George Lakoff Knihy

George Lakoff (* 1941), profesor lingvistiky na University of California v Berkeley, patří k nejvýznamnějším lingvistům své generace. V sedmdesátých letech se podílel na vzniku generativní sémantiky, pokusu korigovat některé jednostrannosti chomskeánské lingvistiky (Lakoff je žákem Noama Chomského a následně jeho kritikem). O desetiletí později stál u zrodu kognitivní lingvistiky. Proti objektivistickému pojetí myšlení, ukotvenému v tradičních aristotelovských kategoriích, staví široce založenou teorii experiencialistickou. Lakoff v této publikaci shrnuje poznatky mnoha vědních oborů, které se setkávají pod hlavičkou kognitivní vědy - filozofie, psychologie, antropologie, matematiky, logiky, biologie, umělé inteligence apod. Doplňuje je vlastním zkoumáním, včetně rozsáhlých jazykovědných případových studií, a poskytuje jednotný konceptuální rámec pro nové základy studia lidské mysli a tím i nové základy kognitivní vědy.

Přelomová kniha v pohledu na metaforu a také jedno ze základních děl takzvané kognitivní vědy. Poprvé vyšla v roce 1980 a od té doby v dalších a dalších vydáních i v překladech do mnoha jazyků. Metafora byla od Aristotela chápána jako inovace v rámci jazyka; autoři Metafor však soudí, že je to jazyk, jenž se děje v rámci metafor, a tudíž že metafora ne představuje pojem pro „ozvláštnění“ naší každodenní reality, ale je spíše jejím modelem. Metafory se podle Johnsona a Lakoffa stávají prvotními koncepty, jimiž se setkáváme se světem, se sebou samými, jimiž si organizujeme zkušenost a díky nimž jsme schopni naše pojmy utřiďovat. Autoři vycházejí z nejběžnějších příkladů našich každodenních situací, v nichž se snaží hledat příbuzné skupiny a analyzovat způsob, kterým jsou tyto skupiny vnitřně pořádány. Styl a argumentace jsou velmi jasné, logické, opřené o minimum speciálních pojmů. Metafory představují knihu, která zasahuje do několika oborů: lingvistiky, filozofie (teorie poznání), literární teorie, estetiky, kulturní antropologie, sociologie, psychologie a teorie modelování.

When Moral Politics was first published two decades ago, it redefined how Americans think and talk about politics through the lens of cognitive political psychology. Today, George Lakoff’s classic text has become all the more relevant, as liberals and conservatives have come to hold even more vigorously opposed views of the world, with the underlying assumptions of their respective worldviews at the level of basic morality. Even more so than when Lakoff wrote, liberals and conservatives simply have very different, deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong. Lakoff reveals radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. Moral worldviews, like most deep ways of understanding the world, are unconscious—part of our “hard-wired” brain circuitry. When confronted with facts that don’t fit our moral worldview, our brains work automatically and unconsciously to ignore or reject these facts, and it takes extraordinary openness and awareness of this phenomenon to pay critical attention to the vast number of facts we are presented with each day. For this new edition, Lakoff has added a new preface and afterword, extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the Affordable Care Act to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent financial crisis, and the effects of global warming. One might have hoped such massive changes would bring people together, but the reverse has actually happened; the divide between liberals and conservatives has become stronger and more virulent. To have any hope of bringing mutual respect to the current social and political divide, we need to clearly understand the problem and make it part of our contemporary public discourse. Moral Politics offers a much-needed wake-up call to both the left and the right.

At first glance, issues like economic inequality, healthcare, climate change, and abortion seem unrelated. However, when thinking and talking about them, people reliably fall into two camps: conservative and liberal. What explains this divide? Why do conservatives and liberals hold the positions they do? And what is the conceptual nature of those who decide elections, commonly called the "political middle"? The answers are profound. They have to do with how our minds and brains work. Political attitudes are the product of what cognitive scientists call Embodied Cognition the grounding of abstract thought in everyday world experience. Clashing beliefs about how to run nations largely arise from conflicting beliefs about family life: conservatives endorse a strict father and liberals a nurturant parent model. So-called middle voters are not in the middle at all. They are morally biconceptual, divided between both models, and as a result highly susceptible to moral political persuasion. In this brief introduction, Lakoff and Wehling reveal how cognitive science research has advanced our understanding of political thought and language, forcing us to revise common folk theories about the rational voter. "

The first edition of this book was published as Don't Think of an Elephant!-- Title page verso.

Three major findings of cognitive science cast doubt on the past 2,500 years of Western philosophy. Lakoff and Johnson propose to rebuild philosophy from the ground up, starting from clearly known facts about the mind.

"Its publication should be a major event for cognitive linguistics and should pose a major challenge for cognitive science. In addition, it should have repercussions in a variety of disciplines, ranging from anthropology and psychology to epistemology and the philosophy of science. . . . Lakoff asks: What do categories of language and thought reveal about the human mind? Offering both general theory and minute details, Lakoff shows that categories reveal a great deal."—David E. Leary, American Scientist

"The authors restore metaphor to our lives by showing us that it's never gone away. We've merely been taught to talk as if it had: as though weather maps were more 'real' than the breath of autumn; as though, for that matter, Reason was really 'cool.' What we're saying whenever we say is a theme this book illumines for anyone attentive." — Hugh Kenner, Johns Hopkins University "In this bold and powerful book, Lakoff and Turner continue their use of metaphor to show how our minds get hold of the world. They have achieved nothing less than a postmodern Understanding Poetry, a new way of reading and teaching that makes poetry again important." — Norman Holland, University of Florida

Renowned linguist George Lakoff pairs with psychologist Rafael Nunez in the first book to provide a serious study of the cognitive science of mathematical ideas. schovat popis

Provides guidelines for United States Democrats to connect moral values to important policies, using practical tactics to guide political discourse away from extreme positions.