Showing papers by "George Lakoff published in 2013"
03 Apr 2013
TL;DR: Lakoff and Nunez as discussed by the authors argued that mind-free mathematics obscures the full beauty of inatliematics, and proposed to bring embodied human minds, as they have come to be understood recently in cognitive science, back into mathematics.
Abstract: (M121-liter The Metaphorical Structure of Mathematics: Sketching Out Cognitive Foundations for a Mind-Based Mathematics George Lakoff Rafael E. Nunez University ofCalIIf0mia, Berke’/fly WARNING! This is an essay within a new field of study—-the cognitive science t'.)fXI“le,1[l’).t3.‘,~ matics. The contribution we seek ultimately to make is a new one: to characterize precisely what m.athemat2'z.ul ideas are. You might thirik that this enterprise would leave mathematics as it exists alone and simply add to it an account of the conceptual nature of mathematical tmderstancling. You could not be more wrong. Studying the nature of mathematical ideas changes what we titiderstaiid mathematics to be and it even changes the understanding of particular“ mathematical results. The reason is that a significant amount of Ztltlmtetiw tury mathematics rests on the assumption that matheinatics is not about minds and ideas, but rather about symbols and their niodel—theoretil:at interpretations. We call this 20th-century View mim1~free irzat/ievrizmfcs, where the substance of mathematics is assumed to be independent otany human minds. Our enterprise is to bring embodied human minds, as they hzztve come to be understood recently in cognitive science, back into mathemat~ ics, and to construct a precise min.d—based irial/mntmfcs. Mind-based matite-~ rnatics is not just inind—free matliematics with some cognitive amtiysis added. Rather, the introduction of mind changes mathematics itself. riot just mathematics education or the study of mathematical cognition. Mind—free mathematics obscures the full beauty of inatliematics. This essay is a first attempt to reveal that beauty through the cliaracterization 2.1
110 citations
06 Sep 2013
TL;DR: This article reframed his position on Syria, adjusting the Red Line metaphor: it wasn't his Red Line, not his responsibility for drawing it. But the reframing fit his previous rationale for the Red line: to uphold international treaties on weapons of mass destruction, both gas and nuclear weapons.
Abstract: Obama Reframes Syria: Metaphor and War Revisited by George Lakoff President Obama has reframed his position on Syria, adjusting the Red Line metaphor: It wasn't his Red Line, not his responsibility for drawing it. It was the Red Line drawn by the world, by the international community -- both legally by international treaty, and morally by universal revulsion against the use of poison gas by Assad. It was also America's Red Line, imposed by America's commitment to live up to such treaties. The reframing fit his previous rationale for the Red Line: to uphold international treaties on weapons of mass destruction, both gas and nuclear weapons. By this logic, the Red Line therefore applies not just to Assad's use of sarin, but potentially to Iran's development of nuclear weapons. The new version of the metaphorical policy has broad consequences, what I have called systemic causation (that goes beyond the immediate local situation) as opposed to direct causation (in this case applying just to the immediate case of Assad's use of sarin). Some will call the reframing cynical, a way to avoid responsibility for his first use of the Red Line metaphor. But President Obama's reframing makes excellent sense from the perspective of his consistent policy of treaties and international norms, which he has said was the basis for the Red Line metaphor in the first place. Metaphors can kill, as I wrote in my original Metaphor and War paper in 1991 on the eve of the Gulf War. Why can metaphors kill? Because metaphors in language are reflections of metaphorical thought that structures reasoning, and thus our actions, both in everyday life and in politics. In politics, they are rarely isolated. They usually come as part of a coherent system of concepts -- usually a moral system. The Red Line metaphor can stand a bit of linguistic analysis. The metaphor is based on a conceptual frame: Drawing a line in the sand means that the person who draws the line issues a threat to the person on the other side: you cross the line and I'll hurt you. This frame presupposes another common conceptual metaphor: Performing A Kind of Action Is Being In A Bounded Location, and Changing a Kind of Action is Moving to a New Location.
11 citations
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The social sciences, of course, study the material causes of social and political effects: poverty, hunger, illness, homelessness, lack of education, joblessness, disparity of wealth, and so on as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The social sciences, of course, study the material causes of social and political effects: poverty, hunger, illness, homelessness, lack of education, joblessness, disparity of wealth, and so on. But how people think also has social effects: How do people understand morality, markets, the proper role of government, the nature of institutions, and so on? Reason enters into both enterprises: both reason used by social scientists and the form of reason attributed to the people they study. The Brain and Cognitive Sciences have shown that Real Reason—the way people really reason—is a matter of neural circuitry and has effects that are far from obvious.
7 citations