Recent article in Cognitive Semiotics--Now open access

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.