Problem 1: Just-so stories. There are stories told about many of the metaphors based only on guesses, which result in occasional inaccuracy. For example, “stand up to something” comes from fistfights, not a general tendency to see up as good.
Problem 2: Commonplace facts, or facts leading nowhere. For example, in English we often use the metaphor of life as a journey. We know this already. What should we do with it?
If the parts exhibiting these problems were eliminated from the post as it is now, you’d basically be left with bits of the introduction, one example of a common metaphor, the bit on Zeno’s arrow, and the last ten lines. Not very much. Something I’d like to see an example of is change in non-moral ideas resulting in a change in moral behavior that uses the non-moral ideas as a metaphor, and implications for the project of trying to isolate “human morality.”
For example, in English we often use the metaphor of life as a journey. We know this already. What should we do with it?
I’m trying and failing to find the study through Google, but I recall reading research where this was actually quite class-dependent. The middle class and affluent tend to conceive of life as a journey; the working poor tend to conceive of life as a struggle.
For example, “stand up to something” comes from fistfights, not a general tendency to see up as good.
From the context (especially the heading immediately preceding this metaphor), I thought “standing up to something” was an example of evil as a force, not of evil is low, good is high/up.
Something I’d like to see an example of is...
I voted up this comment because of this well-specified call for evidence.
Good request. I’d like to see some reasoning on the other end of the problem: assuming that it’s commonplace to construct morality upon metaphors, does this show that moral reasoning must be metaphor-guided? If so, how?
I’m going to be pretty critical here.
Problem 1: Just-so stories. There are stories told about many of the metaphors based only on guesses, which result in occasional inaccuracy. For example, “stand up to something” comes from fistfights, not a general tendency to see up as good.
Problem 2: Commonplace facts, or facts leading nowhere. For example, in English we often use the metaphor of life as a journey. We know this already. What should we do with it?
If the parts exhibiting these problems were eliminated from the post as it is now, you’d basically be left with bits of the introduction, one example of a common metaphor, the bit on Zeno’s arrow, and the last ten lines. Not very much. Something I’d like to see an example of is change in non-moral ideas resulting in a change in moral behavior that uses the non-moral ideas as a metaphor, and implications for the project of trying to isolate “human morality.”
I’m trying and failing to find the study through Google, but I recall reading research where this was actually quite class-dependent. The middle class and affluent tend to conceive of life as a journey; the working poor tend to conceive of life as a struggle.
From the context (especially the heading immediately preceding this metaphor), I thought “standing up to something” was an example of evil as a force, not of evil is low, good is high/up.
I voted up this comment because of this well-specified call for evidence.
Good request. I’d like to see some reasoning on the other end of the problem: assuming that it’s commonplace to construct morality upon metaphors, does this show that moral reasoning must be metaphor-guided? If so, how?