Metaphors We Learn By

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. 3-5.

Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish--a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, 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. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. 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.

But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of. In most of the little things we do every day, we simply think-and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvious. One way to find out is by looking at language. Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like.

Primarily on the basis of linguistic evidence, we have found that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. And we have found a way to begin to identify in detail. just what the metaphors are that structure how we perceive, how we think, and what we do.

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.

It is important to see that 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 pin and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. 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. Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument-attack, defense, counterattack, etc.reflects this. It is in this sense that the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor is one that we live by in this culture; it structures the actions we perform in arguing.

Try to imagine a culture where arguments are not viewed in terms of war, where no one wins or loses, where there is no sense of attacking or defending, gaining or losing ground. 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. In such a culture, people would view arguments differently, experience them differently, carry them out differently, and talk about them differently. But we would probably not view them as arguing at all: they would simply be doing something different. It would seem strange even to call what they were doing "arguing." Perhaps the most neutral way of describing this difference between their culture and ours would be to say that we have a discourse form structured in terms of battle and they have one structured in terms of dance.

This is an example of what it means for a metaphorical concept, namely, ARGUMENT IS WAR, to structure (at least in part) what we do and how we understand what we are doing when we argue. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. It is not that arguments are a subspecies of war. Arguments and wars are different kinds of things-verbal discourse and armed conflict-and the actions performed are different kinds of actions. 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.

Moreover, this is the ordinary way of having an argument and talking about one. The normal way for us to talk about attacking a position is to use the words "attack a position." Our conventional ways of talking about arguments presuppose a metaphor we are hardly ever conscious of. 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 we act according to the way we conceive of things.

Wayne Booth. "Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation." On Metaphor. Ed., Shelden Sacks. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978.67.

The study of metaphor would, as I have said, be only one part of any revived practice of the two ethical criticisms: of characters and of societies that make characters. But there is one important fact about our society that makes metaphor an even more important part of such criticism for us than for any previous culture. For the first time in history, a society finds itself offering immense rewards to a vast number of hired metaphorists, hired to make metaphors that will accomplish a pre-determined end regardless of what they say about our character or do to it. Advertisers are hired to make some possession stand for happiness or well-being. I am of course not neutral on the question of whether we are on the whole harmed by their ministrations. There is an essentially corrupting, diminishing process in inducing desire for a predetermined happiness, a happiness that depends on possessing something. But one needn't accept my particular judgment, which would take some tall arguing to prove, to see that we have a totally new cultural situation that invites an army of critics to study and judge its effects.



All metaphorists in all cultures have hoped to be rewarded for their successes. Patronage and sometimes immense wealth have been freely given to those who could invent metaphoric visions of human life and happiness in that life. But those metaphorists were not paid to keep their visions small and precisely centered on possession. What they invented to stand for human happiness could best be described as having a kind of reflexive quality. All of the great poets seem to be saying something like this: my vision of what stands for human happiness is itself the activity of sharing pictures of what human life is or can be. Metaphor in this view is not a means to other ends but one of the main ends of life; sharing metaphors becomes one of the experiences we live for.

I. A. Richards. Interpretation in Teaching. New York: Humanities Press, 1938. 48-49.

Thinking is radically metaphoric. Linkage by analogy is its constituent law or principle, its causal nexus, since meaning only arises through the causal contexts (1) by which a sign stands for (takes the place of) an instance of a sort. To think of anything is to take it as of a sort (as a such and such) and that 'as' brings in (openly or in disguise) the analogy, the parallel, the metaphoric grapple or ground or grasp or draw by which alone the mind takes hold. It takes no hold if there is nothing for it to haul from, for its thinking is the haul, the attraction of likes.

I have made these metaphors here very evident-merely by putting less usual words for the semi-technical words we most employ. But, the same would appear to close inspection if I were to write instead about the theory of 'cognition! in terms of 'attention; 'apprehension,' 'abstraction' and 'intellection.' An obvious misunderstanding is possible however. My point is not that language is full of metaphors, or even that, as Darmesteter wrote in La Vie des Mots, 'In none of the languages whose history it is possible for us to study is there an abstract word which, if its etymology is known, is not resolvable into a concrete word: My point goes deeper, and these well-known characteristics of language arc among its consequences.It is thought is itself metaphoric merely that it expresses itself in linguistic metaphors The metaphor that a thought is using need not not correspond to the metaphor that its language displays, though it usually does, and the thought will often adopt the verbal

metaphor when this is noticed. But equally often we discount and disown the metaphors in our speech, treat them as dead, or kill them as we go. We may then easily suppose that we are no longer using parallels and analogies because we are avoiding a particular set that our language might seem to bring in. We shall find none the less that we are using another set. Our thought in all cases is being guided by its causal context; and this is only another way of putting the matter.

(1) See The Meaning of Meaning, Chapter III, and The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Lecture II. To distinguish this sense of `context' (the connections with past events which make x a sign) from a 'literary context' (other signs yz accompanying and co-operating with x) I shall write of literary contexts as 'settings.' The two are closely connected. Any group of signs, like a word or sentence, is artificially selected from its accompanying and preparatory sign-field. It is the sign-field which determines interpretation. The multiplicity and interdependence of the meaning of words, so much insisted upon here, becomes obvious and necessary as soon as we conceive of interpretation in terms of sign-situations.

Colin Murray Turbayne. The Myth of Metaphor. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1962. 56-59.

"Recognizing Hidden Metaphor"

Let us get a different perspective on the preceding analysis. Consider it as the exposure of hidden metaphor. Corresponding to the three levels of analysis are three operations: first, the detection of the presence of the metaphor: second, the attempt to "undress" the metaphor by presenting the literal truth, "to behold the deformity of error we need only undress it"; and third, the restoration of the metaphor, only this time with awareness of its presence.

The successful performance of any one of these operations indicates that we have become aware of the presence of metaphor and, consequently, that we have avoided being victimized by it. If we are victimized, then we confuse devices of procedure with the actual process of nature, and thus unknowingly insinuate metaphysics If we are not aware, the, like duped citizens of the city-state of Oz who, owing to their green spectacles, thought everything was green, we add qualities that are the products of invention and decision, not of discovery. It is true that Descartes, when he invented his machine hypothesis, was the Wizard of Oz himself. But when Newton measured corporeal forces and found them to be "manifest qualities," he was just another duped citizen. Becoming aware of the presence of hidden metaphors in science, it dawns on us that there are other ways of viewing the world besides those that we inherit fro the great sort-crossers of the past, who, by their genius, hold us enthralled in just that attitudes that appealed to them.

For example, if the metaphor is drawn from the physical to illustrate the mental, such as "the physical basis of the mind," "the motion of the will," "mind is behavior," "the id," and so on, and we are captured by it, then we subscribe to a dogma that has no hope of salvation in it. Becoming aware of it, we start to expose psycholhylism or behaviorism as one but not the necessarily the only metaphysical theory of mind. If the metaphor used to illustrate nature is a mixed one drawn in part from something man has made like a clock or other machine, in part from something he did not make, like the feeling of force or power that we experience when we push or pull things, and we are enthralled by this dual picture, then we populate the world with a million ghosts in the giant clockwork of nature that lurk invisible, inaudible, and intangible behind its every movement. Becoming aware of it we start to expose mechanism as one but not necessarily the only metaphysics of nature.

The invention of a metaphor full of illustrative power is the achievement of genius. It is to create by saying "no" to the old associations, the things that have constantly gone together, the things already sorted, and "yes" to new associations by crossing old sorts to make new ones. But it is also an achievement to "undress" the hidden metaphor that has become part of the traditional way of allocating the facts, for this too involves breaking old associations. How is this to be done? How do we recognize a hidden metaphor? The question is much the same as the question: How do we avoid being victimized by a metaphor so that instead of being used by it we use it? We can easily distinguish the mask from the face in many examples of metaphor. We know at once that an airplane disaster may have been due to metal fatigue although the metal did not grow weary; that famine, sword, and fire may crouch for employment without stooping; that sleep, which knits up the ravelled sleeve of care [Macbeth 2.2.34], achieves this without the help of knitting needles; that we can be tickled by the rub of love without giggling; and that death shall have no dominion without losing a throne But how do we penetrate those disguises in which the make-up is hidden? The most common way enlarges upon what I have just been doing with obvious examples of metaphor This I now illustrate and describe.

The burden of David Hume's refutation of the argument for the nature of God from the order or design found in the world amounts to the exposure of a metaphor, directly, by showing a weak analogy, and indirectly, by extending the metaphor. Consider the latter (David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Edinburgh, 1779, part V). First, the great ship or the great house of the world has a "stupid mechanic" or builder who has "botched and bungled" many worlds before he struck out this one. Secondly, it has many builders who combined in its contrivance. Thirdly, the builders are male and female who propagate their species by generation. Finally, these anthropomorphic builders have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, etc. By thus extending the metaphor, Hume tries to reduce the argument to absurdity. The argument from design depends upon such metaphors as "The world is a ship or house," and "God is a builder." What Hume does is to focus attention upon the commonplaces associated with ships, houses, and builders, or, of these are to be considered models, to extend the system of implications that has been adopted by such previous victims as St. Thomas and Sir Isaac Newton. That is, he adds more properties of the literal meanings of "ship," "house," and "human builder" to the world and God. This produces corollaries that he hopes are absurd.

But what are the mechanics of this absurdity? Precisely the same sort of thing is done when the metaphor involved in "Man is a wolf" is exposed. Let us suppose that St. Thomas and Sir Isaac Newton are again victims. We take "wolf" literally and transfer properties such as four-legged and tailed to man. We then ask the victims to test the wolf hypothesis. Any man they meet is now a disconfirming instance, and it is hoped that they will reject the hypothesis. In the case of God who cannot be tested by observation to discover whether He is one or many, has eyes and nose, is married, and so on, what Hume intends is that we test it merely against our common notions of His attributes. The notion that He is a builder is acceptable, but that He is a woman is absurd.

The same operation is performed with ease and expedition when remake such conjunctions as "Men and timber-wolves are wolves," The world and the Queen Mary had many builders," and "God and Frank Lloyd Wright are architects," because these are terse ways of extending the metaphor the whole way, or, rather, of treating two senses of a word, one of which is metaphorical, as one literal sense. By using such devices, which are nothing but abbreviated versions of Hume's, we expose the presence of metaphor and consequently avoid being victimized. It should be noted, however, that by extending the metaphor in part or completely to produce absurdity, we show only the presence of metaphor or sort-crossing. We do not show something illegitimate, such as taking metaphor literally or sort-trespassing is involved. It may have been the case that St. Thomas and Sir Isaac were fully aware that they were speaking in metaphor or were using models. In which case, like any user of models, they would have rejected any extension beyond the para-designer or the para-wolf hypothesis. Hume's method cuts no ice with those who are aware. It only reassures them.