Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language

Abstract

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This consent does not extend to any other kinds oi copying. ti) Copyright 198$) by the journal o_i_ i’hi_l_osophy_, Inc. ISSN 0021-362X THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY VOLUME LXXVII, No. 8. AUGUST 1980 CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE NTIL recently philosophers have tended to berate tnetaphor as irrational and dangerous, or to ignore it, reducing it to the status of a subsidiary problem in the philosophy of lttth guage. Literal language, assumed to be mutually exclusive with metaphor, has been taken to be the real stuff of philosophy, the domain where issues of meaning and truth arise and can be dealt with. At best, metaphor is treated as if it were always the tesult. of some operation performed upon the literal meaning of the llil€Jl“- ance. The phenomenon of qconventional met.apho1‘,” where much of our ordinary conceptual system and the bulk of our everyday conventional language are structured and understood primarily in metaphorical terms, has gone either unnoticed or uudiscussed. ‘ As we will show directly, conventional metaphors are pervasive in our ordinary everyday way of tliinking, speaking, and acting. M70 feel that an understanding of conventional metaphor and the way that metaphor structures our ordinary conceptual system will ult:t~ mately provide a new “experient:ialist” perspective on Cl21SS1C2l;l.pl'31l- osophical problems, such as the nature of meaning, truth, rational- ity, logic, and knowledge. In this present paper we can only locus on the nature and role of metaphor in our conceptual system, with a few suggestions concerning the larger implications of our ZiCCOUl(7i1lL,,l 1. CONCIEPTS THAT W15 LIVE BY Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish-—-a matter of extraordinary rather than ()l“(:li~» nary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as cliamt:«« teristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought 1 For a more comprehensive and thorough working out of the iniplications lot several areas, especially philosophy and linguistics, see our i\1«:trz;rliors We lttw By (Chicago: University of (Jhicago Press, 1980). 0022~352X/80/7708/O453$03.40 © 1980 The journal of Philosophy, lnc. 453