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In this paper I investigate metaphorical cognition, the specific way in which metaphor guides thinking and generates implications. Metaphor is a problem for philosophical thought, insofar its central operation, conflation, thinking of one kind of thing as another, reverses the central aims of conceptual thought, i.e., to collect and divide things into their proper kinds. Where conceptual thinking distinguishes kinds, metaphor conflates them. Hence when conceptual thinking is needed, metaphor is rightly banished, relegated to the status of error (category mistakes), or perhaps useful confusion (for its “emotional impact”). Nonetheless, metaphor is a pervasive, perhaps ineliminable feature of human language, and as recent work has shown, it appears to “guide” thinking itself.

Like con-ception, con-flation is an act of col-lecting, gathering, but conflation gathers different kinds, not the same. In thought, what does this mean? Conflation thinks one as the other. It sees the one through the other, with the latter’s meaning and structure now present in the former. We say, My friend is carrying a heavy burden for the family. The friend’s complex relationships to his family are thought as an act of carrying a heavy load, now with the concrete structure of carrying things present (via conflation) in the relationships. This is meaningful, but it is not conceptual. It rests on conflation, which directly inverts the aims of conceptual thought. How does it work?

If we set aside the privileging of conceptual thinking (the “natural attitude” of philosophy), we see that in metaphor concrete structures of meaning, not abstract categories or rules, serve as standards of meaning. Carrying something is a mundane concrete act, a familiar task, one that in no way stands as normative or special, something that can assist in thought about other things. And yet it clearly functions as a standard of meaning here. In conflating the family’s situation with carrying a burden, in thinking one as the other, the concrete structure of carrying a burden serves as a means by which something else, something very different, gains determinacy. We now see the family’s situation in a particular way (as carrying) that we can recognize. And it is this determinacy that enables us to play out the implications of the family situation. “Someone else should step in and carry the load for a while.” “He can’t hold on much longer.” “He’s faltering under the weight.” The conflation generates implications, both practical and cognitive.

I argue that the key to metaphorical thinking is the conflation of one thing with another, and that its aim is to help characterize, not categorize, experience more concretely and specifically. Metaphors characterize what is indeterminate in experience, producing what Kant called the distinctness of things, a condition without which, he argues, actual elements of experience cannot be cognized. He argues that this making-distinct is the central task of reflective, not determinative, judgment. But instead of preparing something with a distinctive character for conceptual thought (as in the 1st Critique), metaphor employs the conflated elements to generate implications directly from the conflation. Metaphorical thought, metaphorical reasoning, then, is the playing out of the reflective distinctness produced in the conflation of a concrete structure (carrying) with the object of thought (the friend’s situation). “He is carrying a heavy load, so…” we reason, “he might not last much longer.”

I argue that Mark Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory, its treatment of metaphorical cognition as a conceptual process, mischaracterizes its basic structure and function in experience. Metaphor is cognitive, but it is not conceptual. It does not bear any of the marks of conceptual thought: It is not categorical, rule-based, or abstract, and, crucially, metaphor rests on an act of conflation, thinking one as another. The conflation at the heart of metaphor is inimical to conception, as it directly reverses the work of “collecting and dividing” things into their proper kinds. I argue that metaphorical cognition must be viewed instead as a form of reflective judgment as found in Kant’s work. Reflection is our capacity to engage meaningfully with the indeterminate particularities of experience, Dewey’s problematic situations, without guidance by concepts. The essential work of reflection, and of metaphorical cognition, is to bring what is indeterminate in experience to greater specificity and distinctness, to “prepare it for thought,” as Rudolf Makkreel puts it. Metaphor accomplishes this reflective “making distinct” by conflating what is indeterminate in experience with another specific, concrete element of experience, taking on its structure, allowing us to think more specifically and carefully about it.

I present a critique of a central claim of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, namely, that metaphor is a conceptual form of thought. Metaphor is deeply cognitive, I argue, but it is not based on concepts. Instead, metaphor rests on the conflation of things, thinking of one thing as another, a cognitive act which directly violates the aims of conceptual thought: 1) to categorize things or 2) to provide a rule for experience. Metaphor ignores categorical meaning, flagrantly so, and operates without any clear rules. For these reasons, metaphor has historically been rejected by cognitive theorists who privilege conceptual thought. Conceptual Metaphor Theory argues that metaphorical cognition is in fact conceptual, but this is a mistake, because metaphor is manifestly conflational and serves a very different cognitive purpose than conception. Its primary aim, I argue, is to specify experience, to characterize experience in a closer, finer sense – not more generally, as concepts do. I show that metaphor is a concrete, specifying operation that employs concrete elements of experience to characterize abstract experience in a more concrete way – precisely as the abstract is conflated with concrete elements. Such a view provides a much simpler, clearer understanding of metaphorical cognition and its essential aims.

Full-length manuscript on Metaphorical Cognition as (Re)Flective Cognition. Under final review with a publisher!