Metametaphorical Issues The Metaphorical Logic of Rapel George Lakoff University of California at Berkeley and Mark Johnson Southern Illinois University There is a classical theory of metaphor that says that metaphor is merely a matter of naming -- of attaching words to concepts they ordinarily wouldn't go with. The naming theory contrasts with the view that metaphor is conceptual in nature, a means of understanding one domain of experience in terms of the conceptual struc- ture of another domain. The two views contrast most vividly on the issue of whether metaphor enters into reasoning. On the naming view, metaphors cannot enter into reasoning because they have nothing to do with how we think; they are just names. On the conceptual view, metaphor plays a major role in reasoning -- it is one of our principal means for comprehending and reasoning about abstract concepts. In recent years, considerable evidence has been amassed for the concep- tual view, based on the role of metaphor in reasoning.2 The present column has several goals: First, to add to the growing body of research on metaphorical reasoning. Second, to try to clarify just what is meant by metaphorical reasoning, and to show how metaphors interact with our folk beliefs. Third, to show that metaphorical reasoning that is based on conventional metaphors is mostly an automatic process, performed unconsciously and without noticeable effort. And fourth, to show that the study of metaphoric reasoning is anything but an irrelevant ivory tower enterprise. Instead, it is at the heart of many social issues of the greatest importance. The topic we will be discussing is anything but a pleasant one. We will be analyzing a passage taken from Tim Beneke’s Men on Rape, a remarkable set of interviews with doctors, lawyers, a rapist, prosecuting attorneys, husbands and lovers of rape victims, and men from various other occupations, concerning their views of rape. The speaker is a mild-mannered law clerk in the financial district of San Francisco, who says that, although he would never resort to rape, he can see a rationale for such an act. What is remarkable about the passage is that it seems so unremarkable, so matter of fact, so straightforward and coherent, and that it ‘Expanded versions of material discussed here will appear in the authors‘ forthcoming books: George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind, Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1987; and Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Reason and Imagination, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Requests for reprints should be sent to George Lakofi’, Linguistics Department, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 q'See Gentner, Dedre, and Donald R. Gentner. 1983. Flowing Waters or Teaming Crowds: Mental Models of Electricity, in D. Gentner and A. L. Stevens, eds., Mental Models. Hillsda.le, N.J.: Erlbaum; and Holland, Dorothy, and Naomi Quinn, eds. 1987. Cullural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.