Johnson: From Image Schemas To Abstract Reasoning Via Metaphor
Image schemas are dynamic embodied patterns—they take place in and through time. Moreover, they are multi-modal patterns of experience, not simply visual. For instance, consider how the dynamic nature of the containment schema is reflected in the various spatial senses of the English word out. Out may be used in cases where a clearly defined trajector (TR) leaves a spatially bounded landmark (LM), as in:
- (1a) John went out of the room.
- (1b) Mary got out of the car.
- (1c) Spot jumped out of the pen.
In the most prototypical of such cases the landmark is a clearly defined container. However, out may also be used to indicate those cases where the trajector is a mass that spreads out, effectively expanding the area of the containing landmark:
- (2a) She poured out the beans.
- (2b) Roll out the carpet.
- (2c) Send out the troops.
Finally, out is also often used to describe motion along a linear path where the containing landmark is implied and not defined at all:
- (3) The train started out for Chicago.
Experientially basic and primarily spatial image schemas such as the Containment schema and its derivatives the Out schemas lend their logic to non-spatial situations. For example, one may metaphorically use the term out to describe non-spatial experiences:
- (4) Leave out that big log when you stack the firewood. (Schema used directly and non-metaphorically.)
- (4a) I don't want to leave any relevant data out of my argument. (Schema metaphorically projected onto argumentation.)
- (4b) Tell me your story again, and don't leave out any details. (Schema metaphorically projected onto story-telling.)
- (4c) She finally came out of her depression. (Schema metaphorically projected onto emotional life.)
Johnson argues that more abstract reasoning is shaped by such underlying spatial patterns. For example, he notes that the logic of containment is not just a matter of being in or out of the container. For example, if someone is in a deep depression, we know it is likely to be a long time before they are well. The deeper the trajector is in the container, the longer it will take for the trajector to get out of it. Similarly, Johnson argues that transitivity and the law of the excluded middle in logic are underlaid by preconceptual embodied experiences of the Containment schema.
Read more about this topic: Image Schema
Famous quotes containing the words image, abstract, reasoning and/or metaphor:
“The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods or vermin is ideology. One can understand well enough how human beings may struggle and murder for good material reasons—reasons connected, for instance, with their physical survival. It is much harder to grasp how they may come to do so in the name of something as apparently abstract as ideas. Yet ideas are what men and women live by, and will occasionally die for.”
—Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)
“Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)