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Title: Metaphors We Live by by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson ISBN: 0-226-46801-1 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Revolutionary Idea
Comment: If we talk about relationships we might say: "She was in the driver's seat" but we "reached a fork in the road" and now we're "on the rocks" and we may "go our separate ways." Lakoff and Johnson point out that each of these expression uses some version of a metaphor that "Love is a Journey" -- where the journey may be by boat, by car, or walking. Metaphors like these are not special poetic creations, but are part of the day to day way we talk and think about relationships. In the same way, prices "go up", people "get close", the future is "down the road" and cognitive scientists "defend" their "positions." Metaphors like these are not simply a playful use of words. They are part of the way that we think.
This is some of Lakoff and Johnson's fascinating description of the pervasive role of metaphor in human cognition. To this reader, it has all the hallmarks of a great scientific discovery: it is original, profound, simple, and obviously true. For this reason alone, the book deserves five stars.
However, the book fails to give it's marvelous subject the treatment it deserves. The writing, while clear and full of common sense, is often uneven. The organization is lopsided -- much of the book is devoted to attacking straw men and and hand waving attempts to expand their discovery into some kind of murky philosphical revolution. This is confusing, easy to criticize, and a waste of time. Worst of all, they blunt the greatest weapon of any truly great idea: its simplicity. If Lakoff and Johnson really want to start a revolution they should take a lesson from the master: Darwin. His Origin of Species presented only the things he could prove: his evidence and his discovery. Lakoff and Johnson would have included a critique of the Bible.
Rating: 4
Summary: Metaphors we think by.
Comment: Metaphor is usually seen as an aspect of words, a linguistic trick we use to increase the effect of our words. Lakoff sets out to show that metaphors are a fundamental part of our thought processes whenever we try to think abstractly. His book does not provide a rigorous scientific proof, but it does present a lot of evidence in favor of the thesis. However, a full treatment of the issue would take a much thicker and less readable book than this one.
Lakoff gives examples from life for various metaphors, for example, TIME IS MONEY (or TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY), and shows how we use these metaphors in our everyday thoughts and actions ("Spending time", "wasting time", "saving time", etc). He shows how many different ideas can be expressed with simlar metaphors, ie HAPPINESS IS UP / SADNESS IS DOWN, HEALTH IS UP / SICKNESS IS DOWN, and so on.
Lakoff sets forth his case clearly and coherently, and with some of his examples, quite entertainingly. If you want some insight into how we think, buy this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Second-gen cognitive science turns to look at antecedents
Comment: *Metaphors We Live By* is a broader discussion of the living metaphors we use to think, created from our early experience as well as cultural use. Granted that Lakoff & Johnson's *Philosophy In The Flesh* is a more complete analysis of how second-generation cognitive science has confounded the philosophies that preceded it, including philosophic ideas that founded first-generation cognitive science, this book is less science-oriented and less contentious. Western philosophy has had no serious challenge from science until this generation, when experimental results demonstrated that the rational mind is not detachable from the brain that generates it. (There goes millenia of separating the mind and body.) *Metaphors We Live By* necessarily contends with older schemes of human nature, but if this is not a matter of controversy for the reader, it can be skipped. There are plenty of people who will sputter "but!" at the premise of the book, that >95% of our thinking is unconscious, shaped by empirically-based metaphors, and that most of philosophy is based on demonstrabily incorrect metaphors. Useful, not their last word on the subject, and you might find the Field Guide more useful yet if your interest is only in living metaphors and how to spot them.
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Title: Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff ISBN: 0226467716 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind by George Lakoff ISBN: 0226468046 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson ISBN: 0465056741 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being by George Lakoff, Rafael E. Nunez, Rafael Nuñez ISBN: 0465037712 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.50 |
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Title: More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor by George Lakoff, Mark Turner ISBN: 0226468127 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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