end in what we perceive as a “falling” intonation. This is coherent with the orientational metaphor UNKNOWN IS UP; KNOWN IS DOWN. This conceptual metaphor can be seen in examples like:        That’s still up in the air.        I’d like to raise some questions about that.        That settles the question.        It’s still up for grabs.  Read more at location 2512

In fact, questions with falling intonation are understood not as real questions but as rhetorical questions indicating statements. For example, “Will you ever learn?”  Read more at location 2525

Similarly, statements with rising intonation indicate uncertainty or inability to make sense of something. For example, “Your name’s Fred” said with rising intonation indicates that you’re not sure and want confirmation.  Read more at location 2527

These are all examples of the use of rising and falling intonation coherently with the UNKNOWN IS UP, KNOWN IS DOWN metaphor.  Read more at location 2530

Examples like this indicate that regularities of linguistic form cannot be explained in formal terms alone. Many such regularities make sense only when they are seen in terms of the application of conceptual metaphors to our spatial conceptualization of linguistic form.  Read more at location 2536

21 New Meaning 

We would like to suggest that new metaphors make sense of our experience in the same way conventional metaphors do: they provide coherent structure, highlighting some things and hiding others.  Read more at location 2547

For example, the active side of love is brought into the foreground through the notion of WORK both in COLLABORATIVE WORK and in WORK OF ART. This requires the masking of certain aspects of love that are viewed passively. In fact, the emotional aspects of love are almost never viewed as being under the lovers’ active control in our conventional conceptual system. Even in the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, the relationship is viewed as a vehicle that is not in the couple’s active control, since it can be off the tracks, or on the rocks, or not going anywhere. In the LOVE IS MADNESS metaphor (“I’m crazy about her,” “She’s driving me wild”), there is the ultimate lack of control. In the LOVE IS HEALTH metaphor, where the relationship is a patient (“It’s a healthy relationship,” “It’s a sick relationship,” “Their relationship is reviving”), the passivity of health in this culture is transferred to love. Thus, in focusing on various aspects of activity (e.g., WORK, CREATION, PURSUING GOALS, BUILDING, HELPING, etc.), the metaphor provides an organization of important love experiences that our conventional conceptual system does not make available.  Read more at location 2584

the meaning a metaphor will have for me will be partly culturally determined and partly tied to my past experiences.  Read more at location 2608

********  An Iranian student, shortly after his arrival in Berkeley, took a seminar on metaphor from one of us. Among the wondrous things that he found in Berkeley was an expression that he heard over and over and understood as a beautifully sane metaphor. The expression was “the solution of my problems”—which he took to be a large volume of liquid, bubbling and smoking, containing all of your problems, either dissolved or in the form of precipitates, with catalysts constantly dissolving some problems (for the time being) and precipitating out others. He was terribly disillusioned to find that the residents of Berkeley had no such chemical metaphor in mind. And well he might be, for the chemical metaphor is both beautiful and insightful.  Read more at location 2624

*******  To live by the CHEMICAL metaphor would mean that your problems have a different kind of reality for you. A temporary solution would be an accomplishment rather than a failure. Problems would be part of the natural order of things rather than disorders to be “cured.” The way you would understand your everyday life and the way you would act in it would be different if you lived by the CHEMCAL metaphor. We see this as a clear case of the power of metaphor to create a reality rather than simply to give us a way of conceptualizing a preexisting reality.  Read more at location 2641

****  (Note:  really insightful)  What the CHEMICAL metaphor reveals is that our current way of dealing with problems is another kind of metaphorical activity. At present most of us deal with problems according to what we might call the PUZZLE metaphor, in which problems are PUZZLES for which, typically, there is a correct solution—and, once solved, they are solved forever.  Read more at location 2647

****  The idea that metaphor is just a matter of language and can at best only describe reality stems from the view that what is real is wholly external to, and independent of, how human beings conceptualize the world—as if the study of reality were just the study of the physical world. Such a view of reality—so-called objective reality—leaves out human aspects of reality, in particular the real perceptions, conceptualizations, motivations, and actions that constitute most of what we experience.  Read more at location 2667

*********  Each culture must provide a more or less successful way of dealing with its environment, both adapting to it and changing it. Moreover, each culture must define a social reality within which people have roles that make sense to them and in terms of which they can function socially. Not surprisingly, the social reality defined by a culture affects its conception of physical reality.  Read more at location 2674

22 The Creation of Similarity 

We have already seen this in the case of orientational metaphors. For example, the orientations MORE IS UP and HAPPY IS UP induce a similarity that we perceive between MORE and HAPPY that we do not see between LESS and HAPPY. Ontological metaphors also make similarities possible. We saw, for example, that the viewing of TIME and LABOR metaphorically as uniform SUBSTANCES allows us to view them both as being similar to physical resources and hence as similar to each other.  Read more at location 2684

Structural metaphors in our conceptual system also induce similarities. Thus, the IDEAS ARE FOOD metaphor establishes similarities between ideas and food. Both can be digested, swallowed, devoured, and warmed over, and both can nourish you. These similarities do not exist independently of the metaphor.  Read more at location 2693

In fact, the IDEAS ARE FOOD metaphor is based on still more basic metaphors. For example, it is based partly on the CONDUIT metaphor, according to which IDEAS ARE OBJECTS and we can get them from outside ourselves.  Read more at location 2696

****  by virtue of the metaphor, the range of highlighted love experiences is seen as similar in structure to the range of experiences of producing a collaborative work of art. It is this structural similarity between the two ranges of experience that allows you to find coherence in the range of highlighted love experiences. Correspondingly, it is by virtue of the metaphor that the highlighted range of experiences is picked out as being coherent. Without the metaphor, this range of experiences does not exist for you as being an identifiable and coherent set of experiences. Conceptualizing LOVE as A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART brings them into focus as fitting together into a coherent whole. Moreover, the metaphor, by virtue of giving coherent structure to a range of our experiences, creates similarities of a new kind.  Read more at location 2744

We can summarize the ways in which metaphors create similarities as follows:

1. Conventional metaphors (orientational, ontological, and structural) are often based on correlations we perceive in our experience. For example, in an industrial culture such as ours there is a correlation between the amount of time a task takes and the amount of labor it takes to accomplish the task. This correlation is part of what allows us to view TIME and LABOR metaphorically as RESOURCES and hence to see a similarity between them.  Read more at location 2758

2. Conventional metaphors of the structural variety (e.g., IDEAS ARE FOOD) may be based on similarities that arise out of orientational and ontological metaphors. As we saw, for example, IDEAS ARE FOOD is based on IDEAS ARE OBJECTS (ontological) and THE MIND IS A CONTAINER (ontological and orientational).  Read more at location 2764

3. New metaphors are mostly structural. They can create similarities in the same way as conventional metaphors that are structural. That is, they can be based on similarities that arise from ontological and orientational metaphors. As we saw, PROBLEMS ARE PRECIPITATES IN A CHEMICAL SOLUTION is based on the physical metaphor PROBLEMS ARE SOLID OBJECTS.  Read more at location 2769

4. New metaphors, by virtue of their entailments, pick out a range of experiences by highlighting, downplaying, and hiding. The metaphor then characterizes a similarity between the entire range of highlighted experiences and some other range of experiences. For example, LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART picks out a certain range of our love experiences and defines a structural similarity between the entire range of highlighted experiences and the range of experiences involved in producing collaborative works of art.  Read more at location 2775

5. Similarities may be similarities with respect to a metaphor. As we saw, the LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART metaphor defines a unique kind of similarity.  Read more at location 2781

Our view that metaphors can create similarities runs counter to the classical and still most widely held theory of metaphor, namely, the comparison theory. The comparison theory says:

1. Metaphors are matters of language and not matters of thought or action. There is no such thing as metaphorical thought or action.

2. A metaphor of the form “A is B“ is a linguistic expression whose meaning is the same as a corresponding linguistic expression of the form “A is like B,  Read more at location 2784

3. A metaphor can therefore only describe preexisting similarities. It cannot create similarities.  Read more at location 2791

********  We differ with the comparison theory by maintaining that: 1. Metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action and only derivatively a matter of language.  Read more at location 2793

3. The primary function of metaphor is to provide a partial understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience. This may involve preexisting isolated similarities, the creation of new similarities, and more.  Read more at location 2800

****  the comparison theory most often goes hand in hand with an objectivist philosophy in which all similarities are objective, that is, they are similarities inherent in the entities themselves. We argue, on the contrary, that the only similarities relevant to metaphor are similarities as experienced by people.  Read more at location 2802

To an objectivist it would make no sense to speak of metaphors as “creating similarities,” since that would require metaphors to be able to change the nature of the external world, bringing into existence objective similarities that did not previously exist. We agree with objectivists on one major point: that things in the world do play a role in constraining our conceptual system. But they play this role only through our experience of them. Our experiences will (1) differ from culture to culture and (2) may depend on our understanding one kind of experience in terms of another, that is, our experiences may be metaphorical in nature. Such experiences determine the categories of our conceptual system.  Read more at location 2807

****  These experiential correlations may be of two types: experiential co-occurrence and experiential similarity.  Read more at location 2815

23 Metaphor, Truth, and Action  Read more at location 2821

****  (Note: metaphors as recursive constructs) Metaphors may create realities for us, especially social realities. A metaphor may thus be a guide for future action. Such actions will, of course, fit the metaphor. This will, in turn, reinforce the power of the metaphor to make experience coherent. In this sense metaphors can be self-fulfilling prophecies.  Read more at location 2826

(Note: Interesting how this same metaphor shapes concepts of terrorism, the 'war on terror')  President Carter declared “the moral equivalent of war.” The WAR metaphor generated a network of entailments. There was an “enemy,” a “threat to national security,” which required “setting targets,” “reorganizing priorities,” “establishing a new chain of command,” “plotting new strategy,” “gathering intelligence,” “marshaling forces,” “imposing sanctions,” “calling for sacrifices,” and on and on. The WAR metaphor highlighted certain realities and hid others.  Read more at location 2829

very acceptance of the metaphor provided grounds for certain inferences: there was an external, foreign, hostile enemy (pictured by cartoonists in Arab headdress); energy needed to be given top priorities; the populace would have to make sacrifices; if we didn’t meet the threat, we would not survive.  Read more at location 2834

Lovins’ SOFT ENERGY PATH metaphor highlights the technical, economic, and sociopolitical structure of the energy system, which leads him to the conclusion that the “hard” energy paths—coal, oil, and nuclear power—lead to political conflict, economic hardship, and harm to the environment. But Jimmy Carter is more powerful than Amory Lovins. As Charlotte Linde (in conversation) has observed, whether in national politics or in everyday interaction, people in power get to impose their metaphors.  Read more at location 2846

**********  (Note:  yes!)  The acceptance of the metaphor, which forces us to focus only on those aspects of our experience that it highlights, leads us to view the entailments of the metaphor as being true. Such “truths” may be true, of course, only relative to the reality defined by the metaphor.  Read more at location 2852

****  In most cases, what is at issue is not the truth or falsity of a metaphor but the perceptions and inferences that follow from it and the actions that are sanctioned by it. In all aspects of life, not just in politics or in love, we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.  Read more at location 2861

24 Truth Why Care about a Theory of Truth? 

****  philosophers have tended to look at metaphors as out-of-the-ordinary imaginative or poetic linguistic expressions, and their discussions have centered on whether these linguistic expressions can be true. Their concern with truth comes out of a concern with objectivity: truth for them means objective, absolute truth. The typical philosophical conclusion is that metaphors cannot directly state truths, and, if they can state truths at all, it is only indirectly, via some non-metaphorical “literal” paraphrase. We do not believe that there is such a thing as objective (absolute and unconditional) truth, though it has been a long-standing theme in Western culture that there is. We do believe that there are truths but think that the idea of truth need not be tied to the objectivist view.  Read more at location 2870

****  (Note:   power allows creation dominant metaphor)  As we have seen, truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined in large part by metaphor. Most of our metaphors have evolved in our culture over a long period, but many are imposed upon us by people in power—political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, advertisers, the media, etc. In a culture where the myth of objectivism is very much alive and truth is always absolute truth, the people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true—absolutely and objectively true.  Read more at location 2877

The Importance of Truth in Our Daily Lives 

On the whole, truth matters to us because it has survival value and allows us to function in our world.  Read more at location 2885

The Role of Projection in Truth 

a front-back orientation is not an inherent property of objects like rocks but rather an orientation that we project onto them, and the way we do this varies from culture to culture. Relative to our purposes, we can conceive of things in the world as being containers or not.  Read more at location 2897

we perceive various things in the natural world as entities, often projecting boundaries and surfaces on them where no clear-cut boundaries or surfaces exist naturally. Thus we can conceive of a fogbank as an entity that can be over the bay (which we conceive as an entity) and in front of the mountain (conceived as an entity with a FRONT-BACK orientation).  Read more at location 2908

As is typically the case in our daily lives, truth is relative to understanding, and the truth of such a sentence is relative to the normal way we understand the world by projecting orientation and entity structure  Read more at location 2912

The Role of Categorization in Truth 

****  (Note:   fundamental category types)  there are natural dimensions to our categories for objects: perceptual, based on the conception of the object by means of our sensory apparatus; motor activity, based on the nature of motor interactions with objects; functional, based on our conception of the functions of the object; and purposive, based on the uses we can make of an object in a given situation. Our categories for kinds of objects are thus gestalts with at least these natural dimensions, each of which specifies interactional properties.  Read more at location 2917

****  (Note:   fundamental dimensional types)  there are natural dimensions in terms of which we categorize events, activities, and other experiences as structured wholes. As we saw in our discussion of CONVERSATION and ARGUMENT, these natural dimensions include participants, parts, stages, linear sequence, purpose, and causation.  Read more at location 2921

To highlight certain properties is necessarily to downplay or hide others, which is what happens whenever we categorize something.  Read more at location 2925

categories are defined for purposes of human understanding by prototypes and family resemblances to those prototypes. Such categories are not fixed but may be narrowed, expanded, or adjusted relative to our purposes and other contextual factors. Since the truth of a statement depends on whether the categories employed in the statement fit, the truth of a statement will always be relative to the way the category is understood for our purposes in a given context.  Read more at location 2952

France is hexagonal.        

Missouri is a parallelogram.        

The earth is a sphere.        

Italy is boot-shaped.        

An atom is a tiny solar system with the nucleus at the center and electrons whirling around it.        

Light consists of particles.        

Light consists of waves.

Each of these sentences is true for certain purposes, in certain respects, and in certain contexts. “France is a hexagon” and “Missouri is a parallelogram” can be true for a schoolboy who has to draw rough maps but not for professional cartographers. “The earth is a sphere” is true as far as most of us are concerned, but it won’t do for precisely plotting the orbit of a satellite. No self-respecting physicist has believed since 1914 that an atom is a tiny solar system, but it is true for most of us relative to our everyday functioning  Read more at location 2957

******  truth depends on categorization in the following four ways: —A statement can be true only relative to some understanding of it. —Understanding always involves human categorization, which is a function of interactional (rather than inherent) properties and of dimensions that emerge from our experience. —The truth of a statement is always relative to the properties that are highlighted by the categories used in the statement. (For example, “Light consists of waves” highlights wavelike properties of light and hides particle-like properties.) —Categories are neither fixed nor uniform. They are defined by prototypes and family resemblances to prototypes and are adjustable in context, given various purposes. Whether a statement is true depends on whether the category employed in the statement fits, and this in turn varies with human purposes and other aspects of context.  Read more at location 2970

What Does It Take to Understand a Simple Sentence as Being True? 

The sentence “John fired the gun at Harry” typically evokes a SHOOTING SOMEONE gestalt of this form. Or it could, in other contexts, evoke other equally complex experiential gestalts (e.g., PERFORMING A CIRCUS ACT). But the sentence is virtually never understood on its own terms without the evocation of some larger gestalt that specifies the normal range of natural dimensions (e.g., purpose, stages, etc.). Whichever gestalt is evoked, we understand much more than is given directly in the sentence. Each such gestalt provides a background for understanding the sentence in terms that make sense to us, that is, in terms of an experiential category of our culture.  Read more at location 3002

We can summarize the results of this section as follows: 1. Understanding a sentence as being true in a given situation requires having an understanding of the sentence and having an understanding of the situation. 2. We understand a sentence as being true when our understanding of the sentence fits our understanding of the situation closely enough. 3. Getting an understanding of a situation of the sort that could fit our understanding of a sentence may require: a. Projecting an orientation onto something that has no inherent orientation (e.g., viewing the mountain as having a front) b. Projecting an entity structure onto something that is not bounded in any clear sense (e.g., the fog, the mountain) c. Providing a background in terms of which the sentence makes sense, that is, calling up an experiential gestalt (e.g., SHOOTING SOMEONE, PERFORMING A CIRCUS ACT) and understanding the situation in terms of the gestalt d. Getting a “normal” understanding of the sentence in terms of its categories (e.g., GUN, FIRING), as defined by prototype, and trying to get an understanding of the situation  Read more at location 3029

What Does It Take to Understand a Conventional Metaphor as Being True? 

When we understand a sentence like “Inflation has gone up” as being true, we do the following: 1. We understand the situation by metaphorical projection in two ways: a. We view inflation as a SUBSTANCE (via an ontological metaphor). b. We view MORE as being oriented UP (via an orientational metaphor). 2. We understand the sentence in terms of the same two metaphors. 3. This allows us to fit our understanding of the sentence to our understanding of the situation.  Read more at location 3058

****  account of how we understand truth depends on our account of how we understand situations. Given that metaphor is conceptual in nature rather than a matter of “mere language,” it is natural for us to conceptualize situations in metaphorical terms. Because we can conceptualize situations in metaphorical terms, it is possible for sentences containing metaphors to be taken as fitting the situations as we conceptualize them.  Read more at location 3077

How Do We Understand New Metaphors as Being True? 

****  metaphors fit our account of truth in the same way as nonmetaphorical sentences do. In both cases, understanding a sentence as true in a given situation involves fitting our understanding of the sentence to our understanding of the situation.  Read more at location 3081

understanding your life in terms of a coherent life story involves highlighting certain participants and parts (episodes and states) and ignoring or hiding others. It involves seeing your life in terms of stages, causal connections among the parts, and plans meant to achieve a goal or a set of goals. In general, a life story imposes a coherent structure on elements of your life that are highlighted.  Read more at location 3097

Understanding a Situation: A Summary 

Direct Immediate Understanding 

we understand directly from our direct physical involvement as an inseparable part of our immediate environment. Entity structure: We understand ourselves as bounded entities, and we directly experience certain objects that we come into direct contact with as bounded entities, too. Orientational structure: We understand ourselves and other objects as having certain orientations relative to the environments we function in (up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, etc.). Dimensions of experience: There are dimensions of experience in terms of which we function most of the time in our direct interactions with others and with our immediate physical and cultural environment.  Read more at location 3134

Experiential gestalts: Our object and substance categories are gestalts that have at least the following dimensions: perceptual, motor activity, part/whole, functional, purposive. Our categories of direct actions, activities, events, and experiences are gestalts that have at least the following dimensions: participants, parts, motor activities, perceptions, stages, linear sequences (of parts), causal relations, purpose (goals/plans for actions and end states for events).  Read more at location 3143

Background: An experiential gestalt will typically serve as a background for understanding something we experience as an aspect of that gestalt. Thus a person or object may be understood as a participant in a gestalt, and an action may be understood as a part of a gestalt.  Read more at location 3148

Highlighting: Understanding a situation as being an instance of an experiential gestalt involves picking out elements of the situation as fitting the dimensions of the gestalt—  Read more at location 3154

Prototypes: Each category is structured in terms of a prototype, and something counts as a member of the category by virtue of the family resemblances it bears  Read more at location 3160

Indirect Understanding 

What we do in indirect understanding is to use the resources of direct understanding.  Read more at location 3173

But most of our indirect understanding involves understanding one kind of entity or experience in terms of another kind—that is, understanding via metaphor.  Read more at location 3174

Entity structure: Entity and substance structure is imposed via ontological metaphor. Orientational structure: Orientational structure is imposed via orientational metaphor. Dimensions of experience: Structural metaphor involves structuring one kind of thing or experience in terms of another kind, but the same natural dimensions of experience are used in both (e.g., parts, stages, purposes, etc.). Experiential gestalts: Structural metaphor involves imposing part of one gestalt structure upon another. Background: Experiential gestalts play the role of a background in metaphorical understanding, just as they do in non-metaphorical understanding. Highlighting: Metaphorical highlighting works by the same mechanism as that for nonmetaphorical gestalts. That is, the experiential gestalt that is superimposed in the situation via the metaphor picks out elements of the situation as fitting its dimensions—  Read more at location 3177

Interactional properties: All of the dimensions of our experience are interactional in nature, and all experiential gestalts involve interactional properties. This holds for both metaphorical and nonmetaphorical concepts. Prototypes: Both metaphorical and nonmetaphorical categories are structured in terms of prototypes.  Read more at location 3191

Truth Is Based on Understanding 

The Nature of the Experientialist Account of Truth We understand a statement as being true in a given situation when our understanding of the statement fits our understanding of the situation closely enough for our purposes.  Read more at location 3201

First, our theory has some elements in common with a correspondence theory.  Read more at location 3205

The experientialist view we are proposing is a correspondence theory in the following sense: A theory of truth is a theory of what it means to understand a statement as true or false in a certain situation. Any correspondence between what we say and some state of affairs in the world is always mediated by our understanding of the statement and of the state of affairs.  Read more at location 3208

we are able to make true (or false) statements about the world because it is possible for our understanding of a statement to fit (or not fit) our understanding of the situation in which the statement is made. Since we understand situations and statements in terms of our conceptual system, truth for us is always relative to that conceptual system.  Read more at location 3213

Second, understanding something requires fitting it into a coherent scheme, relative to a conceptual system. Thus, truth will always depend partly on coherence. This gives us elements of a coherence theory. Third, understanding also requires a grounding in experience. On the experientialist view, our conceptual system emerges from our constant successful functioning in our physical and cultural environment.  Read more at location 3217

This gives us elements of a pragmatic theory. Fourth, the experientialist theory of truth has some elements in common with classical realism, but these do not include its insistence on absolute truth.  Read more at location 3222

Fifth, people with very different conceptual systems than our own may understand the world in a very different way than we do.  Read more at location 3235

****  there is nothing radically new in our account of truth. It includes some of the central insights of the phenomenological tradition, such as the rejection of epistemological foundationalism, the stress on the centrality of the body in the structuring of our experience, and the importance of that structure in understanding. Our view also accords with some of the key elements of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy: the family-resemblance account of categorization, the rejection of the picture theory of meaning, the rejection of a building-block theory of meaning, and the emphasis on meaning as relative to context and to one’s own conceptual system.  Read more at location 3238

****  We do not believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and we think that it is pointless to try to give a theory of it.  Read more at location 3244

*******  For us, meaning depends on understanding. A sentence can’t mean anything to you unless you understand it. Moreover, meaning is always meaning to someone. There is no such thing as a meaning of a sentence in itself, independent of any people. When we speak of the meaning of a sentence, it is always the meaning of the sentence to someone, a real person or a hypothetical typical member of a speech community. Here our theory differs radically from standard theories of meaning. The standard theories assume that it is possible to give an account of truth in itself, free of human understanding, and that the theory of meaning will be based on such a theory of truth. We see no possibility for any such program to work and think that the only answer is to base both the theory of meaning and the theory of truth on a theory of understanding. Metaphor, both conventional and nonconventional, plays a central role in such a program. Metaphors are basically devices for understanding and have little to do with objective reality, if there is such a thing.  Read more at location 3272

25 The Myths of Objectivism and Subjectivism

The Choices Our Culture Offers

We have argued that truth is always relative to a conceptual system, that any human conceptual system is mostly metaphorical in nature, and that, therefore, there is no fully objective, unconditional, or absolute truth.  Read more at location 3285

We see ourselves as offering a third choice to the myths of objectivism and subjectivism.  Read more at location 3293

**********  Myths provide ways of comprehending experience; they give order to our lives. Like metaphors, myths are necessary for making sense of what goes on around us. All cultures have myths, and people cannot function without myth any more than they can function without metaphor. And just as we often take the metaphors of our own culture as truths, so we often take the myths of our own culture as truths. The myth of objectivism is particularly insidious in this way. Not only does it purport not to be a myth, but it makes both myths and metaphors objects of belittlement and scorn: according to the objectivist myth, myths and metaphors cannot be taken seriously because they are not objectively true. As we will see, the myth of objectivism is itself not objectively true.  Read more at location 3294

The Myth of Objectivism

The myth of objectivism says that:  Read more at location 3303

1. The world is made up of objects. They have properties independent of any people or other beings who experience them.  Read more at location 3304

2. We get our knowledge of the world by experiencing the objects in it and getting to know what properties the objects have and how these objects are related to one another.  Read more at location 3306

3. We understand the objects in our world in terms of categories and concepts. These categories and concepts correspond to properties the objects have in themselves (inherently) and to the relationships among the objects.  Read more at location 3310

4. There is an objective reality, and we can say things that are objectively, absolutely, and unconditionally true and false about it. But, as human beings, we are subject to human error,  Read more at location 3314

5. Words have fixed meanings. That is, our language expresses the concepts and categories that we think in terms of.  Read more at location 3319

6. People can be objective and can speak objectively, but they can do so only if they use language that is clearly and precisely defined, that is straightforward and direct, and that can fit reality.  Read more at location 3322

7. Metaphor and other kinds of poetic, fanciful, rhetorical, or figurative language can always be avoided in speaking objectively, and they should be avoided,  Read more at location 332

8. Being objective is generally a good thing. Only objective knowledge is really knowledge.  Read more at location 3326

9. To be objective is to be rational; to be subjective is to be irrational and to give in to the emotions. 10. Subjectivity can be dangerous, since it can lead to losing touch with reality.  Read more at location 3329

The Myth of Subjectivism

The myth of subjectivism says that:

1. In most of our everyday practical activities we rely on our senses and develop intuitions we can trust.  Read more at location 3332

2. The most important things in our lives are our feelings, aesthetic sensibilities, moral practices, and spiritual awareness. These are purely subjective.  Read more at location 3334

3. Art and poetry transcend rationality and objectivity and put us in touch with the more important reality of our feelings and intuitions.  Read more at location 3336

4. The language of the imagination, especially metaphor, is necessary for expressing the unique and most personally significant aspects of our experience.  Read more at location 3338

5. Objectivity can be dangerous, because it misses what is most important and meaningful to individual people.  Read more at location 3340

Fear of Metaphor 

Objectivism takes as its allies scientific truth, rationality, precision, fairness, and impartiality. Subjectivism takes as its allies the emotions, intuitive insight, imagination, humaneness, art, and a “higher” truth. Each is master in its own realm and views its realm as the better of the two. They coexist, but in separate domains.  Read more at location 3345

The portions of our lives governed by objectivism and subjectivism vary greatly from person to person and from culture to culture. Some of us even attempt to live our entire lives totally by one myth or the other. In Western culture as a whole, objectivism is by far the greater potentate,  Read more at location 3348

Since the time of the Greeks, there has been in Western culture a tension between truth, on the one hand, and art, on the other, with art viewed as illusion and allied, via its link with poetry and theater, to the tradition of persuasive public oratory. Plato viewed poetry and rhetoric with suspicion and banned poetry from his utopian Republic because it gives no truth of its own, stirs up the emotions, and thereby blinds mankind to the real truth. Plato, typical of persuasive writers, stated his view that truth is absolute and art mere illusion by the use of a powerful rhetorical device, his Allegory of the Cave. To this day, his metaphors dominate Western philosophy, providing subtle and elegant expression for his view that truth is absolute.  Read more at location 3351

“ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh” (Rhetoric 1410b). But although Aristotle’s theory of how metaphors work is the classic view, his praise of metaphor’s ability to induce insight was never carried over into modern philosophical thought. With the rise of empirical science as a model for truth, the suspicion of poetry and rhetoric became dominant in Western thought, with metaphor and other figurative devices becoming objects of scorn once again.  Read more at location 3358

The Romantic tradition, by embracing subjectivism, reinforced the dichotomy between truth and reason, on the one hand, and art and imagination, on the other. By giving up on rationality, the Romantics played into the hands of the myth of objectivism,  Read more at location 3390

The Third Choice: An Experientialist Synthesis 

We reject the objectivist view that there is absolute and unconditional truth without adopting the subjectivist alternative of truth as obtainable only through the imagination, unconstrained by external circumstances. The reason we have focused so much on metaphor is that it unites reason and imagination.  Read more at location 3398

Metaphor is thus imaginative rationality. Since the categories of our everyday thought are largely metaphorical and our everyday reasoning involves metaphorical entailments and inferences, ordinary rationality is therefore imaginative by its very nature.  Read more at location 3402

*******  Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness.  Read more at location 3405

Though there is no absolute objectivity, there can be a kind of objectivity relative to the conceptual system of a culture. The point of impartiality and fairness in social matters is to rise above relevant individual biases. The point of objectivity in scientific experimentation is to factor out the effects of individual illusion and error.  Read more at location 3413

*********  What objectivism misses is the fact that understanding, and therefore truth, is necessarily relative to our cultural conceptual systems and that it cannot be framed in any absolute or neutral conceptual system. Objectivism also misses the fact that human conceptual systems are metaphorical in nature and involve an imaginative understanding of one kind of thing in terms of another.  Read more at location 3423

26 The Myth of Objectivism in Western Philosophy and Linguistics

Our Challenge to the Myth of Objectivism 

****  The view that we have access to absolute and unconditional truths about the world is the cornerstone of the Western philosophical tradition. The myth of objectivity has flourished in both the rationalist and empiricist traditions, which in this respect differ only in their accounts of how we arrive at such absolute truths.  Read more at location 3431

Kant’s synthesis of rationalism and empiricism falls within the objectivist tradition also, despite his claim that there can be no knowledge whatever of things as they are in themselves. What makes Kant an objectivist is his claim that, relative to the kinds of things that all human beings can experience through their senses (his empiricist legacy), we can have universally valid knowledge and universally valid moral laws by the use of our universal reason (his rationalist legacy). The objectivist tradition in Western philosophy is preserved to this day in the descendants of the logical positivists, the Fregean tradition, the tradition of Husserl, and, in linguistics, in the neorationalism that came out of the Chomsky tradition. Our account of metaphor goes against this tradition.  Read more at location 3435

The following is a representative list of these assumptions about language, meaning, truth, and understanding.  Read more at location 3446

Truth is a matter of fitting words to the world. A theory of meaning for natural language is based on a theory of truth, independent of the way people understand and use language. Meaning is objective and disembodied, independent of human understanding. Sentences are abstract objects with inherent structures. The meaning of a sentence can be obtained from the meanings of its parts and the structure of the sentence. Communication is a matter of a speaker’s transmitting a message with a fixed meaning to a hearer. How a person understands a sentence, and what it means to him, is a function of the objective meaning of the sentence and what the person believes about the world and about the context in which the sentence is uttered.  Read more at location 3448

How Standard Theories of Meaning Are Rooted in the Myth of Objectivism 

Meaning Is Objective 

Given the objectivist account of meaning, a person understands the objective meaning of a sentence if he understands the conditions under which it would be true or false. The objectivist assumes not only that conditions of objective truth and falsity exist but that people have access to them. This is taken as being obvious.  Read more at location 3485

Meaning Is Disembodied 

Expressions in a natural language can be said to have objective meaning only if that meaning is independent of anything human beings do, either in speaking or in acting. That is, meaning must be disembodied.  Read more at location 3498

Fitting the Words to the World without People or Human Understanding 

objectivist tradition views semantics as the study of how linguistic expressions can fit the world directly, without the intervention of human understanding.  Read more at location 3514

A Theory of Meaning Is Based on a Theory of Truth

Under the objectivist account of truth, it is possible for a sentence by itself to fit the world or not. If it does, it is true; if not, it is false. This gives rise directly to an objectivist account of meaning as based on truth. Again, David Lewis puts it most clearly: “A meaning for a sentence is something that determines the conditions under which the sentence is true or false” (1972, p. 173).  Read more at location 3526

Meaning Is Independent of Use 

If meaning is to be objective, it must exclude all subjective elements—that is, anything peculiar to a particular context, culture, or mode of understanding. As Donald Davidson puts it: “Literal meaning and truth conditions can be assigned to words and sentences apart from particular contexts of use”  Read more at location 3535

Meaning Is Compositional—The Building-Block Theory 

the world is made up of objects; they have well-defined inherent properties, independent of any being who experiences them, and there are fixed relations holding among them at any given point in time. These aspects of the myth of objectivism give rise to a building-block theory of meaning. If the world is made up of well-defined objects, we can give them names in a language. If the objects have well-defined inherent properties, we can have a language with one-place predicates corresponding to each of those properties. And if the objects stand in fixed relations to one another (at least at any given instant), we can have a language with many-place predicates corresponding to each relation. Assuming that the world is this way and that we have such a language, we can, using the syntax of this language, construct sentences that can correspond directly to any situation in the world. The meaning of the whole sentence will be its truth conditions, that is, the conditions under which the sentence can be fitted to some situation. The meaning of the whole sentence will depend entirely on the meanings of its parts and how they fit together. The meanings of the parts will specify what names can pick out what objects and what predicates can pick out what properties and relations. Objectivist theories of meaning are all compositional in nature—that is, they are all building-block theories—and they have to be.  Read more at location 3538

Objectivism Permits Ontological Relativity without Human Understanding 

Quine, reacting to such universalist claims, argued that each language has its own ontology built into it, and what counts as an object, property, or relation may vary from language to language. This position is known as the “ontological relativity” thesis. It is possible to maintain an ontological relativity thesis within the confines of the objectivist program without any recourse to human understanding or cultural difference. Such a relativistic position gives up on the possibility of constructing a single universally applicable logical language into which all natural languages can be translated adequately. It claims instead that each natural language carves up what is in the world in different ways—always picking out objects that are really there and properties and relations that are really there.  Read more at location 3556

according to relativistic objectivism, truths expressible in one language may not be translatable into another, since each language may carve up the world in different ways. But whatever entities the language picks out exist in the world objectively as entities.  Read more at location 3565

Linguistic Expressions Are Objects: The Premise of Objectivist Linguistics 

****  (Note:   premise of objectivist view of language)  This has been the premise of objectivist linguistics from its origins in antiquity to the present: Linguistic expressions are objects that have properties in and of themselves and stand in fixed relationships to one another, independently of any person who speaks them or understands them.  Read more at location 3571

The study of the building-block structure, the inherent properties of the parts, and the relationships among them has traditionally been called grammar. Objectivist linguistics sees itself as the only scientific approach to linguistics. The objects must be capable of being analyzed in and of themselves, independently of contexts or the way people understand them. As in objectivist philosophy, there are both empiricist and rationalist traditions in linguistics.  Read more at location 3576

Grammar Is Independent of Meaning and Understanding 

It follows from this view of linguistic expressions as objects that grammar can be studied independently of meaning or human understanding. This tradition is epitomized by the linguistics of Noam Chomsky, who has steadfastly maintained that grammar is a matter of pure form, independent of meaning or human understanding. Any aspect of language that involves human understanding is for Chomsky by definition outside the study of grammar in this sense.  Read more at location 3586

The Objectivist Theory of Communication: A Version of the CONDUIT Metaphor 

****  Such a view gives rise to a theory of communication that fits the CONDUIT metaphor very closely:        Meanings are objects.        

Linguistic expressions are objects.        

Linguistic expressions have meanings (in them).        

In communication, a speaker sends a fixed meaning to a hearer via the linguistic expression associated with that meaning.  Read more at location 3595

What an Objectivist Account of Understanding Would Be Like

account of speaker’s meaning could be represented, in the appropriate sarcastic context, as follows: (A) In uttering a sentence S (S = “He’s a real genius”), which has the objective meaning M (M = he has great intellectual powers), the speaker intends to convey to the hearer objective meaning M′ (M′ = he’s a real idiot). This is how meaning to someone might be accounted for in an objectivist framework. Sentence (A) is something that could be objectively true or false in a given context. If (A) is true, then the sentence S (“He’s a real genius”) can mean he’s a real idiot to both the speaker and the hearer if the hearer recognizes the speaker’s intentions. This technique, which originated with the speech-act theorists, has been adapted to the objectivist tradition as a way of getting meaning to someone out of the objective meaning of the sentence, that is, out of its conditions for objective truth or falsity.  Read more at location 3612

Understanding a sentence (e.g., “The theory is made of cheap stucco”) as metaphorical always involves understanding it indirectly as conveying an objective meaning M′ (the theory is weak) which is different from the literal objective meaning M (the theory is made of in-expensive mortar). The objectivist account of understanding is thus always based on its account of objective truth. It includes two kinds of understanding, direct and indirect.  Read more at location 3639

There are four automatic consequences of the objectivist account of metaphor: By definition, there can be no such thing as a metaphorical concept or metaphorical meaning. Meanings are objective and specify conditions of objective truth.  Read more at location 3645

Since metaphor cannot be a matter of meaning, it can only be a matter of language. A metaphor, on the objectivist view, can at best give us an indirect way of talking about some objective meaning M′ by using the language that would be used literally to talk about some other objective meaning M,  Read more at location 3650

Again by definition, there can be no such thing as literal (conventional) metaphor. A sentence is used literally when M′ = M, that is, when the speaker’s meaning is the objective meaning.  Read more at location 3653

Metaphor can contribute to understanding only by making us see objective similarities, that is, similarities between the objective meanings M and M′. These similarities must be based on shared inherent properties of objects—  Read more at location 3656

Thus, the objectivist account of meaning is completely at odds with everything we have claimed in this book.  Read more at location 3659

It fits the CONDUIT metaphor (“The meaning is right there in the words”) and it fits the myth of objectivism.  Read more at location 3660

27 How Metaphor Reveals the Limitations of the Myth of Objectivism 

An adequate account, we argue, requires —viewing objects only as entities relative to our interactions with the world and our projections on it —viewing properties as interactional rather than inherent —viewing categories as experiential gestalts defined via prototype instead of viewing them as rigidly fixed and defined via set theory  Read more at location 3666

we have found that metaphor is pervasive, not merely in our language but in our conceptual system. It seems inconceivable to us that any phenomenon so fundamental to our conceptual system could not be central to an account of truth and meaning. We observed that metaphor is one of the most basic mechanisms we have for understanding our experience. This did not jibe with the objectivist view that metaphor is of only peripheral interest in an account of meaning and truth and that it plays at best a marginal role in understanding.  Read more at location 3675

The Objectivist Account of Conventional Metaphor

According to the objectivist account of metaphor, the original metaphor was a matter of use and speaker’s meaning, not literal objective meaning. It would have to have arisen by the general speaker’s meaning formula applied to this case (where digest referred only to food): In uttering a sentence S (S = “I couldn’t digest his ideas”) with literal objective meaning M (M = I couldn’t transform his ideas, by chemical and muscular action in the alimentary canal, into a form my body could absorb), the speaker intends to convey to the hearer the speaker’s meaning M′ (M′ = I couldn’t transform his ideas, by mental action, into a form my mind could absorb). Two things have to be true in order for this objectivist account to hold. First, the intended speaker’s meaning M′, referring to ideas, must be an objectively given meaning, having objective truth conditions. In other words, the following must be objectively true of the mind and ideas by virtue of their inherent properties: Ideas must, by virtue of their inherent properties, be the kind of thing that can have a form, be transformed, and be absorbed into the mind. The mind must, by virtue of its inherent properties, be the kind of thing that can perform mental actions, transform ideas, and absorb them into itself. Second, the metaphor must have been originally based on preexisting similarities between M and M′. That is, the mind and the alimentary canal must have inherent properties in common, just as ideas and food must have inherent properties in common.  Read more at location 3696

What’s Wrong with the Objectivist Account 

They show not only that the objectivist view of metaphor is inadequate but that the entire objectivist program is based on erroneous assumptions.  Read more at location 3724

The Similarity Position 

The view that IDEAS ARE OBJECTS is a projection of entity status upon mental phenomena via an ontological metaphor. The view that THE MIND IS A CONTAINER is a projection of entity status with in-out orientation onto our cognitive faculty. These are not inherent objective properties of ideas and of the mind. They are interactional properties, and they reflect the way in which we conceive of mental phenomena by virtue of metaphor.  Read more at location 3730

The concept LOVE is not inherently well defined. Our culture gives us conventional ways of viewing love experiences via conventional metaphors, such as LOVE IS A JOURNEY, LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE, etc., and our language reflects these. But according to the objectivist account (based either on dead metaphor, weak homonymy, or abstraction), the concept LOVE must be sufficiently well defined in terms of inherent properties to bear inherent similarities to journeys, electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena, sick people, etc. Here the objectivist must not only bear the burden of claiming that love has inherent properties similar to the inherent properties of journeys, electromagnetic phenomena, and sick people; he must also claim that love is sufficiently clearly defined in terms of these inherent properties so that those similarities will exist.  Read more at location 3742

the usual objectivist accounts of these phenomena (dead metaphor, homonymy with similarities, or abstraction) all depend on preexisting similarities based on inherent properties. In general, similarities do exist, but they cannot be based on inherent properties. The similarities arise as a result of conceptual metaphors and thus must be considered similarities of interactional, rather than inherent, properties. But the admission of interactional properties is inconsistent with the basic premise of objectivist philosophy.  Read more at location 3749

The Objectivist Default: “It’s Not Our Job” 

objectivists might even grant that our investigations of metaphor correctly show that interactional properties and experiential gestalts are, in fact, necessary to account for how human beings understand their experience via metaphor. But even granting this, they could still continue to ignore everything we have done on the following grounds: they could say simply that experientialists are merely concerned with how human beings happen to understand reality, given all of their limitations, whereas the objectivist is concerned not with how people understand something as being true but rather with what it means for something to actually be true.  Read more at location 3780

****  (Note:   premise of objectivist view of language)  an objectivist reply boils down to a reaffirmation of their fundamental concern with “absolute truth” and “objective meaning,” entirely independent of anything having to do with human functioning or understanding. Against this, we have been maintaining that there is no reason to believe that there is any absolute truth or objective meaning.  Read more at location 3786

Mathematical logic was developed as part of the enterprise of providing foundations for classical mathematics. Formal semantics also developed out of that enterprise. The models used in formal semantics are examples of what we will call “objectivist models”—models appropriate to universes of discourse where there are distinct entities which have inherent properties and where there are fixed relationships among the entities.  Read more at location 3799

Ontological metaphors are among the most basic devices we have for comprehending our experience. Each structural metaphor has a consistent set of ontological metaphors as subparts. To use a set of ontological metaphors to comprehend a given situation is to impose an entity structure upon that situation. For example, LOVE IS A JOURNEY imposes on LOVE an entity structure including a beginning, a destination, a path, the distance you are along the path, and so on. Each individual structural metaphor is internally consistent and imposes a consistent structure on the concept it structures. For example, the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor imposes an internally consistent WAR structure on the concept ARGUMENT. When we understand love only in terms of the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, we are imposing an internally consistent JOURNEY structure on the concept LOVE. Although different metaphors for the same concept are not in general consistent with each other, it is possible to find sets of metaphors that are consistent with each other. Let us call these consistent sets of metaphors. Because each individual metaphor is internally consistent, each consistent set of metaphors allows us to comprehend a situation in terms of a well-defined entity structure with consistent relations between the entities. The way that a consistent set of metaphors imposes an entity structure with a set of relations between the entities can be represented by an objectivist model. In the model, the entities are those imposed by the ontological metaphors, and the relations between the entities are those given by the internal structures of the structural metaphors.  Read more at location 3813

Formal scientific theories are attempts to consistently extend a set of ontological and structural metaphors. But in addition to scientific theorizing, we feel that people do try to think and act in terms of consistent sets of metaphors in a wide variety of situations.  Read more at location 3834

There is an excellent reason for people to try to view a life situation in terms of an objectivist model, that is, in terms of a consistent set of metaphors. The reason is, simply, that if we can do this, we can draw inferences about the situation that will not conflict with one another. That is, we will be able to infer nonconflicting expectations and suggestions for behavior. And it is comforting—extremely comforting—to have a consistent view of the world, a clear set of expectations and no conflicts about what you should do. Objectivist models have a real appeal—and for the most human of reasons.  Read more at location 3837

*******  Having a basis for expectation and action is important for survival. But it is one thing to impose a single objectivist model in some restricted situations and to function in terms of that model—perhaps successfully; it is another to conclude that the model is an accurate reflection of reality. There is a good reason why our conceptual systems have inconsistent metaphors for a single concept. The reason is that there is no one metaphor that will do.  Read more at location 3842

Successful functioning in our daily lives seems to require a constant shifting of metaphors.  Read more at location 3846

any consistent set of metaphors will most likely hide indefinitely many aspects of reality—aspects that can be highlighted only by other metaphors that are inconsistent with it.  Read more at location 3851

(Note: Artificial intelligence)  whether a computer could ever understand things the way people do. The answer we give is no—simply because understanding requires experience, and computers don’t have bodies and don’t have human experiences.  Read more at location 3855

Summary 

the objectivist program is unable to give a satisfactory account of human understanding and of any issues requiring such an account. Among these issues are: —the human conceptual system and the nature of human rationality —human language and communication —the human sciences, especially psychology, anthropology, sociology, and linguistics —moral and aesthetic value —scientific understanding, via the human conceptual system —any way in which the foundations of mathematics have a basis in human understanding  Read more at location 3861

28 Some Inadequacies of the Myth of Subjectivism 

****  we have claimed that subjectivism is not the only alternative to objectivism, and we have been offering a third choice: the experientialist myth, which we see as making possible an adequate philosophical and methodological basis for the human sciences.  Read more at location 3876

Let us consider briefly some subjectivist positions on how people understand their experience and their language.  Read more at location 3879

Meaning is private: Meaning is always a matter of what is meaningful and significant to a person. What an individual finds significant and what it means to him are matters of intuition, imagination, feeling, and individual experience.  Read more at location 3885

Experience is purely holistic: There is no natural structuring to our experience. Any structure that we or others place on our experience is completely artificial. Meanings have no natural structure: Meaning to an individual is a matter of his private feelings, experiences, intuitions, and values. These are purely holistic; they have no natural structure.  Read more at location 3888

Context is unstructured: The context needed for understanding an utterance—the physical, cultural, personal, and interpersonal context—has no natural structure. Meaning cannot be naturally or adequately represented: This is a consequence of the facts that meanings have no natural structure, that they can never be fully known or communicated to another person,  Read more at location 3893

****  These subjectivist positions all hinge on one basic assumption, namely, that experience has no natural structure and that, therefore, there can be no natural external constraints upon meaning and truth.  Read more at location 3897

I will not be able to fully and adequately communicate that meaning to you. However, metaphor provides a way of partially communicating unshared experiences, and it is the natural structure of our experience that makes this possible.  Read more at location 3902

29 The Experientialist Alternative: Giving New Meaning to the Old Myths 

What Experientialism Preserves of the Concerns That Motivate Objectivism 

********  Truth is always relative to understanding, which is based on a nonuniversal conceptual system. But this does not preclude satisfying the legitimate concerns about knowledge and impartiality that have motivated the myth of objectivism for centuries. Objectivity is still possible, but it takes on a new meaning. Objectivity still involves rising above individual bias, whether in matters of knowledge or value. But where objectivity is reasonable, it does not require an absolute, universally valid point of view. Being objective is always relative to a conceptual system and a set of cultural values.  Read more at location 3917

(Note: In the spirit of Kuhn)  According to the experientialist myth, scientific knowledge is still possible. But giving up the claim to absolute truth could make scientific practice more responsible, since there would be a general awareness that a scientific theory may hide as much as it highlights.  Read more at location 3923

What Experientialism Preserves of the Concerns That Motivate Subjectivism 

Meaning is not cut and dried; it is a matter of imagination and a matter of constructing coherence. The objectivist emphasis on achieving a universally valid point of view misses what is important, insightful, and coherent for the individual. The experientialist myth agrees that understanding does involve all of these elements. Its emphasis on interaction and interactional properties shows how meaning always is meaning to a person.  Read more at location 3930

30 Understanding 

The myth of objectivism reflects the human need to understand the external world in order to be able to function successfully in it. The myth of subjectivism is focused on internal aspects of understanding—what the individual finds meaningful and what makes his life worth living. The experientialist myth suggests that these are not opposing concerns. It offers a perspective from which both concerns can be met at once.  Read more at location 3942

****  (Note:   yes. Insightful)  Given a view of man as separate from his environment, successful functioning is conceived of as mastery over the environment. Hence, the objectivist metaphors KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and SCIENCE PROVIDES CONTROL OVER NATURE.  Read more at location 3946

******  Within the experientialist myth, understanding emerges from interaction, from constant negotiation with the environment and other people. It emerges in the following way: the nature of our bodies and our physical and cultural environment imposes a structure on our experience, in terms of natural dimensions  Read more at location 3954

From the experientialist perspective, truth depends on understanding, which emerges from functioning in the world. It is through such understanding that the experientialist alternative meets the objectivist’s need for an account of truth. It is through the coherent structuring of experience that the experientialist alternative satisfies the subjectivist’s need for personal meaning and significance.  Read more at location 3960

Interpersonal Communication and Mutual Understanding 

Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experience. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.  Read more at location 3978

When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and skill and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.  Read more at location 3983

******  (Note:  deep political thought, ties to his other writing)  Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUIT metaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products. Self-understanding  Read more at location 3986

Self-understanding seems prior to mutual understanding, and in some ways it is. But any really deep understanding of why we do what we do, feel what we feel, change as we change, and even believe what we believe, takes us beyond ourselves. Understanding of ourselves is not unlike other forms of understanding—it comes out of our constant interactions with our physical, cultural, and interpersonal environment. At a minimum, the skills required for mutual understanding are necessary even to approach self-understanding.  Read more at location 3993

A large part of self-understanding is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives.  Read more at location 4000

The experientialist approach to the process of self-understanding involves: Developing an awareness of the metaphors we live by and an awareness of where they enter into our everyday lives and where they do not Having experiences that can form the basis of alternative metaphors Developing an “experiential flexibility” Engaging in an unending process of viewing your life through new alternative metaphors

Ritual 

Each ritual is a repeated, coherently structured, and unified aspect of our experience. In performing them, we give structure and significance to our activities, minimizing chaos and disparity in our actions. In our terms, a ritual is one kind of experiential gestalt.  Read more at location 4014

We suggest that The metaphors we live by, whether cultural or personal, are partially preserved in ritual. Cultural metaphors, and the values entailed by them, are propagated by ritual. Ritual forms an indispensable part of the experiential basis for our cultural metaphorical systems. There can be no culture without ritual.  Read more at location 4027

*******   (Note:  insightful psycholog)  there can be no coherent view of the self without personal ritual (typically of the casual and spontaneously emerging sort). Just as our personal metaphors are not random but form systems coherent with our personalities, so our personal rituals are not random but are coherent with our view of the world and ourselves and with our system of personal metaphors and metonymies. Our implicit and typically unconscious conceptions of ourselves and the values that we live by are perhaps most strongly reflected in the little things we do over and over, that is, in the casual rituals that have emerged spontaneously in our daily lives.  Read more at location 4032

Aesthetic Experience 

****  conceptual structure is not merely a matter of the intellect—it involves all the natural dimensions of our experience, including aspects of our sense experiences: color, shape, texture, sound, etc. These dimensions structure not only mundane experience but aesthetic experience as well. Each art medium picks out certain dimensions of our experience and excludes others. Artworks provide new ways of structuring our experience in terms of these natural dimensions. Works of art provide new experiential gestalts and, therefore, new coherences. From the experientialist point of view, art is, in general, a matter of imaginative rationality and a means of creating new realities. Aesthetic experience is thus not limited to the official art world. It can occur in any aspect of our everyday lives—whenever we take note of, or create for ourselves, new coherences that are not part of our conventionalized mode of perception  Read more at location 4041

Politics 

We see the metaphorical concepts of FREEDOM, EQUALITY, SAFETY, ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE, POWER, etc., as being different ways of getting indirectly at issues of meaningful existence.  Read more at location 4049

A metaphor in a political or economic system, by virtue of what it hides, can lead to human degradation. Consider just one example: LABOR IS A RESOURCE. Most contemporary economic theories, whether capitalist or socialist, treat labor as a natural resource or commodity, on a par with raw materials, and speak in the same terms of its cost and supply. What is hidden by the metaphor is the nature of the labor. No distinction is made between meaningful labor and dehumanizing labor. For all of the labor statistics, there is none on meaningful labor.  Read more at location 4055

The exploitation of human beings through this metaphor is most obvious in countries that boast of “a virtually inexhaustible supply of cheap labor”—a neutral-sounding economic statement that hides the reality of human degradation. But virtually all major industrialized nations, whether capitalist or socialist, use the same metaphor in their economic theories and policies.  Read more at location 4061

Afterword  

metaphors are not merely things to be seen beyond. In fact, one can see beyond them only by using other metaphors. It is as though the ability to comprehend experience through metaphor were a sense, like seeing or touching or hearing, with metaphors providing the only ways to perceive and experience much of the world. Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.  Read more at location 4072

Afterword, 2003 

By bringing metaphorical thought into the limelight, this book revealed the need to rethink some of the most fundamental ideas in the study of mind: meaning, truth, the nature of thought, and the role of the body in the shaping of mind. As a result it had far-reaching implications in field after field—not just linguistics, cognitive science, and philosophy but also literary studies, politics, law, clinical psychology, religion, and even mathematics and the philosophy of science.  Read more at location 4100

Is your marriage a partnership, a journey through life together, a haven from the outside world, a means for growth, or a union of two people into a third entity? The choice among such common ways of conceptualizing marriage can determine what your marriage becomes. Drastic metaphorical differences can result in marital conflict. Take for example the case where one spouse views marriage as a partnership, and the other spouse views it as a haven. The responsibilities of a partnership may well be at odds with the relief from responsibilities characteristic of a haven.  Read more at location 4106

The heart of metaphor is inference. Conceptual metaphor allows inferences in sensory-motor domains (e.g., domains of space and objects) to be used to draw inferences about other domains (e.g., domains of subjective judgment, with concepts like intimacy, emotions, justice, and so on).  Read more at location 4115

Persistent Fallacies 

There are four major historical barriers to understanding the nature of metaphorical thought and its profundity, and these amount to four false views of metaphor.  Read more at location 4119

****  The first fallacy is that metaphor is a matter of words, not concepts. The second is that metaphor is based on similarity. The third is that all concepts are literal and that none can be metaphorical. The fourth is that rational thought is in no way shaped by the nature of our brains and bodies.  Read more at location 4120

research subsequent to this book has established conclusively that all four views are false. First, the locus of metaphor is in concepts not words. Second, metaphor is, in general, not based on similarity, as we argued throughout this book. Instead, it is typically based on cross-domain correlations in our experience, which give rise to the perceived similarities between the two domains within the metaphor. For example, the persistent use of a metaphor may create perceived similarities, as when a love relationship, conceived of metaphorically as a partnership, goes awry when responsibilities and benefits are not shared equally. Third, even our deepest and most abiding concepts—time, events, causation, morality, and mind itself—are understood and reasoned about via multiple metaphors. In each case, one conceptual domain (say, time) is reasoned about, as well as talked about, in terms of the conceptual structure of another domain (say, space). Fourth, the system of conceptual metaphors is not arbitrary or just historically contingent; rather, it is shaped to a significant extent by the common nature of our bodies and the shared ways that we all function in the everyday world.  Read more at location 4122

The single biggest obstacle to understanding our findings has been the refusal to recognize the conceptual nature of metaphor. The idea that metaphors are nothing but linguistic expressions—a mere matter of words—is such a common fallacy that it has kept many readers from even entertaining the idea that we think metaphorically.  Read more at location 4133

Evidence for Conceptual Metaphor 

Do we systematically use inference patterns from one conceptual domain to reason about another conceptual domain? The empirically established answer is “yes.” We call that phenomenon conceptual metaphor, and we call the systematic correspondences across such domains metaphorical mappings.  Read more at location 4148

Are those metaphorical mappings purely abstract and arbitrary? The empirical answer is “no.” They are shaped and constrained by our bodily experiences in the world, experiences in which the two conceptual domains are correlated and consequently establish mappings from one domain to another.  Read more at location 4151

Is all ordinary, conventionalized, everyday language literal, or can common everyday linguistic expressions be metaphorical? The answer is empirical: A great deal of everyday, conventional language is metaphorical, and the metaphorical meanings are given by conceptual metaphorical mappings that ultimately arise from correlations in our embodied experience.  Read more at location 4155

**********  (Note:  fundamental)  metaphor is a natural phenomenon. Conceptual metaphor is a natural part of human thought, and linguistic metaphor is a natural part of human language.  Read more at location 4158

In 1980 we had evidence for the theory of conceptual metaphor from only two areas of research: Systematic polysemy: In this area of research, entire lexical fields of words not only have literal meanings in a concrete domain but also have systematically related meanings in abstract domains. For example, up, down, rise, fall, high, low, hit bottom, and so on, are not only about verticality but also quantity.  Read more at location 4164

Generalizations over inference patterns: A fundamental finding here is that reasoning in abstract domains uses the logic of our sensory-motor experience.  Read more at location 4170

After twenty years of research by hundreds of investigators, vast bodies of empirical evidence for conceptual metaphor have been gathered from studies in a wide range of fields within the cognitive sciences.  Read more at location 4177

We now have at least seven other types of evidence derived from various empirical methods: 1. extensions to poetic and novel cases (Lakoff and Turner 1989) 2. psychological research, for example, priming studies (Gibbs 1994; Boroditzky 2000) 3. gesture studies (McNeill 1992) 4. historical semantic change research (Sweetser 1990) 5. discourse analysis (Narayanan 1997) 6. sign language analysis (Taub 1997) 7. language acquisition (C. Johnson 1999)  Read more at location 4179

Developments in Metaphor Theory 

By the early 1990s, a whole new level of metaphor analysis was discovered that we will call deep analysis. What we and other researchers found was that our most fundamental ideas—not just time, but events, causation, morality, the self, and so on—were almost entirely structured by elaborate systems of conceptual metaphor.  Read more at location 4193

****  Even the basic concepts of causation used in the physical and social sciences are primarily constituted by a system of nearly two dozen distinct metaphors, each with its own causal logic (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, chapter 11). Thus, causation can be conceptualized in terms of forced motion to a new location (as in, “Scientific developments have propelled us into the Digital Age”), the giving and taking of objects (“These vitamins will give you energy”), links (“Cancer has been linked to pesticide use”), motion along a path (“China is on the road to democracy, having taken the path of capitalism”), and so on. This discovery was particularly startling, even to us, because it challenged the widespread view that there is a single kind of causation with a single causal logic structuring the world. Deep analysis further revealed that our basic understanding of morality arises via conceptual metaphor.  Read more at location 4196

Since morality is concerned with well-being, whether one’s own or that of another, fundamental experiences concerning well-being give rise to conceptual metaphors for morality. People are better off in general if they are strong not weak; if they can stand upright rather than having to crawl; if they eat pure, not rotten, food; and so on. These correlations give rise to metaphors of morality as strength and immorality as weakness, morality as uprightness and immorality as being low, morality as purity and immorality as rot, and so on. Since you are better off if you have the things you need rather than if you don’t, there is a correlation of well-being with wealth.  Read more at location 4204

The deep analysis of morality has important implications for politics, as shown by Lakoff’s analysis of liberal and conservative worldviews on morality and politics. This analysis is based on two opposing models of the family, the nurturant parent and the strict father families (Lakoff 1996).  Read more at location 4212

Metaphor Composition In More Than Cool Reason (1989), Lakoff and Turner applied deep analysis to metaphors in complex poetic and literary texts. The analysis revealed an anatomy of imagination: new metaphorical ideas—that is, new ways of organizing and understanding experience—arise from the combination of simpler conceptual metaphors to form complex ones. Consequently, innovation and novelty are not miraculous; they do not come out of nowhere. They are built using the tools of everyday metaphorical thought, as well as other commonplace conceptual mechanisms.  Read more at location 4216

****  (Note:   interesting)  Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 uses three metaphors for a lifetime: a day, a year, and a fire. Lakoff and Turner note that these are composite metaphors made up of the following more basic metaphors: Life Is Light and Death Is Darkness, Life Is Heat and Death Is Cold, and A Lifetime Is a Cycle of Waxing and Waning.  Read more at location 4221

The term “reaper” is based on the metaphor of People as Plants: just as a reaper cuts down wheat with a scythe before it has gone through its life cycle, so the Grim Reaper comes with his scythe indicating a premature death. The metaphor of Death as Departure is also part of the myth of the Grim Reaper.  Read more at location 4225

Metaphors for Metaphor 

Every scientific theory is constructed by scientists—human beings who necessarily use the tools of the human mind. One of those tools is conceptual metaphor. When the scientific subject matter is metaphor itself, it should be no surprise that such an enterprise has to make use of metaphor, as it is embodied in the mind, to construct a scientific understanding of what metaphor is.  Read more at location 4234

We first saw conceptual metaphors as mappings in the mathematical sense, that is, as mappings across conceptual domains.  Read more at location 4237

However, the Mathematical Mapping metaphor proved to be inadequate in an important respect. Mathematical mappings do not create target entities, while conceptual metaphors often do.  Read more at location 4240

Many people in cultures around the world simply live their lives without being concerned about whether they are using their time efficiently. However, other cultures conceptualize time metaphorically as though it were a limited resource. The Time Is Money metaphor imposes on the time domain various aspects of resources. In doing so, it adds elements to the time domain, creating a new understanding of time.  Read more at location 4242

We accordingly adopted the Projection Metaphor, based on the image of an overhead projector. We saw a target domain as an initial slide on the projector and metaphorical projection as the process of laying another slide on top of the first one, adding the structure of the source to that of the target.  Read more at location 4247

In short, mappings tend to be partial, but the Projection metaphor doesn’t allow this.  Read more at location 4261

Thus, we needed to add to the Projection metaphor the ugly idea of target domain over-rides. The unfortunate principle behind this term is “Don’t map an element if it would give rise to a contradiction in the target domain.” (Lakoff 1993)  Read more at location 4263

Primary Metaphor and the Neural Theory

major advance in metaphor theory came in 1997 with fundamental insights by Joseph Grady (1997), Christopher Johnson (1997), and Srinivas Narayanan (1997).  Read more at location 4268

Grady showed that complex metaphors arise from primary metaphors that are directly grounded in the everyday experience that links our sensory-motor experience to the domain of our subjective judgments.  Read more at location 4272

Christopher Johnson has argued that children learn primary metaphors on the basis of the conflation of conceptual domains in everyday life. He studied how the Knowing Is Seeing metaphor develops, demonstrating that children first use “see” literally, that is, only about vision. Then there is a stage when seeing and knowing are conflated, when children say things like “See Daddy come in” or “See what I spilled”; seeing occurs together with knowing.  Read more at location 4275

Using computational techniques for neural modeling, Narayanan developed a theory in which conceptual metaphors are computed neurally via neural maps—neural circuitry linking the sensory-motor system with higher cortical areas. The terms map and mapping used here come from neuroscience. In the visual system of the brain, neurons project, that is, extend, from the retina to the primary visual cortex (V1), with neurons that are adjacent or nearby in the retina projecting to neurons that are adjacent or nearby in V1.  Read more at location 4280

Similarly, the motor cortex is said to contain a map of the body. Neuronal clusters throughout the body “project” (that is, are connected) to neuronal clusters in the motor cortex, with neuronal clusters adjacent or nearby on the body projecting to neuronal clusters adjacent to or nearby the corresponding clusters in the motor cortex.  Read more at location 4285

******  (Note:  fascinating neural link between embodiment and abstraction)  The maps or mappings are physical links: neural circuitry linking neuronal clusters called nodes. The domains are highly structured neural ensembles in different regions of the brain. The neural maps are learned via neural recruitment, the long-term potentiation of neurons connected to the source and target neural ensembles that are coactive during Johnson’s period of conflation. (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, chapter 4.) This neural learning mechanism produces a stable, conventional system of primary metaphors that tend to remain in place indefinitely within the conceptual system and are independent of language.  Read more at location 4289

************  the metaphor Affection Is Warmth (as in, “He’s a warm person.” or “She’s a block of ice.“) arises from the common experience of a child being held affectionately by a parent; here, affection occurs together with warmth. In Johnson’s terms, they are conflated. There is neuronal activation occurring simultaneously in two separate parts of the brain: those devoted to emotions and those devoted to temperature. As the saying goes in neuroscience, “Neurons that fire together wire together.” Appropriate neural connections between the brain regions are recruited. These connections physically constitute the Affection Is Warmth metaphor. Metaphor is a neural phenomenon.  Read more at location 4294

****  Primary metaphors arise spontaneously and automatically without our being aware of them. There are hundreds of such primary conceptual metaphors, most of them learned unconsciously and automatically in childhood simply by functioning in the everyday world with a human body and brain.  Read more at location 4301

You don’t have a choice as to whether to think metaphorically. Because metaphorical maps are part of our brains, we will think and speak metaphorically whether we want to or not.  Read more at location 4304

The Neural Basis of Metaphorical Thought 

we can carry out metaphorical enactments—forms of imagination in which abstract reasoning is governed by sensory-motor enactments unfolding in real time and in real contexts.  Read more at location 4318

target domain enactments can be governed by multiple metaphors. This explains why there are complex metaphorical sentences like I’ve fallen in love, but we seem to be going in different directions. Here a number of metaphors structure the enactment: Lack of Control Is Down, as with “fall”; States Are Locations, as with “in love”; Changes Are Motions, as when falling in love is characterized as a change to a new state; and Love Is A Journey, as when lovers may be “going in different directions.”  Read more at location 4320

*****  Metaphors are learned when two experiences occur at once.  Read more at location 4328

Neurally, contradictions are mutual inhibitions.  Read more at location 4330

Locating the theory of metaphor within the Neural Theory of Language has a number of advantages: —We gain an explanation via embodiment for how primary metaphors are learned: universal primary metaphors arise from universal primary experiences. —We gain an explanation for why metaphorical thought exists and why it is normal and inescapable: the regular co-activation of two domains results in the recruitment of neural circuitry linking them. —No theory of overrides is needed. —Metaphors fit naturally with the rest of the Neural Theory of Language. —Neural enactment provides a mechanism for characterizing the dynamic use of metaphor in context and in discourse. —Since the Neural Theory of Language comes with explicit computational models, there is an explicit computational account of how metaphors operate dynamically.

Metaphor and Dynamic Enactment 

In his modeling of economic discourse (1997), Narayanan took up sentences like, France fell into a recession and Germany pulled it out. Here a number of conceptual metaphors and a metonymy are at work. Metaphors: Nations Are People; Economies Are Entities That Move Forward Over Time, up or down; A Recession Is A Hole; Economic Force Is The Use Of Money. Metonymy: A Nation Stands For Its Economy. For example, “France” stands for the French economy.  Read more at location 4351

Enactment and Blending 

Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner (2002) have developed a theory of blended spaces that, though different in scope and intent, overlaps in important ways with certain aspects of the Neural Theory of Language. Blending theory takes for granted all of the static, longterm conceptual structure that is used in enactment.  Read more at location 4365

Blending theory makes use of Fauconnier’s theory of Mental Spaces, relatively small mental models of particular situations that have been structured by the concepts in our conceptual systems. A blended space is a mental space that imaginatively combines elements of at least two other mental spaces that are structured by our ordinary long-term conceptual system. Here is a simple example of a blend that recently appeared on TV: a Jewish pizza.  Read more at location 4372

The Neural Theory of Language also focuses on conceptual integration. In addition, it seeks a precise, overall computational neural account of language as a whole and of the ideas expressed by language.  Read more at location 4408

********  (Note: interesting & noteworthy alterations)  Some Corrections and Clarifications 

****  The division of metaphors into three types—orientational, ontological, and structural—was artificial. All metaphors are structural (in that they map structures to structures); all are ontological (in that they create target domain entities); and many are orientational (in that they map orientational image-schemas).  Read more at location 4415

****  some of our analyses were incomplete. This was evident, for example, in our analysis of Argument Is War. Many readers have correctly observed that most people learn about argument before they learn about war. The metaphor actually originates in childhood with the primary metaphor Argument Is Struggle.  Read more at location 4418

*********  Here is the basic distinction: In a metaphor; there are two domains: the target domain, which is constituted by the immediate subject matter, and the source domain, in which important metaphorical reasoning takes place and that provides the source concepts used in that reasoning.  Read more at location 4424

In a metonymy, there is only one domain: the immediate subject matter. There is only one mapping; typically the metonymic source maps to the metonymic target (the referent) so that one item in the domain can stand for the other.  Read more at location 4429

Thus there can be a Time-For-Distance metonymy, as in:      

(Metonymy) San Francisco is a half hour from Berkeley. Here the time (a half hour) stands metonymically for the distance. Notice that the time is from the Time domain and the distance is from the Space domain. This is a mapping of an element from one domain to an element of another. It is a metonymy, not a metaphor, because the two domains are part of a single, literal frame and because there is a single mapping, not a multiple mapping.  Read more at location 4438

correlation in experience between time and location, as in:        

(Metaphor) Chanukah is close to Christmas. In the metaphor, Time is the target domain and Space is the source domain.  Read more at location 4444

Applications of Metaphor Theory 

researchers in fields as diverse as literary theory, legal studies, linguistics, and the philosophy of science have made exciting applications of the theory. They have identified conceptual metaphors at the heart of poetry, law, politics, psychology, physics, computer science, mathematics, and philosophy.  Read more at location 4455

Politics, Law, and Social Issues.

Legal theorist Steven Winter has written extensively in law review articles and in a major book, A Clearing in the Forest (2001), about the central role of metaphor in legal reasoning.  Read more at location 4468

Psychology. 

Cognitive psychology is dominated by the old idea that concepts are all literal and disembodied. The literature on metaphor theory provides overwhelming evidence against that view and opens the possibility for a much more interesting cognitive psychology, which to some extent already exists (Gibbs 1994).  Read more at location 4485

The promise of metaphor theory for clinical psychology is enormous. We now know enough of our unconscious metaphor systems to reveal how they affect our lives as individuals and what personal metaphors we have developed over our lifetimes to make sense of our lives. We also know what basic metaphors there are for marriage and love and how spouses may differ in their metaphors.  Read more at location 4489

Mathematics.

Lakoff and Nunez have shown that mathematics too is metaphorical through and through (2000). Take the number line. Numbers don’t have to be points on a line. It is a metaphor that Numbers Are Points on a Line, just as it is a metaphor that Numbers Are Sets, which is used in the set-theoretical foundations for mathematics developed in the late nineteenth century. Where Mathematics Comes From, by Lakoff and Núñez (2000), is a massive study of the metaphorical structure of mathematics, from arithmetic to set theory and logic, to forms of infinity, to classical advanced mathematics.  Read more at location 4496

********  Mathematics turns out not to be a disembodied, literal, objective feature of the universe but rather an embodied, largely metaphorical, stable intellectual edifice constructed by human beings with human brains living in our physical world. Cognitive Lingustics.  Read more at location 4500

Other central developments in cognitive linguistics include: 1. the semantics of closed-class elements such as spatial relations (Talmy 2000) 2. studies of category structure, including basic-level categories, prototypes, and radial categories (Lakoff 1987) 3. mental spaces (Fauconnier 1985; Fauconnier and Sweetser 1996) 4. frame semantics (Fillmore 1982, 1985; Sweetser 1990) 5. blended spaces (Fauconnier and Turner 1998, 2002) 6. cognitive grammar (Langacker 1986, 1990, 1991) 7. cognitive construction grammar (Goldberg 1995; Lakoff 1987, Case Study 3).  Read more at location 4506

Philosophy. 

the facts of conceptual metaphor theory are incompatible with many major assumptions of Western philosophy: it is just not true that all thought is conscious, literal, and disembodied.  Read more at location 4521

we have struggled to figure out what philosophy would look like if we started with the empirical results from embodied cognitive science about the mind and language and reconstructed philosophy anew. The results of these labors are presented in Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), which is a broad and deep rethinking of the nature of: • truth and science; • basic philosophical concepts such as time, events, causation, the mind, the self, morality, being and essence; • the metaphorical structure that defines the fundamental forms of reason used by great philosophers from the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle, to Descartes and Kant, to contemporary analytic philosophers such as Quine; • the consequences for a new view of what a human being is, what religion and spiritual experience are, and what the job of philosophy itself is. Summary  Read more at location 4522

most of the key ideas in this book have been either sustained or developed further by recent empirical research in cognitive linguistics and in cognitive science generally.  Read more at location 4532

***********  (Note:   key premises of book)  key ideas are the following:

—Metaphors are fundamentally conceptual in nature; metaphorical language is secondary.

—Conceptual metaphors are grounded in everyday experience.

—Abstract thought is largely, though not entirely, metaphorical.

—Metaphorical thought is unavoidable, ubiquitous, and mostly unconscious.

—Abstract concepts have a literal core but are extended by metaphors, often by many mutually inconsistent metaphors.

—Abstract concepts are not complete without metaphors. For example, love is not love without metaphors of magic, attraction, madness, union, nurturance, and so on.

—Our conceptual systems are not consistent overall, since the metaphors used to reason about concepts may be inconsistent. —We live our lives on the basis of inferences we derive via metaphor. The Present Situation  Read more at location 4534

our basic claims have nonetheless met resistance for an obvious reason: they are inconsistent with assumptions that many people in the academic world and elsewhere first learned and that shaped the research agendas they still pursue.  Read more at location 4547

claims strike at the heart of centuries-old assumptions about the nature of meaning, thought, and language.  Read more at location 4550

****  the key sticking point is the existence of conceptual metaphor. If conceptual metaphors are real, then all literalist and objectivist views of meaning and knowledge are false.  Read more at location 4553

what we have discovered is fundamentally at odds with certain key tenets of postmodernist thought, especially those that claim that meaning is ungrounded and simply an arbitrary cultural construction. What has been discovered about primary metaphor, for example, simply does not bear this out. There appear to be both universal metaphors and cultural variation.  Read more at location 4556