Mental Imagery in Bertrand Russell’s Nobel Lecture “What Desires Are Politically Important?”

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of the mental images of human desires and their verbalization techniques involved in Bertrand Russell’s Nobel lecture delivered in 1950. Human desires are non-material mental constructs that are not clearly defined in the dictionaries, their verbalization being complicated by the issues related to rationality, psychology of thinking, objectivity, and the variability of individual behavioral reactions. The results of the research suggest that the verbalization of desires is essentially complicated by social and cultural stereotypes. It has been noted that storytelling can be applied as one of the most effective techniques to create the required mental imagery of desires in the recipient’s mind. B. Russell’s unique manner of defining such politically important desires as acquisitiveness, vanity, glory, love of power, excitement is carefully analyzed. The use of figurative language as well as conceptual and stylistic metaphors that facilitate the process of shaping mental images of desires have also been the focus of our attention. Special consideration has been given to the analysis of the verbalization means of the politically important desires.