A Clearing in the Forest

Abstract

Most lawyers understand metaphor as merely a matter of expression--perhaps useful for rhetorical purposes, but perilous to the analytic logic that should direct the movement from an authoritative rule to the decision of a concrete case. Many philosophers understand metaphor as entirely devoid of semantic content. For them, linguistic meaning is socially contingent and essentially arbitrary; metaphors are powerful devices capable of affecting the senses and sometimes giving birth to new meanings. Advances in cognitive theory undermine these assumptions about reason and meaning. The emerging picture is of a human rationality that is embodied rather than abstract, imaginative rather than propositional, flexible rather than definitional, and grounded in experience rather than involving deduction from abstract principles. Cognitive processes such as conceptual metaphor, metonymy, image schemas, and radial categories are central to human reason and understanding. Indeed, human rationality cannot be understood apart from the pivotal role of embodied imagination in all aspects of cognition, language, and thought.