Mark Johnson

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.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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.^[3]

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.^[2] The book develops its argument through schematic organisation, metaphorical extensions of image schemas and imagination.^[4]

Four labelled panels show a point inside a boundary and another outside; a path from source to goal; a balanced beam on a support; and two linked points.

Schematic relationships discussed in the image-schema literature. Original CC0 teaching diagram prepared for this wiki, not a figure reproduced from Johnson’s books.

The wiki's 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.^[5] 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.^[2]

Work	Publication	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.

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.

Sources

↑ University of Oregon, “Mark Johnson”, faculty profile. Accessed 9 October 2026.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Mark Johnson, “Philosophy of Language / Metaphor”, author's account of his research and publications, University of Oregon.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press. Publisher's description and contents; the later edition includes a new afterword.
↑ Mark Johnson, 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.
↑ Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding (2007), University of Chicago Press, description and contents.

[profile-1] University of Oregon, “Mark Johnson”, faculty profile. Accessed 9 October 2026.

[account-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Mark Johnson, “Philosophy of Language / Metaphor”, author's account of his research and publications, University of Oregon.

[metaphors-3] 3.0 ^3.1 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press. Publisher's description and contents; the later edition includes a new afterword.

[body-4] Mark Johnson, 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.

[meaning-5] Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding (2007), University of Chicago Press, description and contents.

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Mark Johnson

Contents