User: Add relevant public-domain or CC0 visual with caption, alternative text and documented image rights.

2026-10-09T15:24:58Z

Add relevant public-domain or CC0 visual with caption, alternative text and documented image rights.

User: Add sourced author reference with key ideas and reading links

2026-10-09T14:49:10Z

Add sourced author reference with key ideas and reading links

New page

'''Mark Johnson''' is a philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Oregon whose work concerns embodied meaning, metaphor, imagination and reasoning. His research connects philosophy of language with cognitive science, aesthetics and ethics.<ref name="profile">University of Oregon, [https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/cas-faculty/all/markj “Mark Johnson”], faculty profile. Accessed 9 October 2026.</ref> He is the co-author, with [[George Lakoff]], of ''Metaphors We Live By'' and ''Philosophy in the Flesh''.

== Background ==
In his account of his intellectual development, Johnson describes studying metaphor with [[Paul Ricoeur]] and Ted Cohen at the University of Chicago. He met Lakoff while visiting the University of California, Berkeley in 1979. Their shared interest in metaphor led to ''Metaphors We Live By'' in 1980.<ref name="account">Mark Johnson, [https://pages.uoregon.edu/markj/topic5.html “Philosophy of Language / Metaphor”], author's account of his research and publications, University of Oregon.</ref>

This background places Johnson at an intersection of philosophical questions about meaning and research into language and cognition. His books address what it means for human understanding to develop through bodily engagement with the world.

== Ideas and work ==
=== Conceptual metaphor ===
In ''Metaphors We Live By'', Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphor contributes to ordinary understanding: familiar physical and social experiences can structure how people think about other subjects. Their concern extends beyond striking poetic expressions to recurring patterns in everyday language and thought.<ref name="metaphors">George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html ''Metaphors We Live By''], University of Chicago Press. Publisher's description and contents; the later edition includes a new afterword.</ref>

For an entry into this approach, see [[Conceptual Metaphor Theory]]. A useful reading question is what a proposed comparison highlights and what it leaves out. The book itself treats both the selective character of metaphorical organisation and its grounding in experience.<ref name="metaphors" />

=== Embodied meaning and image schemas ===
Johnson describes ''The Body in the Mind'' as an investigation of how sensory and motor processes contribute to meaning and conceptual structure.<ref name="account" /> The book develops its argument through schematic organisation, metaphorical extensions of image schemas and imagination.<ref name="body">Mark Johnson, [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo3613865.html ''The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason''], University of Chicago Press, contents. Johnson's author bibliography dates the original publication to 1987.</ref>

The wiki's [[Image Schemas: Containment, Paths, Balance and Connection|image-schema article]] provides a vocabulary for comparing patterns such as containment and paths. In reading Johnson, distinguish a recurring relationship from a detailed scene. For example, an editor might compare entering a room with joining a group, then ask which features of entry, boundaries or membership the actual wording supports. This is an illustrative reading prompt, not a quotation from Johnson.

=== Feeling, aesthetics and the arts ===
''The Meaning of the Body'' develops an account of meaning that includes qualities, emotions and the arts. Johnson argues that aesthetic dimensions of experience belong within an explanation of understanding. The book includes a chapter on music and the flow of meaning.<ref name="meaning">Mark Johnson, [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5417890.html ''The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding''] (2007), University of Chicago Press, description and contents.</ref> This gives readers a route from metaphor in sentences to questions about felt experience and artistic form.

== Selected works ==
These are selected starting points, rather than a complete bibliography. Dates refer to the original publications listed in Johnson's account.<ref name="account" />

<div class="mom-table-scroll" role="region" aria-label="Mark Johnson: selected works" tabindex="0" style="max-width:100%;overflow-x:auto;">
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"
! scope="col" | Work
! scope="col" | Publication
! scope="col" | Reading focus
|-
| ''Metaphors We Live By'', with George Lakoff
| University of Chicago Press, 1980; new afterword in 2003
| Metaphor in ordinary understanding.
|-
| ''The Body in the Mind''
| University of Chicago Press, 1987
| Bodily experience, schematic structure and imagination.
|-
| ''Philosophy in the Flesh'', with George Lakoff
| Basic Books, 1999
| Implications of embodied cognition for philosophical concepts.
|-
| ''The Meaning of the Body''
| University of Chicago Press, 2007
| Feeling, aesthetics and meaning.
|}
</div>

== Reading Johnson in this library ==
Keep the level of a claim clear. A philosophical argument about embodiment, an analysis of a particular expression and an experimental result provide different kinds of support. When a book draws on a study, follow its reference to see what was actually investigated. [[Metaphor and Reasoning]] and [[Metaphor Identification and Corpus Research]] provide useful comparisons of evidence and method.

== Related pages ==
* [[George Lakoff]]
* [[Embodied Cognition]]
* [[Conceptual Metaphor Theory]]
* [[Image Schemas: Containment, Paths, Balance and Connection]]
* [[Music, Rhythm and Harmony]]
* [[Metaphor in Context: Annotated Examples]]

[[People and authors]] | [[Concepts and language]] | [[Metaphor Research Library]]

== Sources ==
<references />

[[Category:People and authors]]
[[Category:Concepts and language]]

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 === Embodied meaning and image schemas ===
 Johnson describes ''The Body in the Mind'' as an investigation of how sensory and motor processes contribute to meaning and conceptual structure.<ref name="account" /> The book develops its argument through schematic organisation, metaphorical extensions of image schemas and imagination.<ref name="body">Mark Johnson, [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo3613865.html ''The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason''], University of Chicago Press, contents. Johnson's author bibliography dates the original publication to 1987.</ref>
 The wiki's [[Image Schemas: Containment, Paths, Balance and Connection|image-schema article]] provides a vocabulary for comparing patterns such as containment and paths. In reading Johnson, distinguish a recurring relationship from a detailed scene. For example, an editor might compare entering a room with joining a group, then ask which features of entry, boundaries or membership the actual wording supports. This is an illustrative reading prompt, not a quotation from Johnson.

Mark Johnson - Revision history

User: Add relevant public-domain or CC0 visual with caption, alternative text and documented image rights.

User: Add sourced author reference with key ideas and reading links