The body in the mind : the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason /

A wide-ranging exploration of the role of imagination in meaning, understanding, and reasoning. Johnson (Southern Illinois University) attacks objectivist views of meaning and rationality as well as the underlying conception of the world as a reality independent of human understanding. Drawing upon the resources of analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and the cognitive sciences, he defends an alternative theory that places embodied imaginative understanding at the heart of things-``putting the body back into the mind.'' Important imaginative structures are image schemata (structures for organizing experience and understanding) and metaphor. In his discussion of the latter, Johnson builds upon earlier work with George Lakoff (Metaphors We Live By, CH, May '81). Faculty and graduate students are the most likely users: undergraduates would find much of the book inaccessible. Endnotes and a useful index are included.-A.R. Mele, Davidson College