'Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.'Īccording to Lakoff, non-metaphorical thought is possible only when we talk about purely physical reality the greater the level of abstraction, the more layers of metaphor are required to express it. The essential thrust of Lakoff's work has been the argument that metaphors are a primarily conceptual construction and are in fact central to the development of thought. Metaphor has been seen within the Western scientific tradition as a purely linguistic construction. Work Reappraisal of metaphor Īlthough some of Lakoff's research involves questions traditionally pursued by linguists, such as the conditions under which a certain linguistic construction is grammatically viable, he is best known for his reappraisal of the role that metaphors play in the socio-political life of humans. Lakoff served as a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1972 until his retirement in 2016. The more general theory that elaborated his thesis is known as embodied mind. He is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundación IDEAS (IDEAS Foundation), Spain's Socialist Party's think tank. īetween 20, Lakoff was involved with a progressive think tank, the now defunct Rockridge Institute. In Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf (1991), he argues that the American involvement in the Gulf War was obscured or 'spun' by the metaphors which were used by the first Bush administration to justify it. According to him, an individual's experience and attitude towards sociopolitical issues is influenced by being framed in linguistic constructions. In his 1996 book Moral Politics, Lakoff described conservative voters as being influenced by the ' strict father model' as a central metaphor for such a complex phenomenon as the state, and liberal/ progressive voters as being influenced by the ' nurturant parent model' as the folk psychological metaphor for this complex phenomenon.

Applying it to politics, literature, philosophy and mathematics has led Lakoff into territory normally considered basic to political science.

The conceptual metaphor thesis, introduced in his and Mark Johnson's 1980 book Metaphors We Live By has found applications in a number of academic disciplines. George Philip Lakoff ( / ˈ l eɪ k ɒ f/ born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena.

The metaphors we live by