Metaphor Theory

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Many years ago I was browsing in a used book store and came across “Human Evolution Coloring Book”. I bought the book because I had never studied such matters and I thought this might be as good a beginning as any. Basically the book encouraged the reader to use colored pencils as a means to trace the anatomical evidence for evolution.

Years later I began to wonder about how the faculty of reason developed through evolution. Surely one should be able to find the evidence of a budding faculty of reason being formed just as gill slits or fins (I forget which) can be identified as a source as evolution modified “old” structures to create “new” ones–the human hand.

Last year I discovered “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson. Lakoff is a Professor of Linguistics and Johnson is a Professor of Philosophy. The authors of this book write a clear and detailed explanation of metaphor theory. This theory, I think, will become the first paradigm for Cognitive Science. This is truly a revolutionary theory. If it does become a first paradigm for cognitive science it will change many of our fundamental concepts of human nature.

Metaphor theory, constructed from hypothesis verified by empirical data, has three major empirical findings. 1) The mind is inherently embodied. 2) Thought is mostly unconscious. 3) Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

There is adequate empirical evidence to support the following:

  1. We have neural networks that control our movement and perception in space.
  2. These networks contain neural groupings that are capable of accomplishing inference and conception.
  3. All of these motor-sensory networks are fixed in brain spaces and are part of our legacy at birth.
  4. We unconsciously create and fill spaces in the brain when we conceive beliefs (the social sciences seem to use belief to represent ideas, thoughts, beliefs, etc. when we do not wish to argue over the word used).
  5. Space A can unconsciously connect with space B and ‘map’ neural ‘logic’ between spaces.

All creatures categorize; friend/enemy, eat/not eat, etc. The categories we form are part of our experience. Formation and use of categories is the essence of being for all creatures. Concepts are neural structures that occupy brain spaces and allow us to do things with categories. Often we envision categories using a space metaphor. The space metaphor is a container. A great deal of the functioning of any creature uses the container prototype. We experience the world unconsciously using the container prototype and thus have a great deal of accumulated ‘wisdom’ about such matters and it is this ‘wisdom’ that becomes our “primary metaphors”

“An embodied concept is a neural structure that is actually part of, or makes use of, the sensorimotor system of our brains. Much of conceptual inference is, therefore, sensorimotor inference.”

All creatures have, by way of their sensorimotor neural network, some capacity to conceive and to infer.

When metaphor theory speaks of “metaphor” it is generally speaking of a brain phenomena wherein the “reasoning” and “logic” content of space A is unconsciously mapped onto space B such that the concept in B has attached to it the inference and logic patterns of the space A. When space A happens to be a primary experience then A is called a primary metaphor. Space A can pass to B and B to C etc. You can see that all concepts are thus ‘grounded’ in experience.

A good essay of the theory is contained at ac.wwu.edu/~market/semiotic/lkof_met.html

I would be interested in reading the impression that this theory has had in philosophy circles. If those who are acquainted would give me an idea of your judgement regarding this theory I would appreciate it. I know enough about this theory to understand it but I am not capable enough to defend the theory.

Chuck

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First of all, I apologize in replying because I’m not really acquainted with the theory having read only it’s introduction. The rest I intend to follow up as time permits.

Nevertheless, the subject is of interest! I often thought of metaphor as a type of organic perception which modulates the linguistic into what is actually felt by an organism when it attempts to communicate it’s ‘sub-currents’ of experience using words to denote variables of that experience. The harmonics of metaphor however are not always explicitly perceived by it’s recipient which exists only for that purpose by whatever means it is conveyed. For me metaphor exists as an all-inclusive frontier modulating initial experiences beyond syntax into forms which are no-longer merely grammatical. It is the music by which genius aligns itself forging relationships as if they were fugues in a quartet one string inflecting the other.

The description of metaphor as a ‘container prototype’ is not in the least strange to me. I usually think of it as interacting subsets of the experiential however tenous or overt to modify the purly linguistic into an actual experience by linguistic means. Of course, all it’s inflections are induced by brain chemistry; nevertheless, metaphor becomes in that sense a transcendent function expressing as it must a cohesion greater than the sum of it’s parts if it is to endorse the true nature of the experience into it’s ‘affective’ mode for subsequent discovery. Sometimes a metaphor is an achievement which leads to a verifiable conclusion but it’s the ‘poetry’ of the unconscious which heralds it.

Anyways, I’ll stop now! Sorry if I’ve become incomprehensible and breached the ramparts of metaphor. Obviously, I’m not too stringently theoretical or empirical on the subject but I still plan to read the rest of the essay which is of great interest based on subject and from what I’ve read in the introduction.

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Monad

A typical metaphor takes the form of a statement “A is B”. “Joseph is a fruitful bough.” Everybody, when hearing a metaphor, understands that Joseph is a man and not a fruitful bough’. There are two sides to our standard understanding of metaphor, we know ‘Joseph’ is a subject and ‘bough’ is an object, but the metaphor implies there is no sharp distinction between subject and object.

A metaphor is not a logical statement, but neither is it antilogical. It is counterlogical; we are introduced into a world where separation no longer exists in the same way.

Before cognitive science introduced metaphor theory we considered metaphor to be something similar to telling someone to use the general logic of “A” to understand “B”. The listener could then refer to all that s/he understood about “A” as a means to create a quick understanding of “B”. In this way the listener did not have to go through the whole process of working up her own understanding of “B”.

Metaphor theory claims that this “A is B” happens automatically and unconsciously in some circumstances. This theory claims that many of the things learned in experience become the metaphors that form the foundation for much of the concrete and abstract conceptions one has throughout life. An infant experiences warmth when first embraced by the mother this “W” becomes a primary metaphor for creating the abstract concept of “A” (affection) and “A is W” for the rest of that life.

One could perhaps examine a recent concept, for example patriotism and somewhere in that mental space of ‘patriotism’ you will find some form of the logic associated with the experience of warmth. This logic I speak of is the logic inherent in sensory and mobility component of the neural network configuration.

Chuck

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With what insights i’ve personally gathered about minds this sounds very realistic to me.

I’d like to say, though, that I’m not a materialist.

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Inhahe

Would you elaborate please? You find this idea to be realistic but indicate it does not serve your understanding of reality. I do not understand.

Chuck

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i’m not sure if the book implies materialism but if it does i didn’t want to be confused with materialists. i agree with its statements about the way we think generally but maybe not with their absolute notions about it being materially based. like 'Concepts are neural structures ’ < - i have a problem with that particular statement.

‘The space metaphor is a container.’ ← i agree with this statement.

A great deal of the functioning of any creature uses the container prototype. We experience the world unconsciously using the container prototype and thus have a great deal of accumulated ‘wisdom’ about such matters and it is this ‘wisdom’ that becomes our “primary metaphors”

that sounds very realistic.

'When metaphor theory speaks of “metaphor” it is generally speaking of a brain phenomena wherein the “reasoning” and “logic” content of space A is unconsciously mapped onto space B such that the concept in B has attached to it the inference and logic patterns of the space A. When space A happens to be a primary experience then A is called a primary metaphor. Space A can pass to B and B to C etc. You can see that all concepts are thus ‘grounded’ in experience.
’

i don’t think that’s completely true, i think the experience provides the orientaiton for access of The All, or the interpretation of the experience is colored by a whole world of consciousness, but i believe there are probably first concepts and that further more sophisticated concepts are all based on metaphors of first concepts. and that the first concepts are whatever concepts you learned first, including those we’re genetically suited for… although there may be another set of first concepts, which aren’t concepts but some kind of precepts, which are what we know as spirits.

the A->B->C idea is basically something i’ve already noticed myself.

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Inhahe

The book absolutly takes what I construe to be a materialistic view. If you take exception with the view that “concepts are neural structures” what does that mean. I wish you could tell me what your view of the nature of concepts might be that is different from the book.

Chuck