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Sapir-Whorf, Lakoff, Metaphor and Thought

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“What is thought?” is a question that is foundational by any reasonable measure. The best short answer I have found so far has been “thought is conceptual metaphor,” and it is one of the enduring regrets of my life that it took me so long to encounter this answer. An undergraduate friend (hi there Max!) introduced me to George Lakoff and the notion he introduced, conceptual metaphor, just as I was finishing up my PhD, and it radically altered my thinking (and my thinking about thinking, a.k.a philosophy) from that point on. I can only wonder how different my life would have been if I’d read Metaphors We Live By as an undergraduate. So here is a discursive introduction to these ideas. Sapir-Whorf I was educated to believe that the fundamental historical schism in modern cognitive science was the one between behaviorism and the cognitive school, which came to a head with Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1959). That particular drama though, however you interpret it, is actua

"What is thought?" is a question that is foundational by any reasonable measure. The best short answer I have found so far has been "thought is conceptual metaphor," and it is one of the enduring regrets of my life that it took me so long to encounter this answer. An undergraduate friend (hi there Max!) introduced me to George Lakoff and the notion he introduced, conceptual metaphor, just as I was finishing up my PhD, and it radically altered my thinking (and my thinking about thinking, a.k.a philosophy) from that point on. I can only wonder how different my life would have been if I'd read Me

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