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Publication details [#10558]

Szwedek, Aleksander. 2004. Objectification in metaphorical processes: Some philosophical issues. 10 pp.

Abstract

The paper presents additional arguments to the claim (Szwedek 2000, 2002) that ontological metaphors constitute the basis for structural and orientational metaphors - that any abstract phenomena (states, processes, i.e. Langacker's relations, or abstract concepts) have first to be objectified, before any other aspects of them can be elaborated. Thus all other metaphor types derive from objectification, that is conceptualisation of an entity as a THING. Once a concept is objectified, it is open to inheritance of object properties, including structure and orientation. This major revision of metaphorisation finds support in Kotarbiski's philosophical stand called reism, the Great Chain of Being (containing material objects only), Langacker's distinction of conceptually independent THINGS and conceptually dependent RELATIONS. All the evidence and argumentation leads to the conclusion that our only direct experience is of material things, and that that experience shapes all our conceptualisation. (Aleksander Szwedek)