Even abstract thought is built from physical and sensory metaphors

Evidence

In The Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty starts with Husserl’s notion that we must philosophise from our own experience of phenomena, but he adds the obvious point that this experience comes to us through our sensitive, moving, perceptive bodies. Even when we think of a thing that is not there, our minds construct that imaginary thing with colours, shapes, tastes, smells, noises and tactile qualities. In abstract thought, we similarly draw on physical metaphors or images — as when we talk of ideas as weighty, or discussions as heated. We are sensual even when we are being most philosophical. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 728

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory; also resonates with how embodied cognition grounds abstraction. — connects to: Western epistemology’s root metaphors sexualize and dominate the known — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1352; Conceptual abstraction is itself a metaphorical act because it posits resemblance among distinct existents — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 507; Cognitive rigidity extends a physical property metaphor to describe thought resistance to change — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 572 (+10 more)
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the trees-as-infrastructure essay’s theme of visible materiality grounding thought.

Broader Connections

• Conceptual abstraction is itself a metaphorical act because it posits resemblance among distinct existents #corroborates (0.95) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 507
• Cognitive rigidity extends a physical property metaphor to describe thought resistance to change #exemplifies (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 572
• All thought about the mind requires speaking in fictional spatial terms #expands (0.80) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 408
• Productive thought requires specific physical places that produce it #expands (0.72)