Image-Schematic Bases of Meaning Mark JOHNSON Southern Illinois University (Carbondale )

Image-Schematic Bases of Meaning Mark JOHNSON Southern Illinois University (Carbondale ) Our purpose in this article is to explore the intimate relation betwee n perception and meaning I. By way of introduction, I would like to note one very important fact that bears directly on the nature of meaning ; namely, that every human being has a body. To be human is to be embodied, and our bodil y interactions set out the contours of our world as we experience it . Consequent- ly, the very possibility of our experiencing anything as meaningful depend s upon the character of our bodily experience. What we can experience, what i t can mean to us, how we understand that experience, and how we reason abou t it are all integrally tied up with our bodily being . This is precisely what we should expect as we focus on the relation of perception and meaning. We are all animals trying to survive and thrive withi n our ever-changing environment. In order to do this well we must perform a n enormous number of highly structured sensorimotor activities. For instance, we must be able to identify objects, persons, and events, which involves recog- nizing recurring patterns as significant and meaningful . We have to manipulate objects and to move our bodies in ways that coordinate perceptual structure s with complex motor programs. We must move our bodies through space without reflective thought, in order to accomplish tasks necessary for our sur - vival. And we must interact socially with our fellow beings, who share and co - create our material and social environment . It should consequently come as no surprise that our bodily experience and activity play a crucial role in definin g our meaningful existence. The point I want to make is that meaning cannot be separated from th e structures of our embodied perceptual interactions and movements. If we did not have the bodies we do, or if they were somehow radically different than they are now, then we would not create, understand, and communicat e meaning in the way we do. 1. The Objectivist Vlew of Meaning and Reaso n The view of the intimate and inextricable link between structures o f perception and meaning, as described above, is not compatible with th e received " objectivist " view of meaning that underlies much of contemporary semantics (cf. Johnson 1987 : XXI-XXV). Semantic objectivism consists typically of a number of commonly-held, interrelated views about the worl d and cognition : R Si, vol. 9 (1989), n1-2-3 m Association c nadienne de iSmiotique/Canadian Semiotic Association 110 Recherches semiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry 111 Image-Schematic Bases of Meanin g The Objectivist View of Meaning 2. Cognitive Semantics : The Embodiment of Meaning (1) The world consists of mind-independent objects that have determinate properties and stand in definite relations to each other . The nature of these Objectivist semantics is actually more misleading than it is helpful. It is objects is independent of the ways in which people experience and understan d bad metaphysics, bad epistemology, bad psychology, bad linguistics, and ba d them. cognitive science . These criticisms can be illustrated by a consideration of the (2) Meaning is an abstract relation between symbolic representations picture of human cognition that objectivism presupposes. Objectivism takes (either words or mental representations) and objective (i .e., mind-inde- the world to be a pre-given collection of determinate objects that are distinc t pendent) reality. These symbols are arbitrary and meaningless in themselves , from the subjects who experience them. The body is thus regarded as a mere but they are supposedly given meaning by virtue of their capacity to co rrespond mechanical transducer that translates input signals from the external worl d to things, properties, and relations existing objectively "in the world. " into output signals that are picked up by our minds as symbolic representations . (3) Meaning is sentential (propositional) and truth-conditional . Providing This rigid subject-object dichotomy creates the epistemological problem of the meaning for a particular utterance or sentence consists of stipulating th e figuring out how we can be sure that our mental representations really do map conditions under which it would be true, or the conditions under which i t onto the external physical world from which we are separated. Hence, we are would be "satisfied" by some state of affairs in the world . Such a view seeks a caught up inescapably in a web of sceptical problems about the possibility o f recursive theory that shows how we can build up larger true or satisfied units knowledge. from smaller units, which are taken as semantic primitives . Even worse, no mention is made of the role of biology, that is, of th e (4) Meaning is fundamentally literal . Literal concepts or terms are, by importance of the organism's embodiment in the structures of its system of definition, simply those entities whose meanings specify conditions of satisfac- meaning. Objectivism makes virtually no mention of imaginative processe s tion for the objects, properties, and relations they designate . It follows that (such as metaphor, metonymy, concept formation, schemata, and categorie s there can be no irreducibly figurative or metaphorical concepts, because meta- whose structures are imaginative rather than actually present in the external phorical projections cut across basic experiential domains, and such cross - world) that are grounded in our bodily experience and are central to meanin g categorical projections are held to have no counterparts in the real world, and rationality. No theory of meaning, rationality, or knowledge influentia l which supposedly has discrete and definite categorical boundaries . today allocates any central place to imagination. In fact, objectivists have (5) Objectivism clearly distinguishes meaning from understanding . never known what to do with imagination, because it does not correspond to Meaning is held to be objective and in no way dependent on any person's o r their notions of pure meaning and reason, and it is not formalizable in th e community's understanding or grasp of it. A term has meaning objectively, by requisite logical fashion . And since imagination is very much dependent upo n virtue of its relation to the world, and not because somebody happens t o our physical, linguistic, and cultural interactions and orientations, it is no understand it in a particular fashion. It follows, according to this view, that a surprise that human embodiment has mattered little or not at all in objectivist theory of meaning is not the same as a theory of human understanding . and "Language of Thought" theories of meaning and rationality . (6) Finally, reason is regarded as a transcendent, self-sufficient, ahistorica l In striking contrast to this objectivist view of meaning and reason, researc h structure that exists independently of any particular mind or historica l in " cognitive semantics " (Lakoff 1987 ; Langacker 1986 ; Johnson 1987) has instantiation of it . The core of this objective rationality is delineated by forma l come to recognize the central role played by our physical embodiment, our logic and is held to be entirely value-neutral and free of emotional and nonpropositional understanding, and our imaginative structuring in the way w e imaginative dimensions . Rationality is "disembodied" in the sense that i t experience, make sense of, and communicate our sense of reality . A theory of consists of pure abstract logical relations and operations which are independen t meaning is a theory of understanding, where 'understanding' is our way of bein g of subjective processes and sensorimotor experiences in the bodily organism . in and experiencing our world. Such understanding is something we do with Reasoning is thus seen as the rule-governed manipulation of symbols that are our whole unified embodied mentality through perception, manipulation, meaningless in themselves but attain their meaning through their objectiv e movement, and conscious and unconscious acts of organizing and unifying. relations to states of affairs in the world. It consists of a series of operations i n Much of this understanding is imaginative activity that is neither sententia l which connections among symbols and rule-governed combinations of symbol s nor strictly logical in the objectivist sense, yet understanding of this sort is th e are established and traced out according to various logical principles . basis for our ability to make sense of things and to reason about them . This "Symbol Manipulation" or "Language of Thought" (Fodor 1981) vie w Cognitive semantics pursues the hypothesis that the alleged "higher" of meaning supports the dominant metaphor of contemporary cognitive cognitive functions that are supposed to make meaning and reasoning possible science; namely, THE MINI) IS A COMPUTER PROGRAM . Reasoning is treated as a are indeed continuous with and inseparable from our sensorimotor activities. program that can be run on any suitable hardware . Neither the structure of This thesis of the intimate connection between perceptual and semanti c rationality nor the nature of meaning is supposed to be affected significantly by structures is not new. Dewey (1981 : 207-222) was quite explicit about just suc h its embodiment. a connection, 2 Merleau-Potty (1962) explored the role of what he called the 112 Recherches st miotiques f' Semiotic Inquiry 113 Image-Schematic Bases of Meaning "phenomenal body" in the development of meaning, and Patricia Churchland contours of our embodied experience of our world. The CENTER-PERIPHER Y has recently argued that : schema is crucial to our most basic preconceptual understanding of our world , ... it seems to me quite possible that some capacities hitherto considered strictly and it concerns the way in which our world grows up around us as an arena o f cognitive may be discovered to share fundamental elements with paradigmatic moto r our meaningful action.

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