Conceptual Metaphor Of Sin And Punishment

Conceptual metaphor proposed by George Lakoff has put metaphor in the field of thinking and action rather than limit it to the field of language, as the classical language theories claim. The nature of metaphor, namely, lies in understanding and experiencing one kind of thing by another. Thus we could define those less delineated concepts by the more delineated ones. Our conceptual system is mostly metaphorical. It is in this sense we live by metaphor to think and act. With experiences as the foundation of conceptual metaphor, Lakoff elaborates on his experientialism which could be used to refute objectivism and subjectivism in the history of western philosophy. This experientialism, or so called embodied cognition, emphasizes body and world in structuring cognition. He tries to rewrite western philosophy reigned by objectivism from this perspective. Will he succeed?Even Lakoffs theory is put under the spotlight, rare systematic and serious critics are seen until Metaphor, Metonymy, and Experientialist Philosophy—Challenging Cognitive Semantics by Verena Haser. After inspection of Lakoffs theory based on Haser’s critics, it comes to me that Haser correctly points out the failure of conceptual metaphor’s transmission, and due to the theory’s deficit in technique including contradiction in argumentation, ambiguous definition, lack of reference, misunderstanding others as well as its generality, I claim that conceptual metaphor could not stand as a real challenge to the western philosophy. However, the insights from em bodied cognition by cognitive linguists represented by Lakoff still shines. Their emphasis on the body as well as the environment in cognition contributes so much and should be paid great attention to.