Cognitive linguistics
George Lakoff
b. 1941
Metaphors are arguments in disguise. Machine, battlefield, pipeline — each carries a hidden claim about what an organisation is and what may be done to it.
Read alongside: Sense
- Start with
- Metaphors We Live By (1980, with Mark Johnson)
- Where they resist the book
- If all thinking is metaphorical, the river is no more privileged than the machine. The book has to earn its metaphor rather than assume it.
Works worth the time
Metaphors We Live By · 1980
With Mark Johnson. The book behind the claim that machine, battlefield and pipeline are arguments, not decoration.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press ↗Read further
- Wikipedia: George Lakoff ↗
Wikipedia
Where Lakoff appears
I. The RiverCritical thinking
Metaphors are arguments in disguise.
Machine, battlefield, engine, pipeline — each carries a hidden claim about what an organisation is and what may reasonably be done to it. The river is a metaphor too, and it should be tested rather than adopted. Ask what it makes visible and what it lets you avoid.