Counting Metaphors: What Does this Reveal about Language and Thought?

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Metaphorical Thinking ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Verbal Metaphor ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Metaphorical Thought

Counting metaphors has become quite fashionable in metaphor research. There are numerous attempts to reliably identify metaphors in discourse and count their frequencies. These studies aim to accurately assess the prominence of metaphor in language, but also provide insights into active metaphorical thinking. My evaluation of this research suggests that there may be rough correspondences between the frequency of metaphor and the richness of metaphorical thought. At the same time, even a single verbal metaphor can fundamentally structure an entire discourse, illustrating the power of metaphor to shape how we think about many abstract ideas and events. I also describe instances in which nonmetaphorical language can also enhance metaphorical thinking, and suggest the need for new ways of measuring metaphoricity in language and thought.

Class in Thatcherite Ideology and Rhetoric

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Classless Society ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines Thatcherite rhetoric about class and individualism. Thatcher needed to distance herself from her own, narrow, upper-middle-class image; she also wanted to rid politics of class language, and thought that class was—or should be—irrelevant in 1980s Britain because of ‘embourgeoisement’. For Thatcher, ‘bourgeois’ was defined by particular values (thrift, hard work, self-reliance) and she wanted to use the free market to incentivize more of the population to display these values, which she thought would lead to a moral and also a prosperous society. Thatcherite individualism rested on the assumption that people were rational, self-interested, but also embedded in families and communities. The chapter reflects on what these conclusions tell us about ‘Thatcherism’ as a political ideology, and how these beliefs influenced Thatcherite policy on the welfare state, monetarism, and trade unionism. Finally, it examines Major’s rhetoric of the ‘classless society’ in the 1990s.

The Metaphysics of Representation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Robert G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Final Layer ◽  
The World ◽  
Interactive Relationship ◽  
Compositional Interpretation ◽  
The One

What is representation? How do the more primitive aspects of our world come together to generate it? How do different kinds of representation relate to one another? This book identifies the metaphysical foundations for representational facts. The story told is in three parts. The most primitive layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of sensation/perception and intention/action, which are the two most basic modes in which an individual and the world interact. It is argued that we can understand how this kind of representation can exist in a fundamentally physical world so long as we have an independent, illuminating grip on functions and causation. The second layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of (degrees of) belief and desire, whose representational content goes far beyond the immediate perceptable and manipulable environment. It is argued that the correct belief/desire interpretation of an agent is the one which makes their action-guiding states, given their perceptual evidence, most rational. The final layer of representation is the ‘aboutness’ of words and sentences, human artefacts with representational content. It is argued that one can give an illuminating account of the conditions under which a compositional interpretation of a public language like English is correct by appeal to patterns emerging from the attitudes conventionally expressed by sentences. The three-layer metaphysics of representation resolves long-standing underdetermination puzzles, predicts and explains patterns in the way that concepts denote, and articulates a delicate interactive relationship between the foundations of language and thought.

Politics and Kingship in the Historical Books, with Attention to the Role of Political Theory in Interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-200
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Parsons Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Theological Message

This chapter explores the thesis that the historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible address abstract ideas about politics, government, and law. Taking issue with critics who view the Bible’s spiritual and theological message as incommensurable with political philosophy, the chapter argues that the stories of politics and kingship in the Hebrew Bible’s historical books set forth set forth an impressive political theory that rivals, in some respects, the work of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek thinkers. The key is to bring out the general ideas behind the specific narrative elements. The chapter illustrates this thesis by examining the Hebrew Bible’s treatment of a number of classic problems of political theory: anarchy, obligation and sovereignty, distributive justice, and the comparative analysis of political organizations.

Hegel's Critique of Foundationalism in the “Doctrine of Essence”

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 18-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Houlgate
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
The World

It is a commonplace among certain recent philosophers that there is no such thing as the essence of anything. Nietzsche, for example, asserts that things have no essence of their own, because they are nothing but ceaselessly changing ways of acting on, and reacting to, other things. Wittgenstein, famously, rejects the idea that there is an essence to language and thought — at least if we mean by that some a priori logical structure underlying our everyday utterances. Finally, Richard Rorty urges that we “abandon […] the notion of ‘essence’ altogether”, along with “the notion that man's essence is to be a knower of essences”.It would be wrong to maintain that these writers understand the concept of essence in precisely the same way, or that they are all working towards the same philosophical goal. Nevertheless, they do share one aim in common: to undermine the idea that there is some deeper reality or identity underlying and grounding what we encounter in the world, what we say and what we do. That is to say, they may all be described as anti-foundationalist thinkers — thinkers who want us to attend to the specific processes and practices of nature and humanity without understanding them to be the product of some fundamental essence or “absolute”.

scholarly journals Amartya Sen’s Identity Pluralism Applied to Will Kymlicka’s Liberal Multiculturalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-546
Author(s):  
Betto van Waarden
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Recent Effort ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Participation Rights ◽  
Liberal Multiculturalism ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Multicultural Theory

Multicultural theory pays surprisingly little attention to the plurality of identity. In addition, there is still dissatisfaction with Will Kymlicka’s distinction between polyethnic groups and national minorities and the rights they deserve, as well as continued criticism of liberal multiculturalism more broadly. I revisit this distinction based on Amartya Sen’s recent effort to introduce the notion of identity pluralism into liberal debates. In Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2006), Sen stresses the importance of maintaining political stability through individuals’ plural identities mainly in relation to religious divides and global conflict. Sen’s theory is criticised for being too abstract, but I interpret these abstract ideas to criticise Kymlicka’s distinction between polyethnic groups and national minorities and strengthen liberal multiculturalism. I argue that the notion of identity pluralism implies that a state must promote multicultural ‘participation rights’ for all minority identities, rather than ‘accommodation rights’ for polyethnic groups and ‘self-government rights’ for national minorities as Kymlicka contends. Consequently, regions like Quebec, Flanders and Catalonia would not merit the level of autonomy they currently enjoy, and Scotland should not be granted independence from the United Kingdom.

The Prehistory and Analogues of Hesiod’s Poetry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. Katz
Keyword(s):  
Greek Poetry ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Holistic Understanding

Hesiod’s indebtedness to Near Eastern material is more frequently discussed than the Indo-European background of his poetry. This chapter argues for a holistic understanding of how Indo-European prehistory and Near Eastern analogues contribute together to the formation of Hesiodic language and thought. Concentrating on Theogony 35, ἀλλὰ τίη μοι ταῦτα περὶ δρῦν ἢ περὶ πέτρην;, “But what are these things about a tree or a rock to me?,” I demonstrate that this enigmatic question encapsulates Hesiod’s role as mouthpiece at the head of the simultaneously Indo-European- and Near Eastern-based tradition of Greek poetry. By means of artful phonology here and throughout the proem, Hesiod highlights, in ways not previously noticed, the quite different sounds of the melodious Muses and their loud-thundering father, Zeus, who, like the Near Eastern storm god, has a robust association with prophetic oaks and stones.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document