Mark Johnson (professor)
Encyclopedia
Mark L. Johnson is Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon
. He is well-known for contributions to embodied philosophy, cognitive science
and cognitive linguistics
, some of which he has coauthored with George Lakoff
such as Metaphors We Live By. However, he has also written extensively on philosophical topics such as John Dewey
, Kant
and ethics
.
as basic building blocks in cognitive linguistics for conceptual metaphor
, as well as for language and abstract reason generally. He argued for a revised version of Kant's notion of the schema as the crucial imaginative link between our concrete perceptions of an object (e.g. my dog Fido) and our experience of categories (the class of things called dogs). However, where Kant wanted schemata to serve as a bridge between non-empirical concepts and perceptual images, Johnson maintained that image schema
are regularly recurring embodied patterns of experience that are acquired during the course of early child development. Such schemata are image-like in that they are analogic neural activation patterns which preserve the topological contours of perceptual experience as a cohesive whole. Thus image schemata are rich images, in a sense of the term similar to how the rotation of Shepard and Metzler-like mental images preserves the visual contours of the 2D picture of the 3D object; in other words image schemata are not strictly 2D pictures, but a rich image-like whole that contain procedural as well as perceptual information about the object as a whole. Moreover, Johnson explicitly states that image schemata are not restricted to visual modality and can be kinesthetic, auditory and cross-modal.
Johnson argues that his and Lakoff's recent research (presented in Philosophy in the Flesh) on the role of such bodily schemas in cognition and language shows the ways in which aesthetic aspects of experience structure every dimension of our experience and understanding, such as in our ethical reasoning (as in Lakoff's book Moral Imagination). In his interpretation of John Dewey
, he claims that all our abstract conceptualization and reasoning, all our thought and language -- all our symbolic expression and interaction -- are tied intimately to our embodiment and to the pervasive aesthetic characteristics of all experience.
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
. He is well-known for contributions to embodied philosophy, cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
and cognitive linguistics
Cognitive linguistics
In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...
, some of which he has coauthored with George Lakoff
George Lakoff
George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...
such as Metaphors We Live By. However, he has also written extensively on philosophical topics such as John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
.
Background
In Johnson's 1987 book The Body in The Mind he developed a theory of image schemaImage schema
An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. Image schemas are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and from historical context...
as basic building blocks in cognitive linguistics for conceptual metaphor
Conceptual metaphor
In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality . A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience...
, as well as for language and abstract reason generally. He argued for a revised version of Kant's notion of the schema as the crucial imaginative link between our concrete perceptions of an object (e.g. my dog Fido) and our experience of categories (the class of things called dogs). However, where Kant wanted schemata to serve as a bridge between non-empirical concepts and perceptual images, Johnson maintained that image schema
Image schema
An image schema is a recurring structure within our cognitive processes which establishes patterns of understanding and reasoning. Image schemas are formed from our bodily interactions, from linguistic experience, and from historical context...
are regularly recurring embodied patterns of experience that are acquired during the course of early child development. Such schemata are image-like in that they are analogic neural activation patterns which preserve the topological contours of perceptual experience as a cohesive whole. Thus image schemata are rich images, in a sense of the term similar to how the rotation of Shepard and Metzler-like mental images preserves the visual contours of the 2D picture of the 3D object; in other words image schemata are not strictly 2D pictures, but a rich image-like whole that contain procedural as well as perceptual information about the object as a whole. Moreover, Johnson explicitly states that image schemata are not restricted to visual modality and can be kinesthetic, auditory and cross-modal.
Johnson argues that his and Lakoff's recent research (presented in Philosophy in the Flesh) on the role of such bodily schemas in cognition and language shows the ways in which aesthetic aspects of experience structure every dimension of our experience and understanding, such as in our ethical reasoning (as in Lakoff's book Moral Imagination). In his interpretation of John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, he claims that all our abstract conceptualization and reasoning, all our thought and language -- all our symbolic expression and interaction -- are tied intimately to our embodiment and to the pervasive aesthetic characteristics of all experience.
See also
- AestheticsAestheticsAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
- American philosophyAmerican philosophyAmerican philosophy is the philosophical activity or output of Americans, both within the United States and abroad. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that while American philosophy lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and...
- Cognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscienceCognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
- Cognitive semanticsCognitive semanticsCognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. The main tenets of cognitive semantics are, first, that grammar is conceptualisation; second, that conceptual structure is embodied and motivated by usage; and third, that the ability to use language draws upon general cognitive...
- Conceptual blendingConceptual blendingConceptual Blending is a general theory of cognition. According to this theory, elements and vital relations from diverse scenarios are "blended" in a subconscious process known as Conceptual Blending, which is assumed to be ubiquitous to everyday thought and language...
- Embodied cognitionEmbodied cognitionPhilosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists and artificial intelligence researchers who study embodied cognition and the embodied mind believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They argue that all aspects of cognition, such as ideas,...
- Embodied cognitive scienceEmbodied cognitive scienceEmbodied Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary field of research, the aim of which is to explain the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior...
- Enactivism
- List of American philosophers
- NeurophenomenologyNeurophenomenologyNeurophenomenology refers to a scientific research program aimed to address the hard problem of consciousness in a pragmatic way. It combines neuroscience with phenomenology in order to study experience, mind, and consciousness with an emphasis on the embodied condition of the human mind...
- Philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...
- Situated cognitionSituated cognitionSituated cognition poses that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts....
Other sources
- "We Are Live Creatures: Embodiment, American Pragmatism, and the Cognitive Organism." In Body, Language, and Mind, vol. 1. Zlatev, Jordan; Ziemke, Tom; Frank, Roz; Dirven, René (eds.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, forthcoming 2005 (coauthored with Tim Rohrer).