Western thought

[George Lakoff]

Dear Carl,

Thanks for your note.

The excellent empirical research of the Damasios is part of the literature
we cite. We accept their findings. We know of no research to lead us to
disagree with what they say.

You are right that we are not just talking about objectivism, but rather all
philsophical views relying on the ideas of the disembodied mind,
exclusively literal meaning. and exclusively conscious reason. That covers
idealists
and a lot of continental philosophy.

There is another issue we take up besides philosophy itself. Various
disembodied philosophies have tended to intrude into science, especially in
psychology and linguistics, but also throughout the social and physical
sciences.In such cases, disembodied philosphy tends to distort the science.
We take up such special cases as Chomskyan linguistics and the rational
actor model in the social sciences, as well as the attempt to interpret
relativity theory literally.

All the best,

George


At 8:16 AM -0500 1/15/99, Carl.Mills at UC.Edu wrote:
>With all due respect to Esa Itkonen, whatever the main thrust of Lakoff
>and Johnson's earlier work has been, one
>would be led by the posting describing their latest book to conclude that
>its main target is not "objectivism."
>Rather, Lakoff and Johnson seem in this latest book to be taking on the
>presumption, present in a lot of thought,
>western and otherwise, that the mind is disembodied.
>
>I am waiting to get my copy of the book.  But it would seem that L&J have
>touched on a crucial idea laid out most
>trenchantly in Antonio Damasio's (1994) Descartes' Error.  How about it,
>George, while we are waiting for the
>book to arrive, would you care to comment on similarities and differences
>between L&J and Damasio?
>
>Carl