Author:: [[George Lakoff, Mark Johnson]] DateFinished:: 11/26/2023 Rating:: 6 Tags:: #🟥 # Metaphors We Live By  ## 🚀The Book in 3 Sentences - Our conceptual system is grounded in metaphor - The metaphors we use as a culture or personally shape how we create meaning - By changing our metaphors we can change the way we create meaning ### 🎨 Impressions - This book is very very interesting. It explores a key aspect of how we create meaning out of the world. It will shape my worldview for the rest of my life. - However, it's so jargony and technical. I could only read the first 9 chapters and then some later chapters besides. It's not something you read to have a fun time. ### 📖Who Should Read It? - Anyone interested in how we create meaning out of our lives - Anyone interested in differences across culture in meaning making ### ☘️ How the Book Changed Me - I'm more cognizant of how I communicate with people. I understand we have different metaphors for understanding the world and therefore they will understand the things I say differently then I do. When I'm teaching something new to somebody I want to make the thing more concrete to them so I use metaphors they will understand and are concerned about. - I'm more cognizant of the metaphors I use to make meaning. How are they influencing how I see the world? # Linked Book Notes - [[Our conceptual system is grounded in metaphor]] - [[The metaphors cultures or persons use shape how they create meaning]] - [[Even if we ascribe to the same metaphor we might understand a concept differently]] - [[Metaphors highlight and hide aspects of what they are comparing]] - [[Types of metaphor]] - [[There is no such thing as absolute truth]] - [[Great teachers try and understand the metaphors and concerns students have for better teaching]] - [[The metaphors we live by, whether cultural or personal, are partially preserved in ritual]] ## Highlights #### 1 Concepts We Live By Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. ([Location 99](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=99)) 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. ([Location 101](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=101)) - Note: We can understand new things only in relation of things we already know. This is why analogies are so powerful for teaching new things to people. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=132)) human thought processes are largely metaphorical. ([Location 142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=142)) ##### 2 The Systematicity of Metaphorical Concepts ##### 3 Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding The very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another (e.g., comprehending an aspect of arguing in terms of battle) will necessarily hide other aspects of the concept. In allowing us to focus on one aspect of a concept (e.g., the battling aspects of arguing), a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor. For example, in the midst of a heated argument, when we are intent on attacking our opponent’s position and defending our own, we may lose sight of the cooperative aspects of arguing. ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=193)) #### 4 Orientational Metaphors organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another. We will call these orientational metaphors, since most of them have to do with spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they function as they do in our physical environment. ([Location 254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=254)) —Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors. ([Location 322](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=322)) #### 5 Metaphor and Cultural Coherence The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture. ([Location 385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=385)) Not all cultures give the priorities we do to up-down orientation. There are cultures where balance or centrality plays a much more important role than it does in our culture. Or consider the nonspatial orientation active-passive. For us ACTIVE IS UP and PASSIVE IS DOWN in most matters. But there are cultures where passivity is valued more than activity. In general the major orientations up-down, in-out, central-peripheral, active-passive, etc., seem to cut across all cultures, but which concepts are oriented which way and which orientations are most important vary from culture to culture. ([Location 434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=434)) ## New highlights added 26-11-2023 at 8:15 AM #### 6 Ontological Metaphors Such ways of viewing physical phenomena are needed to satisfy certain purposes that we have: locating mountains, meeting at street corners, trimming hedges. Human purposes typically require us to impose artificial boundaries that make physical phenomena discrete just as we are: entities bounded by a surface. ([Location 446](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=446)) #### 7 Personification Perhaps the most obvious ontological metaphors are those where the physical object is further specified as being a person. This allows us to comprehend a wide variety of experiences with nonhuman entities in terms of human motivations, characteristics, and activities. Here are some examples: His theory explained to me the behavior of chickens raised in factories. This fact argues against the standard theories. Life has cheated me. ([Location 579](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=579)) #### 8 Metonymy we are using one entity to refer to another that is related to it. This is a case of what we will call metonymy. Here are some further examples: He likes to read the Marquis de Sade. (= the writings of the marquis) He’s in dance. (= the dancing profession) Acrylic has taken over the art world. (= the use of acrylic paint) ([Location 613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=613)) The conceptual systems of cultures and religions are metaphorical in nature. Symbolic metonymies are critical links between everyday experience and the coherent metaphorical systems that characterize religions and cultures. Symbolic metonymies that are grounded in our physical experience provide an essential means of comprehending religious and cultural concepts. ([Location 708](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=708)) - Note: This is why symbols can have such profound effects on us. Like John Vervaeke said. As we change from the symbol, we see deeper into it, allowing us to change more from the symbol. ## New highlights added 26-11-2023 at 5:53 PM Metaphors may create realities for us, especially social realities. A metaphor may thus be a guide for future action. Such actions will, of course, fit the metaphor. This will, in turn, reinforce the power of the metaphor to make experience coherent. In this sense metaphors can be self-fulfilling prophecies. ([Location 2605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=2605)) #### 24 Truth #### 25 The Myths of Objectivism and Subjectivism We have given an account of the way in which truth is based on understanding. We have argued that truth is always relative to a conceptual system, that any human conceptual system is mostly metaphorical in nature, and that, therefore, there is no fully objective, unconditional, or absolute truth. ([Location 3048](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=3048)) Though there is no absolute objectivity, there can be a kind of objectivity relative to the conceptual system of a culture. The point of impartiality and fairness in social matters is to rise above relevant individual biases. The point of objectivity in scientific experimentation is to factor out the effects of individual illusion and error. This is not to say that we can always, or even ever, be completely successful in factoring out individual biases to achieve complete objectivity relative to a conceptual system and a cultural set of values. It is only to say that pure subjective intuition is not always our only recourse. ([Location 3176](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=3176)) #### 30 Understanding The experientialist approach to the process of self-understanding involves: Developing an awareness of the metaphors we live by and an awareness of where they enter into our everyday lives and where they do not Having experiences that can form the basis of alternative metaphors Developing an “experiential flexibility” Engaging in an unending process of viewing your life through new alternative metaphors ([Location 3757](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=3757)) - Note: One aspect of understanding ourselves comes with understanding the most common metaphors we live life through. Some principle metaphors I live life through are: - Time is money - Love is a collaboration on an art piece - Argument is a dance - People are perspectives - Seeing someone deeply comes with listening The metaphors we live by, whether cultural or personal, are partially preserved in ritual. Cultural metaphors, and the values entailed by them, are propagated by ritual. Ritual forms an indispensable part of the experiential basis for our cultural metaphorical systems. There can be no culture without ritual. ([Location 3780](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=3780)) - Note: This suggests one of the best ways to understand a culture is to understand the rituals which drive it. Add to Culture MOC ## New highlights added 26-11-2023 at 5:50 PM #### 9 Challenges to Metaphorical Coherence #### 11 The Partial Nature of Metaphorical Structuring #### 12 How Is Our Conceptual System Grounded? #### 15 The Coherent Structuring of Experience #### 19 Definition and Understanding We have seen that metaphor pervades our normal conceptual system. Because so many of the concepts that are important to us are either abstract or not clearly delineated in our experience (the emotions, ideas, time, etc.), we need to get a grasp on them by means of other concepts that we understand in clearer terms (spatial orientations, objects, etc.). This need leads to metaphorical definition in our conceptual system. ([Location 1943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=1943)) - Note: In other words, we use metaphor as a way for making something vague concrete through something we understand more concretely. Concepts are not defined solely in terms of inherent properties; instead, they are defined primarily in terms of interactional properties. Finally, definition is not a matter of giving some fixed set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of a concept (though this may be possible in certain special cases, such as in science or other technical disciplines, though even there it is not always possible); instead, concepts are defined by prototypes and by types of relations to prototypes. Rather than being rigidly defined, concepts arising from our experience are open-ended. ([Location 2105](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=2105)) - Note: According to this definition concepts don't have some inherent essence similar across everyone. Instead, they are defined relationally specific to the person. This is why two people can have different definitions of the same word. #### 21 New Meaning To see how this is possible, let us consider the new metaphor LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART. ([Location 2335](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=2335)) - Tags: #c1 Love is work. Love is active. Love requires cooperation. Love requires dedication. Love requires compromise. Love requires a discipline. Love involves shared responsibility. Love requires patience. Love requires shared values and goals. Love demands sacrifice. Love regularly brings frustration. Love requires instinctive communication. Love is an aesthetic experience. Love is primarily valued for its own sake. Love involves creativity. Love requires a shared aesthetic. Love cannot be achieved by formula. Love is unique in each instance. Love is an expression of who you are. Love creates a reality. Love reflects how you see the world. Love requires the greatest honesty. Love may be transient or permanent. Love needs funding. Love yields a shared aesthetic satisfaction from your joint efforts. ([Location 2343](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=2343)) - Note: This metaphor gives this meaning to our experience of love. The CHEMICAL metaphor gives us a new view of human problems. It is appropriate to the experience of finding that problems which we once thought were “solved” turn up again and again. The CHEMICAL metaphor says that problems are not the kind of things that can be made to disappear forever. To treat them as things that can be “solved” once and for all is pointless. To live by the CHEMICAL metaphor would be to accept it as a fact that no problem ever disappears forever. Rather than direct your energies toward solving your problems once and for all, you would direct your energies toward finding out what catalysts will dissolve your most pressing problems for the longest time without precipitating out worse ones. The reappearance of a problem is viewed as a natural occurrence rather than a failure on your part to find “the right way to solve it.” ([Location 2414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B009KA3Y6I&location=2414))