Reexamines the Western philosophical tradition, looking at the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self.

Metaphor pervades discourse and may govern how we think and act. But most studies only discuss its verbal varieties. This book examines metaphors drawing on combinations of visuals, language, gestures, sound, and music. Investigated texts include advertising, political cartoons, comics, film, songs, and oral communication. Where appropriate, the influence of genre and cultural factors is thematized.

Cognitive theories of metaphor understanding are typically described in terms of the mappings between different kinds of abstract, schematic, disembodied knowledge. My claim in this paper is that part of our ability to make sense of metaphorical language, both individual utterances and extended narratives, resides in the automatic construction of a simulation whereby we imagine performing the bodily actions referred to in the language. Thus, understanding metaphorical expressions like ‘grasp a concept’ or ‘get over’ an emotion involve simulating what it (...) must be like to engage in these specific activities, even though these actions are, strictly speaking, impossible to physically perform. This process of building a simulation, one that is fundamentally embodied in being constrained by past and present bodily experiences, has specific consequences for how verbal metaphors are understood, and how cognitive scientists, more generally, characterize the nature of metaphorical language and thought. (shrink)

About this book Mr. Burke contributes an introductory and summarizing remark, "What is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?

"... serious scholars of Vico as well as glottogeneticists will find much of value in this excellent monograph." -- New Vico Studies "... a provocative, well-researched argument which might find reapplication in the fields of anthropology, semiotics, archeology, psychology or even philosophy." -- Theological Book Review Danesi returns to the work of the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico to create a persuasive, original account of the evolution and development of language, one of the deep mysteries of human existence. The Vichian (...) reconstruction of the origin of language is described at length, then evaluated in light of contemporary research in the cognitive, social, and biological sciences. (shrink)

WE HAVE LEARNED in the preceding chapter that a revolutionary change of the species concept is in the making, a change which not only affects taxonomic procedure, but which also contributes considerably toward a better understanding of ...

The growing influence of the visual media in contemporary society is quite alarming; hence, learning to explicate them is inevitable. This is a paradigm shift from verbal argumentation to visual argumentation. The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of visual analysis and visual literacy, a part of discourse analysis. Visuals employ a number of rhetorical devices; however, understanding the effectiveness of these devices is still a challenge. Adopting Visual Argumentation Theory, the article analyzes argumentation in cartoons (...) on the post-election violence that rocked Kenya in 2007/2008. From the analyses, it is concluded that visuals can argue as simply and forcefully as their verbal counterparts. The blending of caricature and portraiture makes them even more explicit as portraiture denotes the characters so that we can recognize who they are; caricature ridicules them, analogy attributes actions to them in a satirical or sarcastic way, and cultural memory is needed to access the reference to the analogies. Visuals are designed to make the reader think not only about the event or the people being portrayed but also about the message being communicated. This means visuals have the ability to stretch the truth beyond caricature or mere amusement. (shrink)

Work on the relation between figurative language and the law is a fairly recent trend, within legal discourse studies, linguistics, and semiotics. The work in conceptual metaphor theory, for example, is starting to unpack the underlying metaphorical and metonymic structure of legal language, producing some new and important insights into the nature of this language. Missing from this emerging line of inquiry are the views of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico, who was the first to understand the power of figurative (...) language in the creation of symbolic systems, like language and the law. His tripartite evolutionary model of language shows that there is not one language of the law, but three “languages.” By integrating Vico’s model with the work in conceptual metaphor theory it will be possible to penetrate the underlying conceptual structure of legal discourse and thus lead to a more insightful science of this discourse. (shrink)