The Facilitating Relationship between Metaphor and Rationality

Abstract

This thesis theorizes the relationship between conceptual metaphors (Lakoff 1993) and the idea of rationality. Based on suggestions that metaphorical reasoning strongly challenges b objectivistb accounts of rationality (Lakoff 1987, Indurkhya 2007), I claim that metaphors, though neither necessary nor sufficient, can be strategically employed in knowledge/belief systems to facilitate the fulfillment of a working set of rationality criteria. Initially observing that rationality is often conflated with scientificity (Harris 2005, Dawkins 2006), I advocate more schematic criteria which emphasize notions such as internal consistency instead (cf. Weber 1922, Elster 1983). I then analyze the Chinese divinatory system of BaZi and its facilitatory employment of b elementsb as source domain. Future research directions are provided, including a prototype-based approach (Rosch, 1973) to rationality, and investigating how rationality criteria are themselves metaphorical. Finally, implications of my research on issues like the reliability of rational knowledge and metaphor-metonymy interaction in relation to rationality are discussed.