Rating: 
Summary: The metaphor of the book
Review:
The authors have undoubtedly created a captivating account of the pervasive role of metaphor in human cognition. We certainly use metaphors in the way we communicate, but primary their focus is on how metaphors are used in how we think. That is, how do they affect our understanding and perceptions?
Metaphors seem to be visually oriented pictures by which we condense a greater concept into a manageable instance. These predefined packets of ideas are then used interchangeably as we think and evaluate choices.
One item I wished the authors had included is how metaphors originate and how they are introduced into culture. Are they usually a simplistic example from everyday life, which captures the imagination and is easily impressed on the mind? Do they develop from years of common sense wisdom?
Another aspect of metaphors which I believe to be worthy of consideration is the tendency to use them as a crutch. That is, it's easy to spout off the same old jargon and to speak in clichés. It's even worse to think in clichés. Does the person who relies too heavily on metaphors cease to `break new ground' in thinking originally and independently? I wanted the authors to address this possible darker side of the metaphor.
Lastly, I was looking for instances of when commonly held metaphors were later proven to be faulty. In other words, when have metaphors caused a culture or people group to be stuck in a rut (um...is that a metaphor?) and prevented them from progressing? And, what means of cognition can be used to determine if metaphors are true or false?
In the end this is a thought provoking book on a subject which effects every person, every day - whether they realize it or not.
Rating: 
Summary: Second-gen cognitive science turns to look at antecedents
Review: *Metaphors We Live By* is a broader discussion of the living metaphors we use to think, created from our early experience as well as cultural use. Granted that Lakoff & Johnson's *Philosophy In The Flesh* is a more complete analysis of how second-generation cognitive science has confounded the philosophies that preceded it, including philosophic ideas that founded first-generation cognitive science, this book is less science-oriented and less contentious. Western philosophy has had no serious challenge from science until this generation, when experimental results demonstrated that the rational mind is not detachable from the brain that generates it. (There goes millenia of separating the mind and body.) *Metaphors We Live By* necessarily contends with older schemes of human nature, but if this is not a matter of controversy for the reader, it can be skipped. There are plenty of people who will sputter "but!" at the premise of the book, that >95% of our thinking is unconscious, shaped by empirically-based metaphors, and that most of philosophy is based on demonstrabily incorrect metaphors. Useful, not their last word on the subject, and you might find the Field Guide more useful yet if your interest is only in living metaphors and how to spot them.
Rating:
Summary: Second-gen cognitive science turns to look at antecedents
Review: *Metaphors We Live By* is a broader discussion of the living metaphors we use to think, created from our early experience as well as cultural use. Granted that Lakoff & Johnson's *Philosophy In The Flesh* is a more complete analysis of how second-generation cognitive science has confounded the philosophies that preceded it, including philosophic ideas that founded first-generation cognitive science, this book is less science-oriented and less contentious. Western philosophy has had no serious challenge from science until this generation, when experimental results demonstrated that the rational mind is not detachable from the brain that generates it. (There goes millenia of separating the mind and body.) *Metaphors We Live By* necessarily contends with older schemes of human nature, but if this is not a matter of controversy for the reader, it can be skipped. There are plenty of people who will sputter "but!" at the premise of the book, that >95% of our thinking is unconscious, shaped by empirically-based metaphors, and that most of philosophy is based on demonstrabily incorrect metaphors. Useful, not their last word on the subject, and you might find the Field Guide more useful yet if your interest is only in living metaphors and how to spot them.
Rating:
Summary: Second-gen cognitive science turns to look at antecedents
Review: *Metaphors We Live By* is a broader discussion of the living metaphors we use to think, created from our early experience as well as cultural use. Granted that Lakoff & Johnson's *Philosophy In The Flesh* is a more complete analysis of how second-generation cognitive science has confounded the philosophies that preceded it, including philosophic ideas that founded first-generation cognitive science, this book is less science-oriented and less contentious. Western philosophy has had no serious challenge from science until this generation, when experimental results demonstrated that the rational mind is not detachable from the brain that generates it. (There goes millenia of separating the mind and body.) *Metaphors We Live By* necessarily contends with older schemes of human nature, but if this is not a matter of controversy for the reader, it can be skipped. There are plenty of people who will sputter "but!" at the premise of the book, that >95% of our thinking is unconscious, shaped by empirically-based metaphors, and that most of philosophy is based on demonstrabily incorrect metaphors. Useful, not their last word on the subject, and you might find the Field Guide more useful yet if your interest is only in living metaphors and how to spot them.
Rating: 
Summary: Seminal, and there's more to the story now
Review: *Metaphors We Live By* seminally remarked that language is metaphoric at a much deeper and more pervasive level than had previously been understood. For example, the metaphor ``time is money'' is built into the language: we spend time, invest time, waste time, squander time, borrow time, and so on. It further argued that humans reason using metaphors that ground abstract concepts (like time) in concrete ones (like money, which you can hold in your hand). We use these metaphors in an extended way (both borrowing time and spending it) and coherently (merging different metaphors to reach sensible conclusions). These conclusions have stood the test of time and if anything increased in impact over the years. Lakoff, Johnson, and their students have followed in later work with preliminary models of how neural circuitry for controlling motor actions is reemployed in other thinking, thus shedding light on how thought is grounded, on how the working of neural circuitry acquires meaning.
Roughly a third of *MWLB* is devoted to philosophy, arguing that because thought is so heavily metaphoric, ``there is no reason to believe there is any absolute truth or objective meaning''. They have since rethought this conclusion, and their 1999 book *Philosophy in the Flesh* claims to have accepted the existence of objective reality, but still argues that there is no objective metaphysics of such phenomena as time, causality, or morality. Since many different metaphors are used in understanding causation that each describe something different, they argue there can be no essential causality. This is such a radical conclusion that we should be loath to accept it without strong evidence, but from their perspective it appears inescapable.
These ideas also feed into Lakoff's book *Moral Politics*. Conservatives often argue that liberals are emotional and irrational-- a noteworthy magazine of the right is thus called *Reason*. Lakoff, because he doesn't believe in an objective reality or an objective morality in any ordinary sense, accedes to this without firing a shot. Rather than dispute that liberals are emotional and irrational, he argues that rationality is a mirage.
*Metaphors We Live By* greatly impressed me, and was an important stimulus for my 2004 book *What is Thought?*. *WiT?* proposed fundamental organizing principles of thought, from which Lakoff and Johnson's empirical observations regarding metaphor emerge in a natural way. *WIT?* explains ''understanding'' as the computational exploitation of the underlying structure to the world, and argues (based on discoveries in computer science made in the 20+ years since *MWLB* appeared) that it is produced through evolving a compact computer program. This program can only be so compact yet so powerful by reuse of meaningful subroutines-- which gives rise to metaphor. Thus simple fundamental principles that explain many other aspects of thought also organize and cause Lakoff and Johnson's observations. Note however that my proposal, rather than denying the existence of Platonic structure as do Lakoff et al's various books, is built on top of it: the underlying compact Platonic structure explains how understanding is possible. Yes we have many different metaphors for dealing with causality, but they all exploit the fact that there is a very simple description of the physics of the world, and this simple description presumably includes or implies ''essential causality''.
Rating:
Summary: Structured Experience
Review: After hearing nearly every anthropology professor I've ever had reference the work of Lakoff and Johnson in some way, I decided to try reading this book for myself. I'm very glad I did, because it completely changed my view of language, thought, and truth.
Starting with the (deceptively) simple premise that the way we talk about certain things shapes the way we think about them, Lakoff and Johnson launch into a stimulating deconstruction of what they term "conceptual metaphors", and the complex way in which they interact to structure our experience of reality. These aren't just metaphors in the rhetorical sense though; the authors examine how common ways of speaking and thinking actually reflect a relatively coherent metaphorical system.
For example, you might not think that the statement "He strayed from the line of argument" is metaphorical is any significant way, but it is grounded in the metaphor that AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY, and the assumption that A JOURNEY DEFINES A PATH. Put them together, and you get AN ARGUMENT DEFINES A PATH; a path which can be strayed from. Lakoff and Johnson explore these interactions in great detail, and suggest some fascinating philosophical and political implications.
This book is very readable (nice short chapters) and I highly recommend it if you are at all interested in anthropology, linguistics, or philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: Readable and thought-provoking
Review: As a writer with a strong interest in how language shapes our view of the world, I found this book exciting and stimulating. In a series of short and (generally) readable chapters, the authors delineate how metaphor informs the language we use to describe reality, and occasionally distorts our perception of it -- their remarks on what we DON'T notice are especially interesting. I'd already noticed how the "time as money" metaphor pervades our language (spending time, wasting time, the value of time, etc.), so I was pleased that my rather bemused insight had been a glimpse of a larger principle! I was less interested in the "what's wrong with the other guys' views" chapters, although the discussion of objectivism and subjectivism helped to clarify some of the issues for me. And I think that critics who dismiss Lakoff and Johnson's work as just another shot in an ongoing, ultimately irrelevant battle between philosophy professors are missing the point: they're picking up on an important aspect of the way language is used (and misused), and I think that learning to listen with an ear to metaphor (especially to political rhetoric) is an important survival skill for any aware human being.
Rating: 
Summary: just a new soup...
Review: Dont bother buying this if you already own anything by Lakoff and Johnson since its probably the same points as always which they are trying to make. If you are really interested in how we, the world and our language interact get hold of some of the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty who's theories are much more profund and hence paint a more generalized picture of why our language has developed as it has. (Even more I'm pretty sure Lakoff and Johnson got most of their basic theories from Merleau-Ponty).And if our are up for an even more eye openening experience into the power and meaning og language go find some of the enigmatic works of Michel Serres.
Rating:
Summary: Why?
Review: Generally speaking, human beings prefer to frame new knowledge in terms that they are already familiar with. Metaphor is therefore one the most common ways of expressing compound ideas in a simple yet powerful/effective manner.
'The sands of time', for example, though originating from the use of sand in an hour glass, is a metaphor rich with alternative images and meanings. But how long can you go on making this very basic point?
In the case of "Metaphors We Live By" the answer is 'over 200' pages. Which is, in this reviewer's opinion, at least 200 pages TOO LONG. Many of the examples are either extremely strained, or simply inconsequential. Is "happiness" ALWAYS equated with "up"? (How about ROTFLMAO?) And even if it were, so what? By the time I got to the end of this thoroughly academic text, my primary thought was simply WHY?
Why did the authors bother to write it?
Why did the publishers bother to publish it?
And why would anyone bother to read it (if they knew in advance what it was like)?
Rating:
Summary: An eye-opener and very entertaining reading.
Review: I think this book is for all of us who are not linguists or writers !! It is so important to realize how much our thoughts are shaped by prejudiced ways of framing our concepts. I do recommend this book,
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