Conference Paper

Dynamics without a Framework? Insights from the Ecological-Enactive Approach to Cognitive Science Applied to Dynamical Views of Metaphor

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Abstract

Recently several attempts were undertaken to unite the field of metaphor studies, trying to reconcile the conceptual/cognition and linguistic/discourse approaches to metaphor (Hampe 2017). The dynamic view of metaphor espoused by amongst others Gibbs (2017; see also Hampe 2017) as a way to unify the field of metaphor studies is said to converge on findings and theoretical predictions found in approaches such as CMT (Conceptual Metaphor Theory, see Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Kövecses 2010) and DMT (Deliberate Metaphor Theory, see also Steen 2017). The author argues this focus on dynamical models to explain the multi-scale, multi-aspect, socio-cognitive aspects of metaphor as an emergent phenomenon is not robust enough. Complexity and dynamical systems are merely a modelling technique to deploy theory for empirical testing of hypotheses; a dynamic view of metaphor needs a coherent background theory to base its dynamic modelling of metaphor in action on (cf. Chemero 2009). I argue that it can be succesfully based on the ecological-enactive framework available within the modern paradigm of 4E cognitive science. This framework makes possible explanation of both 'lower' cognition and 'higher' cognition emerging in the interaction of an organism with its environment. In addition I sketch how recent theoretical insights from ecological-enactivism (Baggs and Chemero 2018) concerning Gibson's notion of environment (now split into habitat and Umwelt) apply to the attempted unification of the field of metaphor studies.

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