Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language

Abstract

THE ‘lOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY FOUNDEI) BY FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE AND WENDELL '1'. EUSH Editors: john H. Randall, jr. (honorary) and Herbert W. Schneider (honorary), Bernard Berofsky. Arthur C. Danto, Sidney Morgenbesser, Charles D. Parsons, James ]. Walsh. Consulting Editors: James Higginbotham and Isaac Levi. Managing Editor: Leigh 8. Cauman. Editorial and Business office.q 720 Philosophy Hall, Columbia, New York, N.Y. 10027. All communications to the editors, manuscripts, advertise- ments, subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to the Managing Editor. Annual subscription price (12 numbers), to individuals, $12.00; to institutions, $16.00; to students and to the retired and the unemployed, $9.00; current issues, $1.30; special issues, $2.00. All back volumes and separate issues are available back to 1904. Published monthly as of January 1977; primed by Lancaster Press, Inc., Lancaster, Pennsylvania. THE. JOURNAL or PHILOSOPHY is owned and published by The journal of Philosophy, Inc. President, Albert G. Redpath; Vice Imrsidcnt, john H. Randall, jr.; Secretary, Corliss Lamont; Treasurer, Stephen S. Fenichell. SCIENTIA 1 international Review of Scientific Synthesis - Founded in 1907 Scientific liditorial Hoard: Pitcro Caldirola- Lutlovico Geytuonat - Giuseppe Montalenti Editor: llonetti SClF.;\'T1.= in 74 years has never abandoned its programme of rigorous scientific synthesis; it aims at going; beyond rather than refuting disciplinary specialization. The motivations behind this approach can be explained today on the one hand through the formation of new areas of scientific research, and on the other throujzh the lively evolution of those social frameworks which are at one and the same time both cause and effect of such research. Scientia takes on the task it has set itself with the help of contributions from scientists and philosophers from all parts of the world. Ptiblication: 3 volttmes ti year of approx. 400 pzuzes each. Articles are published in the language in which they were written and in the integral English and Italian versions. Annual subscription,‘ /Ia/y til, 22 000 - Eulope Lit. 27000 ~ Non-European count!/es $44.00 Spec/men copy. Italy UL 5.000 s Europe Lil. 5 500 v Nonfuropean countries 5 7.50 SCIENTIA ~ Via Guastalla 9 - 20122 Milano (Italy) - Telephone (02) 780.669 The appearance of the code at the bottom of the first page of an article in this jOlJRNAL indicates the copyright owner's consent that copies of the article be made for personal or classroom use. This consent is given on con- dition, however, that the copier pay the stated per-copy fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, lnc., P.O. Box 765, Schenectady, New York 12301, for all copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the Us. Copyright Law. This consent does not extend to any other kinds oi copying. ti) Copyright 198$) 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