Day: April 15, 2025

🔍 Mental Metaphors Are Core to Abstract Thinking

“People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.” (Casasanto, p. 46)
🧠 Casasanto distinguishes mental metaphors (non-linguistic mappings) from linguistic metaphors, showing that humans often think metaphorically even without language (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014a) 🌐.

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📚 Challenges to Universality and Fixity

“Yet the claims that basic mental metaphors are learned, universal, and fixed are all challenged by experimental data” (p. 47)
🧪 Studies show variability across languages, cultures, and individuals. For instance, newborns already show sensitivity to spatial-numerical mappings, suggesting innateness rather than learning (De Hevia et al., 2014) 👶.

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🧭 Hierarchical Mental Metaphors Theory (HMMT)

“Even our most basic mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales, on the basis of multiple kinds of experience.” (p. 48)
🌱 HMMT proposes that metaphors exist in superordinate families—universal but flexible—shaped by ongoing cultural, linguistic, and bodily experiences. Different mappings from the same family can become dominant over time 🏗️.

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🎵 Pitch as an Example of Language-Specific Variation

“Speakers of height languages…incorporate height information into pitch, whereas thickness-language speakers do the same with thickness.” (p. 51)
🎼 Dutch and Farsi speakers conceptualize pitch differently based on the metaphors common in their native language, and brief training in an unfamiliar metaphor can retrain mental mappings (Dolscheid et al., 2013) 🎧.

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👶 Infants Show Both Height–Pitch and Thickness–Pitch Mappings

“Four-month-olds…are sensitive to two of the space–pitch metaphors that are found in languages like Dutch and Farsi.” (p. 53)
👶 Infants possess multiple potential mappings early in life. Language strengthens one metaphor over another, not by creating new ones, but by enhancing the activation frequency of existing ones 🔄.

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🕓 Temporal Sequences Are Culturally Structured

“The direction in which events flow…varies systematically across cultures.” (p. 55)
📆 While sagittal time metaphors (past behind, future ahead) may be embodied, lateral metaphors (left–right) depend on orthographic experience. Mirror-reading even reverses mental timelines (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014b) 🔄🕰️.

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👐 Emotional Valence Tied to Body Dominance

“Right-handers associate positive ideas with right space…left-handers show the opposite.” (p. 57)
💖 The spatial mapping of good vs. bad follows motor fluency. Right-handed people associate “good” with the right, while left-handed people do the opposite. This holds even against cultural conventions (Casasanto, 2009a) ↔️.

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🧤 Motor Experience Can Reverse Valence Mappings

“Participants who had worn the right glove showed the opposite left-is-good bias.” (p. 58)
🧠 Temporary shifts in motor fluency, like wearing a glove on the dominant hand, can alter emotional metaphors in less than 15 minutes—proving their plasticity and dependence on physical experience 🕹️.

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🔁 Mental Metaphors Are Flexible Yet Stable

“Dispreferred mappings are weakened but not lost and can be adopted quickly with new experience.” (p. 60)
🧬 Even “unused” metaphors persist in memory, enabling people to switch mappings when context shifts (e.g., new languages, scripts, tools). This dual stability and flexibility is a core insight of HMMT 🌍🧠.

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🌐 Cognitive Diversity and Conceptual Plasticity

“By understanding how mental metaphors are shaped…we can better understand the origins of our thoughts.” (p. 60)
🌟 Casasanto concludes that mental metaphors are fundamental cognitive tools shaped by diverse experiences. Recognizing their variability enhances our understanding of thought, culture, and language as dynamic systems 🔄🌏.

📘 1. Expands Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

🧩 “People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.” (p. 46)

• 🌐 Casasanto builds on Lakoff & Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which underpins much cognitive literary theory.
• He advances the theory by showing that metaphorical thinking is not static, but dynamically shaped by cultural, bodily, and linguistic experience.
• Contribution: Helps literary theorists analyze how metaphor use in texts reflects both universal and idiosyncratic cognitive patterns across cultures and individuals.

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🧠 2. Introduces HMMT: A Dynamic Model of Meaning-Making

🪜 “Mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales… members of a superordinate family of mappings.” (p. 48)

• 🔄 The Hierarchical Mental Metaphors Theory (HMMT) introduces plasticity into metaphor use, challenging rigid linguistic determinism.
• Literary theorists can apply this to interpret reader-response variation and narrative structures influenced by readers’ embodied or cultural metaphor biases.
• Contribution: Supports reader-centered theories like Reception Theory by explaining why readers interpret metaphors differently.

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✍️ 3. Reframes Embodied Literary Cognition

💡 “Mental metaphors can be fundamental to our understanding of abstract domains, yet at the same time remarkably flexible.” (p. 46)

• Casasanto’s findings back embodied cognition theories in literature (e.g., Scarry, Gibbs).
• They suggest that reading metaphors activates sensorimotor systems, explaining why metaphors feel viscerally meaningful in literary texts.
• Contribution: Strengthens Embodied Poetics and Neuroaesthetics, by grounding metaphor in bodily and cultural experience.

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🌏 4. Offers Tools for Cross-Cultural Literary Analysis

🧭 “Mental metaphors can be language-specific, culture-specific, or body-specific…” (p. 48)

• Casasanto’s research on how language shapes metaphors (e.g., pitch as “high” vs. “thick”) aids Comparative Literature by providing a framework to study how metaphors operate differently in Farsi, Dutch, English, etc.
• Contribution: Supports Postcolonial Literary Theory and Transcultural Criticism by explaining metaphorical variability across linguistic boundaries.

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📚 5. Revitalizes Structuralist & Post-Structuralist Concerns

🧬 “How can they be fundamental…if they can change in a matter of minutes?” (p. 48)

• HMMT challenges the idea of metaphors as fixed semiotic structures, offering a fluid, memory-network-based view.
• This bridges Structuralist attention to patterns with Post-Structuralist focus on instability and play of meaning.
• Contribution: Provides a cognitive underpinning for Derridean différance—mappings are in flux, not fully stable.

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🗣️ 6. Provides Insight into Literary Language Evolution

💬 “Each time people use a linguistic metaphor, the corresponding mental metaphor is activated…” (p. 48)

• This explains how metaphorical language in literature evolves and reshapes cognition itself over time.
• Contribution: Offers Historical Poetics and Stylistics a model to track how metaphorical patterns in texts shape cultural cognition.

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🧤 7. Validates Body-Specific Interpretive Frameworks

✋ “Right-handers associate ‘good’ with the right…left-handers show the opposite.” (p. 57)

• Literary scholars exploring disability studies, gendered embodiment, or queer theory gain from this perspective that bodily difference affects meaning construction.
• Contribution: Adds nuance to embodied literary approaches by introducing body-specific metaphor biases.

❗ 1. Ambiguity Between “Universal” and “Flexible”

Critics argue that the theory struggles to reconcile its claim of universal metaphor families with the radical variability observed across individuals and cultures.

• 🌍 If metaphors are universal (as claimed), why are they so easily reversible in minutes (e.g., with mirrored orthography)?
• ❓ The line between innate mappings and learned cultural variants is sometimes blurred in HMMT, leading to theoretical ambiguity.

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🧪 2. Overreliance on Laboratory Evidence

Many of the cited experiments use artificial settings and brief interventions that may not reflect natural cognitive behavior in real-world contexts.

• 🧫 For example, spatial interference tasks with tones and shapes may oversimplify how people process metaphor in language, art, or literature.
• Critics suggest HMMT may not fully explain deep metaphorical reasoning in complex, real-life scenarios like literature or politics.

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🧠 3. Neglects Social and Power Structures

While HMMT accounts for body, language, and culture, it underplays the role of ideology, power, and discourse in shaping metaphors.

• ⚖️ Critics from poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives argue that metaphors are not just cognitive, but also political and rhetorical tools.
• HMMT lacks engagement with theories from Foucault, Butler, or Bourdieu regarding language, identity, and control.

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📏 4. Limited Scope of Metaphor Domains

The theory focuses mostly on space-based metaphors (e.g., time, pitch, valence), ignoring rich metaphorical domains like morality, love, or nationhood.

• 💘 Metaphors like “love is war” or “the nation is a body” involve emotionally and socially charged concepts that go beyond space–domain mappings.
• HMMT’s hierarchy model might not apply cleanly to multi-domain metaphors or culturally embedded conceptual blends.

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🔁 5. Circularity in Evidence and Explanation

Some scholars argue that HMMT explains metaphor flexibility by invoking metaphor flexibility, creating a tautology.

• 🔄 If all metaphor changes can be explained by metaphor competition, the theory may be unfalsifiable without more predictive power.
• The model risks retrospective explanation rather than offering testable forecasts of metaphor use across populations.

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🔤 6. Language Bias in “Universal” Claims

Critics point out that most empirical studies cited (Dutch, English, Farsi) reflect Indo-European language systems, leaving global linguistic diversity underexplored.

• 🌐 No substantial data from tonal languages (e.g., Chinese), sign languages, or indigenous oral traditions.
• Claims of universality may be premature or Western-centric.

🔵 1.
Quotation:

“People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.”
Explanation:
This sets the foundation of the chapter, asserting that metaphor is not merely a linguistic device, but a cognitive universal shaping how humans understand complex, abstract domains through more tangible ones like space.

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🟢 2.
Quotation:

“Mental metaphors are mappings between non-linguistic representations in a source domain and a target domain that is typically more abstract.”
Explanation:
Here, Casasanto distinguishes mental metaphors from linguistic metaphors, stressing that such mappings occur without language, in our internal thought processes.

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🟣 3.
Quotation:

“The specific mappings that get used most frequently or automatically can vary across individuals and groups.”
Explanation:
This illustrates how individual experience, culture, and language can shape which mental metaphors dominate, despite their shared foundational structure.

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🔴 4.
Quotation:

“Even our most basic mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales, on the basis of multiple kinds of experience.”
Explanation:
Casasanto argues against static universality, proposing that metaphor development is hierarchical and dynamic, adapting over time through layered experiential inputs.

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🟡 5.
Quotation:

“Activating a mapping strengthens this source–target association and… weakens the competing source–target mappings in the same family.”
Explanation:
This reveals how competitive associative learning guides which metaphors become dominant, explaining both their entrenchment and malleability.

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🟤 6.
Quotation:

“It may be a human universal to conceptualize these domains in terms of space… but the particulars… vary across groups.”
Explanation:
A critical point for cognitive diversity: while spatial metaphors may be universal scaffolds, their expression is culturally and bodily specific.

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🔶 7.
Quotation:

“Speakers of thickness languages like Farsi come to rely on multidimensional spatial schemas more strongly than vertical spatial schemas.”
Explanation:
An empirical insight showing how language experience determines spatial representation in mental metaphors—an example of linguistic relativity at work.

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🔷 8.
Quotation:

“Participants did not abandon a spatial mapping of time; rather they rapidly adopted a different mental timeline.”
Explanation:
Illustrates the flexibility of metaphorical thinking. Even entrenched metaphors can be reversed or replaced with new experience, often within minutes.

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⚫ 9.
Quotation:

“The fluent region of space is good.”
Explanation:
From the theory of bodily relativity, this quote links motor fluency to valence, showing that bodily asymmetries shape ethical and emotional judgments.

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⚪ 10.
Quotation:

“By seeking to understand common mechanisms… we can better understand the origins of our thoughts, the extent of cognitive diversity, and the dynamism of our mental lives.”
Explanation:
This concluding statement encapsulates the purpose of HMMT: to account for shared cognitive architecture while explaining its adaptive diversity.

🔵 1. Rejection of Metaphor as Mere Ornament

Black criticizes the belief that “addiction to metaphor is held to be illicit,” equating metaphorical expression with frivolity or unclear thinking (p. 273).
🔹 “To draw attention to a philosopher’s metaphors is to belittle him—like praising a logician for his beautiful handwriting” (p. 273).

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🟡 2. The “Substitution View” of Metaphor Is Inadequate

This outdated view treats a metaphor as a coded or poetic stand-in for a literal equivalent.
🔸 “The meaning of [a metaphor], in its metaphorical occurrence, is just the literal meaning of [its replacement]” (p. 279).

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🟢 3. Comparison View Also Falls Short

Metaphors are often falsely treated as elliptical similes: “Richard is a lion” becomes “Richard is like a lion (in being brave)” (p. 284).
🔹 “The metaphor creates the similarity rather than formulates a similarity antecedently existing” (p. 285).

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🔴 4. Introduction of the “Interaction View”

Black’s main innovation: metaphors involve interaction between two subject systems—a “principal subject” and a “subsidiary subject.”
🔸 “A metaphorical statement has two distinct subjects—a ‘principal’ subject and a ‘subsidiary’ one” (p. 291).
🔸 “We can say that the principal subject is ‘seen through’ the metaphorical expression” (p. 288).

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🟣 5. Metaphor as Conceptual Filter

Like looking through tinted glass: metaphor emphasizes, organizes, and suppresses aspects of the principal subject using the implications of the subsidiary.
🔹 “The metaphor selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features of the principal subject” (p. 292).
🔹 “The chess vocabulary filters and transforms: it not only selects, it brings forward aspects…that might not be seen at all” (p. 289).

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🟤 6. “Associated Commonplaces” Are Central

Metaphors activate culturally shared assumptions or “commonplaces” about the metaphor’s vehicle.
🔸 “To call a man a ‘wolf’ is to evoke the wolf-system of related commonplaces” (p. 288).
🔸 These include ideas like “fierce,” “scavenger,” “hungry,” which shape perception of the man.

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⚪ 7. Cognitive Value of Metaphor Surpasses Literal Paraphrase

Metaphors carry insights that paraphrase cannot match. Literal restatements lose the richness and nuance.
🔹 “The literal paraphrase inevitably says too much—and with the wrong emphasis” (p. 293).
🔹 “It fails to give the insight that the metaphor did” (p. 293).

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🟥 8. Philosophical and Epistemic Importance of Metaphor

Far from decorative, metaphor is a tool for thought. Black defends its role in serious inquiry:
🔸 “A prohibition against their use would be a wilful and harmful restriction upon our powers of inquiry” (p. 294).

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📌 Summary of the Interaction Theory in 7 Points (from p. 291–292)

1. Two distinct subjects: principal & subsidiary
2. Subjects are systems, not just terms
3. Meaning arises from the interaction of systems
4. These involve associated implications (commonplaces)
5. The metaphor organizes perception
6. Involves semantic shifts—sometimes metaphorical
7. No universal rule for what makes a metaphor effective

🔵 Interaction Theory of Metaphor as Cognitive Process
→ Black’s central claim is that metaphor is not just linguistic ornamentation, but a way of knowing, creating meaning by interaction between subjects.
📚 Structuralism / Cognitive Poetics
📝 “The meaning is a resultant of their interaction” (p. 286).
📝 “Metaphor… selects, emphasizes, suppresses, and organizes features…” (p. 292).
✅ This aligns with structuralist ideas that meaning emerges from relational systems, and anticipates cognitive theories that link language and thought.

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🟣 Challenge to Substitution and Comparison Views
→ Black dismantles classical views of metaphor as merely decorative or rhetorical devices (substitutes or comparisons).
📚 Formalism / Classical Rhetoric (critique)
📝 “The metaphorical use of an expression consists… in other than its proper or normal sense” (p. 279).
✅ His rejection of the ornamental view reshapes metaphor as essential to discourse—not an optional flourish, but foundational.

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🟢 Introduction of “Associated Commonplaces”
→ Metaphors draw on culturally embedded “commonplaces,” showing that meaning is socially constructed.
📚 Reader-Response Theory / Cultural Criticism
📝 “To call a man a ‘wolf’ is to evoke the wolf-system of related commonplaces” (p. 288).
✅ Meaning depends on the reader’s cultural background, positioning metaphor as interpretively flexible and subjective.

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🔴 Metaphor as Semantic Innovation (Meaning Creation)
→ Metaphors don’t just reflect meaning—they create it, often producing insights unavailable in literal language.
📚 Deconstruction / Poststructuralism
📝 “It would be more illuminating… to say that the metaphor creates the similarity than to say that it formulates one” (p. 285).
✅ Undermines stable meaning, supporting poststructuralist ideas of fluid, shifting significations.

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🟡 Critique of Rigid Semantics: Emphasis on Pragmatics
→ Meaning is context-bound, tied to speaker intent, tone, occasion, and cannot be dictated solely by linguistic rules.
📚 Pragmatics / Speech Act Theory
📝 “We must not expect the ‘rules of language’ to be of much help…” (p. 278).
📝 “Recognition and interpretation… may require attention to the particular circumstances of its utterance” (p. 277).
✅ Helps literary theorists see how language performs, not just represents, meaning.

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🟤 Metaphor as Epistemological Lens
→ Like a lens or screen, metaphor highlights and conceals—framing perception.
📚 Phenomenology / Hermeneutics
📝 “The metaphor acts as a screen… seen through the metaphor” (p. 288).
✅ Reinforces Heideggerian or Gadamerian notions that language discloses the world, not neutrally reflects it.

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🟠 Valuation of Metaphor in Philosophy and Literature
→ Argues that metaphor is not a fallacy or simplification but a philosophically legitimate tool for inquiry and reflection.
📚 Philosophy of Language / Literary Philosophy
📝 “Metaphors are dangerous—and perhaps especially so in philosophy. But a prohibition… would be a harmful restriction…” (p. 294).
✅ Elevates metaphor from literary fringe to central in philosophical analysis.

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🟣 Bridging Literary Criticism and Analytic Philosophy
→ Black borrows from literary critics to address philosophers’ neglect of metaphor.
📚 Interdisciplinary Literary Theory
📝 “Since philosophers… have so neglected the subject, I must get what help I can from the literary critics” (p. 273).
✅ Encourages cross-disciplinary dialogue, anticipating literary philosophy and analytic aesthetics.

🔺 Vagueness in the “System of Associated Commonplaces”
Black relies heavily on culturally shared assumptions (commonplaces), but critics argue these are not clearly defined or universally shared, making interpretation subjective and unstable.
➡️ “The metaphor works by applying to the principal subject a system of ‘associated implications’…” (Black, 1955, p. 292)

🔻 Potential for Infinite Regress
Critics note that if metaphors themselves contain metaphorical implications (as Black suggests), each metaphor could contain layers of others, leading to an endless chain of interpretation.
➡️ “The primary metaphor…has been analyzed into a set of subordinate metaphors…” (p. 290)

⚠️ Underdeveloped Cognitive Framework
Black touches on the cognitive impact of metaphors but doesn’t fully explore their psychological or neurological processing, leaving a gap that later scholars (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson) attempted to fill.

🟠 Neglect of Audience Diversity
Black assumes a reader who shares cultural knowledge. But in multicultural or global contexts, the same metaphor can evoke vastly different associations, limiting the theory’s universality.
➡️ “A metaphor that works in one society may seem preposterous in another…” (p. 287)

🔹 Ambiguity Between Focus and Frame
While innovative, the distinction between “focus” and “frame” can be blurry in complex texts, making it difficult to apply consistently, especially in layered literary metaphors.
➡️ “Let us call the word ‘ploughed’ the focus of the metaphor, and the remainder of the sentence…the frame.” (p. 276)

🚫 Dismissal of Other Metaphor Types
Some critics argue that Black’s elevation of interaction metaphors inadvertently dismisses valid uses of substitution and comparison metaphors, especially in rhetorical or poetic traditions.

🟣 Not Empirically Testable
The theory is largely philosophical and interpretive, lacking empirical methods or linguistic models that could verify or falsify its claims in practice.