George Lakoff
'''George P. Lakoff''' is a professor of Free ringtones linguistics (in particular, Majo Mills cognitive linguistics) at the Mosquito ringtone University of California, Berkeley where he has taught since Sabrina Martins 1972. Although some of his research involves questions traditionally pursued by linguists, such as the conditions under which a certain linguistic construction is grammatically viable, he is most famous for his ideas about the centrality of Nextel ringtones conceptual metaphor/metaphor to human thinking and society, as well as unorthodox views of the scientific process, and its central position in the culture of developed countries as an assumed neutral point of view. He is particularly famous for his concept of the "Abbey Diaz embodied philosophy/embodied mind". In recent years he has applied his work to the realm of Free ringtones politics, and founded a Majo Mills Progressivism / progressive Mosquito ringtone think tank, the http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org.
The reappraisal of metaphor
Lakoff's original thesis on Sabrina Martins conceptual metaphor was expressed in his book with Cingular Ringtones Mark Johnson (professor)/Mark Johnson entitled ''prevention theory Metaphors We Live By'' in 1980.
Metaphor has been seen within the Western scientific tradition as purely a linguistic construction. The essential thrust of Lakoff's work has been the argument that metaphors are primarily a conceptual construction, and indeed are central to the development of thought. He says "''Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.''" Non-metaphorical thought is for Lakoff only possible when we talk about purely physical reality. For Lakoff the greater the level of abstraction the more layers of metaphor are required to express it. People do not notice these metaphors for various reasons. One reason is that some metaphors become 'dead' and we no longer recognise their origin. Another reason is that we just don't ''see'' what is ''going on''.
For instance, in intellectual debate the underlying metaphor is usually that argument is war:
*He ''won'' the argument
*Your claims are ''indefensible''
*He ''shot down'' all my arguments
*His criticisms were ''right on target''
*If you use that ''strategy'', he'll ''wipe you out''
For Lakoff, the development of thought has been the process of developing better metaphors. The application of one domain of knowledge to another domain of knowledge, thus offering new perceptions and understandings.
Lakoff's theory has major consequences if correct. It points to the complete re-evaluation of the entire Western philosophical and scientific traditions. It has applications throughtout all academic disciplines and indeed within all society. Lakoff has sought to explore the full consequences of this view in his later works.
About the embodied mind
When Lakoff claims the mind is "embodied", he is arguing that almost
all of human cognition, up through the most abstract reasoning,
depends on and makes use of such concrete and "low-level" facilities
as the sensorimotor system and the emotions. Therefore embodiment is a
rejection not only of dualism vis-a-vis mind and matter, but also of
claims that human reason can be basically understood without reference
to the underlying "implementation details".
Lakoff is, with cheered islam Rafael E. Núñez, the primary proponent of the embodied mind thesis.
Lakoff offers three complementary but distinct sorts of arguments in
favor of embodiment. First, using evidence from sullivan norman neuroscience and
fifth combination neural network simulations, he argues that certain concepts, such
as color and spatial relation concepts (e.g. "red" or "over"), can be almost entirely understood through the examination of how processes of perception or motor control work.
Second, based on until july cognitive linguistics' analysis of figurative
language, he argues that the reasoning we use for such abstract topics
as warfare, economics, or morality is somehow rooted in the reasoning
we use for such mundane topics as spatial relationships. (See
including ira conceptual metaphor.)
Finally, based on research an plum cognitive psychology and some
investigations in the replicate century philosophy of language, he argues that very
few of the categories used by humans are actually of the black and
white type amenable to analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions. On the contrary, most categories are supposed to be much
more complicated and messy, just like our bodies.
"We are neural beings," Lakoff states, "Our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything - only what our embodied brains permit."
A criticism of Lakoff would be that he writes as if he has discovered something unique with the concept of the embodied mind. However, a number of thinkers have considered the mind to be 'embodied', and his argument would be stronger if he referenced their ideas. Physicist our viewing David Bohm made a similar argument for embodiment in ''Thought As A System''. pictures mediocre John Grinder and ranch land Richard Bandler articulated this view in response reflected Neuro-linguistic programming.
Controversial extensions to the embodied mind thesis
Many scientists share the belief that there are problems with a misspelling falsifiability and that erstad foundation ontology/foundation ontologies purporting to describe "what exists", to a sufficient degree of rigor to establish a commission with reasonable method of disprove that empirical validation. But Lakoff seems to discard both claims entirely:
In particular, he asserts, in an idiosyncratic claim extending those published in "The Embodied Mind", that falsifiability itself can never be established by any reasonable method that would not rely ultimately on a shared item anywhere human bias - that mathematics itself is subjective to the human species and its cultures: thus "any question of math's being inherent in physical reality is moot, since there is no way to know whether or not it is."
Lakoff on mathematics
Lakoff argues that the best way to understand what
collected such mathematics/mathematical and reputable manufacturers philosophy/philosophical ideas
are really about is to consider them in light of the structure of the
embodied mind. Therefore, the plan she philosophy of mathematics ought to look to the current scientific consensus understanding of the human body as a foundation ontology - abandoning self-referential attempts to ground the operational components of mathematics in anything other than "meat". This has generated some controversy. It is as yet unclear whether philosophers not so mathematically inclined are terribly interested in or bothered by Lakoff.
As an example of a controversial Lakovian idea in this vein is that, when considering the significance of mathematics, we should remain agnostic about whether math is some how wrapped up with the very nature of the universe. Early in 2001 Lakoff told the American Association for the Advancement of Science/AAAS, ''"Mathematics may or may not be out there in the world, but there's no way that we scientifically could possibly tell."'' This claim bothers a number of people, some because they think there really is a way we could "tell", others, presumably, because it implies that mathematics involves a good deal less certainty than one might expect.
The falsifiability of this claim is itself a central question in the cognitive science of mathematics, a field which attempts to establish a foundation ontology based on the human cognitive and scientific process.
Political significance and involvement
Lakoff's "application of cognitive linguistics to politics, literature, philosophy and mathematics" has led him into territory normally considered basic to political science.
Lakoff has publicly expressed both ideas about the conceptual structures that he views as central to understanding the political process and some of his particular political views. He almost always discusses the latter in terms of the former.
''Moral Politics'' gives book-length consideration to the conceptual metaphors that Lakoff sees as present in the minds of American "liberals" and "conservatives". Lakoff makes an attempt to keep his personal views confined to one particular section near the book's close. It is not entirely clear whether this work is more relevant to cognitive science or to political analysis.
Lakoff argues that progressives are concerned with what he called "nurturant values" associated with responsibility and empathy, whereas conservatives are concerned with individualism and order. Although the thesis was not new, and had been raised also by Jane Jacobs in her "Systems of Survival", Lakoff claimed that it was strongly influencing U. S. federal politics, to the point where identical policies were rationalized in two different ways for audiences of different interest groups. And, in claims remniscent of George Orwell, that English usage in late-20th-century politics reflected a deliberate attempt by "the right" to impose its views by repeating idioms and altering terms of reference in debate.
Lakoff has distributed some much briefer political analyses via the Internet. One article distributed this way is "Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf", in which Lakoff argues that the particular conceptual metaphors used by the first George H. W. Bush/Bush administration to justify American involvement in the Gulf ended up either obscuring reality, or putting a handy conservative spin on the facts. Presumably it is contributions such as this that have helped endear Lakoff to some political activists with little interest in theories of the mind.
In recent years, Lakoff has become involved with a progressive think tank, the http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org, an involvement which follows in part from his recommendations in ''Moral Politics''. Among his activities with the Institute, which concentrates in part on helping liberal candidates and politicians with re-framing political metaphors, Lakoff has given numerous public lectures and written accounts of his message from ''Moral Politics.'' His latest political work, ''Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate'', self-labeled as "the Essential Guide for Progressives," was published in September 2004 and features a foreword by former United States Democratic Party/Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
Comparison to other thinkers/schools
* Noam Chomsky
* The idea of an "empirically responsible philosophy"
* Natural language processing also articulates in its own way the concept of the embodied mind.
Published books
* George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. ''Metaphors We Live By.'' University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* George Lakoff and Mark Turner. ''More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor'' University of Chicago Press, 1989.
* George Lakoff. ''Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind'' University of Chicago Press, 1987.
* George Lakoff. ''Moral Politics.'' University of Chicago Press, 1996. (''Moral Politics'' has been published with two different subtitles. See the article about it for more information.)
* George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. ''Philosophy In The Flesh: the Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought.'' Basic Books, 1999.
* George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez. ''Where Mathematics Comes From/Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being.'' Basic Books, 2000.
* George Lakoff. ''http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/elephant'' Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004.
See also
* Cognitive linguistics
* metaphor
* conceptual metaphor
* Metonymy
* Cognitive science of mathematics
* Embodied philosophy
* embodiment
External links
*http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/people/facpages/lakoffg.html
*http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/lakoff.html
*http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Lakoff_Gulf_Metaphor_1.html
*http://www.alternet.org/story/15414
*http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/
Tag: Linguists/Lakoff, George
Tag: American linguists/Lakoff, George
The reappraisal of metaphor
Lakoff's original thesis on Sabrina Martins conceptual metaphor was expressed in his book with Cingular Ringtones Mark Johnson (professor)/Mark Johnson entitled ''prevention theory Metaphors We Live By'' in 1980.
Metaphor has been seen within the Western scientific tradition as purely a linguistic construction. The essential thrust of Lakoff's work has been the argument that metaphors are primarily a conceptual construction, and indeed are central to the development of thought. He says "''Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.''" Non-metaphorical thought is for Lakoff only possible when we talk about purely physical reality. For Lakoff the greater the level of abstraction the more layers of metaphor are required to express it. People do not notice these metaphors for various reasons. One reason is that some metaphors become 'dead' and we no longer recognise their origin. Another reason is that we just don't ''see'' what is ''going on''.
For instance, in intellectual debate the underlying metaphor is usually that argument is war:
*He ''won'' the argument
*Your claims are ''indefensible''
*He ''shot down'' all my arguments
*His criticisms were ''right on target''
*If you use that ''strategy'', he'll ''wipe you out''
For Lakoff, the development of thought has been the process of developing better metaphors. The application of one domain of knowledge to another domain of knowledge, thus offering new perceptions and understandings.
Lakoff's theory has major consequences if correct. It points to the complete re-evaluation of the entire Western philosophical and scientific traditions. It has applications throughtout all academic disciplines and indeed within all society. Lakoff has sought to explore the full consequences of this view in his later works.
About the embodied mind
When Lakoff claims the mind is "embodied", he is arguing that almost
all of human cognition, up through the most abstract reasoning,
depends on and makes use of such concrete and "low-level" facilities
as the sensorimotor system and the emotions. Therefore embodiment is a
rejection not only of dualism vis-a-vis mind and matter, but also of
claims that human reason can be basically understood without reference
to the underlying "implementation details".
Lakoff is, with cheered islam Rafael E. Núñez, the primary proponent of the embodied mind thesis.
Lakoff offers three complementary but distinct sorts of arguments in
favor of embodiment. First, using evidence from sullivan norman neuroscience and
fifth combination neural network simulations, he argues that certain concepts, such
as color and spatial relation concepts (e.g. "red" or "over"), can be almost entirely understood through the examination of how processes of perception or motor control work.
Second, based on until july cognitive linguistics' analysis of figurative
language, he argues that the reasoning we use for such abstract topics
as warfare, economics, or morality is somehow rooted in the reasoning
we use for such mundane topics as spatial relationships. (See
including ira conceptual metaphor.)
Finally, based on research an plum cognitive psychology and some
investigations in the replicate century philosophy of language, he argues that very
few of the categories used by humans are actually of the black and
white type amenable to analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions. On the contrary, most categories are supposed to be much
more complicated and messy, just like our bodies.
"We are neural beings," Lakoff states, "Our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything - only what our embodied brains permit."
A criticism of Lakoff would be that he writes as if he has discovered something unique with the concept of the embodied mind. However, a number of thinkers have considered the mind to be 'embodied', and his argument would be stronger if he referenced their ideas. Physicist our viewing David Bohm made a similar argument for embodiment in ''Thought As A System''. pictures mediocre John Grinder and ranch land Richard Bandler articulated this view in response reflected Neuro-linguistic programming.
Controversial extensions to the embodied mind thesis
Many scientists share the belief that there are problems with a misspelling falsifiability and that erstad foundation ontology/foundation ontologies purporting to describe "what exists", to a sufficient degree of rigor to establish a commission with reasonable method of disprove that empirical validation. But Lakoff seems to discard both claims entirely:
In particular, he asserts, in an idiosyncratic claim extending those published in "The Embodied Mind", that falsifiability itself can never be established by any reasonable method that would not rely ultimately on a shared item anywhere human bias - that mathematics itself is subjective to the human species and its cultures: thus "any question of math's being inherent in physical reality is moot, since there is no way to know whether or not it is."
Lakoff on mathematics
Lakoff argues that the best way to understand what
collected such mathematics/mathematical and reputable manufacturers philosophy/philosophical ideas
are really about is to consider them in light of the structure of the
embodied mind. Therefore, the plan she philosophy of mathematics ought to look to the current scientific consensus understanding of the human body as a foundation ontology - abandoning self-referential attempts to ground the operational components of mathematics in anything other than "meat". This has generated some controversy. It is as yet unclear whether philosophers not so mathematically inclined are terribly interested in or bothered by Lakoff.
As an example of a controversial Lakovian idea in this vein is that, when considering the significance of mathematics, we should remain agnostic about whether math is some how wrapped up with the very nature of the universe. Early in 2001 Lakoff told the American Association for the Advancement of Science/AAAS, ''"Mathematics may or may not be out there in the world, but there's no way that we scientifically could possibly tell."'' This claim bothers a number of people, some because they think there really is a way we could "tell", others, presumably, because it implies that mathematics involves a good deal less certainty than one might expect.
The falsifiability of this claim is itself a central question in the cognitive science of mathematics, a field which attempts to establish a foundation ontology based on the human cognitive and scientific process.
Political significance and involvement
Lakoff's "application of cognitive linguistics to politics, literature, philosophy and mathematics" has led him into territory normally considered basic to political science.
Lakoff has publicly expressed both ideas about the conceptual structures that he views as central to understanding the political process and some of his particular political views. He almost always discusses the latter in terms of the former.
''Moral Politics'' gives book-length consideration to the conceptual metaphors that Lakoff sees as present in the minds of American "liberals" and "conservatives". Lakoff makes an attempt to keep his personal views confined to one particular section near the book's close. It is not entirely clear whether this work is more relevant to cognitive science or to political analysis.
Lakoff argues that progressives are concerned with what he called "nurturant values" associated with responsibility and empathy, whereas conservatives are concerned with individualism and order. Although the thesis was not new, and had been raised also by Jane Jacobs in her "Systems of Survival", Lakoff claimed that it was strongly influencing U. S. federal politics, to the point where identical policies were rationalized in two different ways for audiences of different interest groups. And, in claims remniscent of George Orwell, that English usage in late-20th-century politics reflected a deliberate attempt by "the right" to impose its views by repeating idioms and altering terms of reference in debate.
Lakoff has distributed some much briefer political analyses via the Internet. One article distributed this way is "Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf", in which Lakoff argues that the particular conceptual metaphors used by the first George H. W. Bush/Bush administration to justify American involvement in the Gulf ended up either obscuring reality, or putting a handy conservative spin on the facts. Presumably it is contributions such as this that have helped endear Lakoff to some political activists with little interest in theories of the mind.
In recent years, Lakoff has become involved with a progressive think tank, the http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org, an involvement which follows in part from his recommendations in ''Moral Politics''. Among his activities with the Institute, which concentrates in part on helping liberal candidates and politicians with re-framing political metaphors, Lakoff has given numerous public lectures and written accounts of his message from ''Moral Politics.'' His latest political work, ''Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate'', self-labeled as "the Essential Guide for Progressives," was published in September 2004 and features a foreword by former United States Democratic Party/Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
Comparison to other thinkers/schools
* Noam Chomsky
* The idea of an "empirically responsible philosophy"
* Natural language processing also articulates in its own way the concept of the embodied mind.
Published books
* George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. ''Metaphors We Live By.'' University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* George Lakoff and Mark Turner. ''More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor'' University of Chicago Press, 1989.
* George Lakoff. ''Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind'' University of Chicago Press, 1987.
* George Lakoff. ''Moral Politics.'' University of Chicago Press, 1996. (''Moral Politics'' has been published with two different subtitles. See the article about it for more information.)
* George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. ''Philosophy In The Flesh: the Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought.'' Basic Books, 1999.
* George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez. ''Where Mathematics Comes From/Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being.'' Basic Books, 2000.
* George Lakoff. ''http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/elephant'' Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004.
See also
* Cognitive linguistics
* metaphor
* conceptual metaphor
* Metonymy
* Cognitive science of mathematics
* Embodied philosophy
* embodiment
External links
*http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/people/facpages/lakoffg.html
*http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/lakoff.html
*http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Lakoff_Gulf_Metaphor_1.html
*http://www.alternet.org/story/15414
*http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/
Tag: Linguists/Lakoff, George
Tag: American linguists/Lakoff, George
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