Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
George LakoffFor centuries, we in the West have thought of ourselves as rational animals whose mental capacities transcend our bodily nature. In this traditional view our minds are abstract, logical, unemotionally rational, consciously accessible, and, above all, able to directly fit and represent the world. Language has a special place in thie view of what a human is - it is a privileged, logical symbol system internal to our minds that transparently expresses abstract concepts that are defined in terms of the external world itself.
George LakoffScience is fundamentally a moral enterprise, following the moral imperative to seek the truth.
George LakoffOne of the things cognitive science teaches us is that when people define their very identity by a worldview, or a narrative, or a mode of thought, they are unlikely to change-for the simple reason that it is physically part of their brain, and so many other aspects of their brain structure would also have to change; that change is highly unlikely.
George LakoffWe now know, from the latest research about neurons, that we are hard-wired for empathy. We're hard-wired for cooperation. That is something about what we are as people - what it means to be a human being. And what Barack Obama was addressing was not just race or just the nature of politics. The great speeches address who we are as people, what it means to be a human being.
George Lakoff