Rating: 
Summary: important but not as original as it is supposed to be
Review: I am only an amateur of philosophy and linguistics; but the points this book presents seem to me not as original as they are supposed to be.
For example, why no mention of Nietzsche's writings? Nietzsche, if my memory and understanding are correct, has said many things about what the authors call "embodied logic". And that most of our thoughts are unconscious, that language and thought is essentially metaphorical, do not strike me as really new insights.
Anyway, it is a book worthy being read.
Rating: 
Summary: more subjects to make money
Review: I give this book 3 stars for the long and extensive effort to once again make money off of senseless subjects, i mean this is pure genius maybe i need to jump on the bandwagon lmao! For one a metaphor explains a subject object in a uncharacteristic approach, which has nothing to do with the literal account of the observer to the object who gives what he sees about a subject object a usable term which would commonly satisfy all viewers as most would be in agreement base on whatever terminology they have setup in their society. Yes metaphors can be seen as being abstract when using words to explain the subject in a nonliteral sense. As pointed out by other readers nothing new here, and me being a avid fan of cognitive science this book does nothing to improve on what i already understand about the mind and body relation. This is my second critique becos amazon.com reps have been drinking too much coffee. lol But a better book about the mind would be by arizona scientist David Chalmers (The Conscious Mind) this is a great book as he explains his views with a greater sense of clarity and how they can be arrived at by any individual, given time and patience these views will come to the forefront, after all, metaphors along with human nature is just an open program based on binary codes and multiplicity of how these codes interact as programed to create different events of causes and effects, another good book would be, The philosophy of action by mele, which may give one a differemt approach to this subject.................on closing all terms support the subject wether it is visible are not, of course the term to express something can be seen as being abstract but from another position it can be seen as just the opposite, being that it supports some objective source which brought it forth in the first place. To me if something is abstract it existes without the need of meaning, to add meaning would be disfiguring to such surreal beingness I think we as humans are too caught up in trying to fit everything under our umbrella of acceptance especially in the academia circles......... human logic or what appears to be, based on our critique is just another example of form trying to be what it is not! lmao!
Rating:
Summary: the embodied mind and its trifles with western thought
Review: I may just be an armchair philosopher, but I don't think this book's challenge is nearly as radical as it's rhetoric would suggest. Surely, the authors are part of a wonderful project, and one with very important consequences; it seems they know this and with this book aim to convince a wider audience of this fact. It's a noble endeavor; the inclusion of the findings of cognitive science are impressive enough to warrant a reading by anyone who wants to broaden their base of informed philosophical opinion. Nevertheless, the authors' attempts to make this text more accessible tends to oversimplify their critique of philosophy and effectively weakens their overall argument. Many crucial movements - post-structuralism, for example - are merely paid lip service here, and the more comprehensive commentaries seem to be conveniently selected. It's not difficult to finish this book with the impression that these authors are better linguists than they are philosophers.
Rating: 
Summary: This changes everything
Review: I teach cognitive/behavorial motivational sessions for an offender population here in Oregon. After wading through Mark Johnson's book I feel like I need a complete re-tooling in even the most basic concepts of cognition. The approach of contemplation/pre-contemplation and self image preceeding actions (as posited by Stanton Samenow) seem quaint by comparison. Maybe I didn't get it...but Dr Johnson, if you read this...congratulations on a masterpiece, and please e-mail me as I have a million questions.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent but neglected Wittgenstein
Review: I've read, or read in, all the authors previous works with enthusiasm. This fulfills what was promised in those earlier works. My only disappointment so far (I've skipped around)was the short shrift they gave to the later Wittgenstein. What Lakoff and Johnson have in breadth, I think Wittgenstein will add much depth. As a matter of fact, I plan to use this book to organize ideas about Wittgenstein's later work. I understand why the authors may not have wished to say much about Wittgenstein, as everybody sees a different Wittgenstein: Mind and World by McDowell, Truth and Objectivity by Crispin Wright, etc. I still feel an authentic Wittgenstein can be found, and the Lakoff and Johnson will be a great help in finding him. If anyone is interested in exchanging insights, I am thirsty for conversation. (roparrl@aol.com)
Rating: 
Summary: Simplistic and over-burdened by reification of Science
Review: Johnson's attempt to "turn philosophy on its face" is little more than the return of a very old argument, only now with the benefit of new discoveries in cognitive-science which, we are to believe, give this disguised argument new cogency and import. Johnson's argument is based on a reification of science, where the principles derived from empirical evidence shall color our ethics, philosophy, etc. The problem is that the principles don't necessarily flow from the data. Johnson, in an effort to establish himself , has jumped, and now must hold on, whatever the truth. The book is pretentious, overbearing, and shallow, and its overarching treatment and recasting of all philosophy, from Kant to Chomsky, reeks of sophistication (in the older Greek sense, i.e., sophistry).
Rating:
Summary: Good message, problematic execution
Review: Lakoff and Johnson make strong claims for second-generation cognitive science as a potential revolution in philosophy. By and large, they are right in their general claims. (And they are not "reifying science," only telling us what's current in one branch of one science.) Indeed, the mind is in the body, and we use metaphors. The actual way we think is very different from what most philosophers assumed, and that is an important realization. However, they could do a better job with the execution. The other reviews have covered a lot of this ground, so I will stick to a few important issues. 1. Damasio. In spite of a couple of references to rather dated Damasio work, they do not take into account the genuinely revolutionary importance of A. and H. Damasio's findings about the inseparability of emotion and cognition in the human brain. This absolutely epochal finding has been largely ignored, due in part to Damasio's less than philosophically sophisticated writeup of it in DESCARTE'S ERROR. One would hope that L and J would supply the sophistication rather than joining in the ignoring. 2. Darwinian psychology. L and J's writeup on Darwin confines itself to an attack on pop-Darwinism of the TIME and NEWSWEEK species. Yet, their whole book would be enormously improved by consideration of serious evolutionary psychology (Cosmides, Tooby, David Buss, et al). The brain isn't just in the body; it, and the body it is in, have been shaped by a few million years of natural selection. That has created particular, and interesting, problems, such as: 3. Built-in biases. People find it exceedingly difficult to think according to the tenets of formal rationality, because our minds love to take shortcuts and make plausible assumptions. This makes sense in the context of everyday life (see Gert Gigerenzer on this) but sure plays hell with the sort of "rational thought" that economists claim we do all the time. Yet, no serious discussion of this in L and J. 4. Kant. Kant is badly misrepresented in the book. He (unlike most of his followers--I admit) was quite aware of the embodiment of mind and the physical limits on thought, and worked hard to figure out how we could reason in spite of all. He pointed out that we do somehow manage to carry out abstract reason when it comes to math, formal logic, and much else. So, why shouldn't we try to apply it to morals? And he was hardly a "strict father" in his morality; he was the architect of the arguments for freedom of speech and many of the other civil liberties we now take for granted (in the US). 5. Metaphors. Are we the slaves of our metaphors, or their masters? If we metaphorize "love" (read: amorous relationships) as a journey, does that mean we seriously think love is a journey? Relationships also "blow up," "break," "fold," "die," "strengthen," etc. We deploy metaphors strategically; we are sometimes their slaves but usually their masters, as Elizabethan writer and blues lyricists well know. Thus, when we try, we can think rather more accurately and abstractly than L and J allow.
Rating:
Summary: Another nail in Plato's coffin
Review: Lakoff and Johnson's book "Philosophy in the Flesh" adds the voice of cognitive linguistics to the growing chorus of voices from science of mind that have informed philosophers: the Platonic World View is nearing the end of its reign over Western philosophy. The human mind is a product of its physical embodiment in the flesh, not some non-physical mystery.In addition to its main story line, "Philosophy in the Flesh" also has a meta-story line. Lakoff and Johnson were well aware of the fact that many philosophers who remain bewitched by the West's Platonic legacy do not want to listen to what the science of mind has discovered. As Lakoff and Johnson clearly explain the situation, Platonic Idealism, Cartesian Dualism, and Anglo-American analytic philosophy are the natural products of a priori philosophical assumptions that are based on certain common sense metaphors such as 'seeing is believing'. Lakoff and Johnson carefully explain how the science of cognitive linguistics has accumulated data that show the limitations of such Folk Psychological views. Within "Philosophy in the Flesh", Lakoff and Johnson included an anticipatory critique of their critics, explaining why these critics remain trapped in a dead-end philosophical world view. The key point is that many philosophers are still trained in the belief that science can have nothing useful to say about the mind. This attitude towards science is a fundamental part of the philosophical tradition that is invalidated by modern science of mind. Thus, we are dealing with the latest installment in the rather intriguing situation of an entire intellectual nation being declared intellectually bankrupt by another intellectual tribe. A perfect setting for a protracted battle! In addition, Lakoff and Johnson explicitly explain what is wrong with postmodernism and why it is at odds with their views. Amazingly, this has not stopped some from calling Lakoff's and Johnson's approach postmodern. There is exceptional irony in this kind of desperate attack on the ideas expressed in "Philosophy in the Flesh". The meta-story line within "Philosophy in the Flesh" serves a useful role for potential buyers of the book. Many critics of "Philosophy in the Flesh" are adherents to the Platonic World View and they have voiced exactly the complaints about "Philosophy in the Flesh" that Lakoff and Johnson explicitly anticipated and accounted for with their meta-story line. What can we conclude when these critics of "Philosophy in the Flesh" fail to mention the meta-story line and how it anticipated their complaints? Most likely, such critics of this book did not read it. If they had, they would have seen the meta-story line and addressed IT in their reviews of the book. If you are a member of the anti-science tribe of philosophers of mind and language, you will have been trained to ignore the arguments and scientific data that are presented by Lakoff and Johnson. If you are already devoted to an investigation of mind and language by making use of scientific studies of brains and human behavior, then you will enjoy this book as it explores the philosophical implications of physically embodied minds. If you are still thinking about mind and language with an open mind, this book will be useful to you. It presents a strong argument for a new way of doing philosophy that is rooted in the science of mind. Here are some challenges to the philosophers who are upset by "Philosophy in the Flesh". Take the time to actually read the book. Come back and tell us what you think of how Lakoff and Johnson explained why you are upset. There is a close parallel to how the current philosophical debate over mind is playing out and how the debate over Vitalism played out in the last century. Many philosophers of mind argue that the mind is a special case in philosophy because of the mystery of subjective experience. In "Philosophy in the Flesh" Lakoff and Johnson explain why the old dualistic distinction between objective and subjective is bogus. The response of critics to this specific issue would be a good place to begin a dialog about the actual content of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: more divided information (sighs)
Review: Once again leave it to the western thinkers to drop the ball! For one, the mind being a inherented embodiment clearly shows that it is a programed mechanism regardless of what one chooses to see and secondly confront with the eyes to human limited logic relation. Please less question how we view what the brain really is! lmao! For starters lets see it as a common shell of our particular species that incases its own unique human snail. The human snail would be the ego personality as it relates as being a (MIND) within a system of a boundless MIND! Secondly thoughts being unconsciousness depends on your understanding of consciousness which is clearly limited in the views i have read as well as of this book. Thirdly abstract concepts being metaphoric, yes and no, it all depends on intuitiveness regardless of any secondary relation towards explaining a subject or even creating one, so in the end we can treat abstract concepts as being a fundamental concrete construct in the sense of getting many usages out of the same concept as seen through out all societies as ppl can use the same form to define asscoiated value to (it) differently. To sum up my point the ancient egyptians explained the whole mind and body relation way back in the day, too bad it was never understood in its entirety to outsiders. So on closing regardless of the mind/body relation, which is evident, this still does not take away from the claims of it all being intentionally induced or the constructs of an outside causer as i will explain in great volumes in the near future. For a better view of the limitations of human rationale read DAVID CHALMERS book entitled, The Conscious Mind (in search of a fundamental theory). I highly recommend this book over this one being that, it pleases both point of views without throwing around inconclusive pseudo ideas about why ppl would reject this book! lmao! can u say selfconscious author? i know i can! lmao! Besides i am still waiting on materialist to explain how the quality of psychology could ever emerge from something that is not psychological fundamentally lmao! regardless of how u twist yourselves in a bind you cannot seperate consciousness, intelligence and intentionality from being facets of the same source, sorry the view of nonself identity robots is just another illusion that has a outside causer, wake up already. laysa! and one more thing just because there are ppl who are accepted by their group of peers in their respected areas does not make their claims legit in the real world, the average so called laymen may not be as average or illiterate to the subject as one makes them out to be, presumbably anyway, lol they just as i just have a different way of explaining the subject, just because a group of men get together and create new terminology to explain the same thing, does not make them the exception over everyone else, besides theories or still incomplete pictures so try again............... p.s what begins from nothing cannot be seen as metophoric so swallow that down with a cup of tea! really, think about what was just written...............indeed i will see ppl like DAVID CHALMERS at the finish line, not too confident about the rest. laysa!
Rating:
Summary: Shame on them for not citing Piaget
Review: Piaget's concept and work on sensory-motor intelligence and development of ideas, genetic epistemology etc. clearly anticipates them.
|
