Multimodal Semiotics of Spiritual Experiences: Representing Beliefs, Metaphors, and Actions

Traditionally, spiritual experiences have been considered "ineffable," but metaphors pervade the representations of certain concepts of the transcendental in an attempt to talk about such abstract ideas. Whether it be during the description of a vision or simply talking about morality, people use conceptual metaphors to reason and talk about these concepts. Many representations of God, spirits, or the afterlife are culturally based, but whereas some may differ based on individual experiences, others seem to have a more universal character. From a phenomenological point of view, it seems that the descriptions are contingent and not necessary, that is, the language a believer is exposed to may influence, but not condition a priori, his or her own spiritual experience as Constructivists have thought. People's views about themselves and the world around them are deeply rooted in their conceptual systems, which are created by their experiences and their bodily interactions with the world, whether it's having to do with gravity in the case of UP and DOWN, or what our individual and social concepts are. When people talk about religious and spiritual concepts, they are revealing a great deal about their world and themselves and the way they interact with it. Concepts dealing with people's system of beliefs are very "meaningful" for the individual, and the more entrenched a frame of mind is, the less plastic it is, a fact confirmed by the neurosciences, which claim that it is difficult to break down and reconstruct certain synaptic structures of the brain. How do today's common "faithful" relate to certain metaphors about spiritual concepts transmitted by their faiths? What do these metaphors say about the individuals' concepts of themselves and their world? I will explore some of my own conclusions concerning conceptual metaphors and figurative language collected in various sacred texts and during a series of interviews of religious people with different backgrounds of religious systems. The data include linguistic expressions as well as gesture. Moreover, the interviewees were asked to draw on paper certain experiences of religious nature and then to describe their pictures. My investigation will try to shed new light on the phenomenology of religious experiences and personhood, using cognitive linguistics as a prime tool of analysis

Nietzsche's Critique of Truth

Nietzsche has made many paradoxical remarks about truth, including the claim that truth does not exist. Philosophers have attempted to tease out various theories of truth from his scattered remarks. This piece argues that Nietzsche had no interest in a theory of truth, rather he is interested in the rhetoric of truth; how claims of truth are used to coerce agreement and conformity, to hide expressions of subjective wills behind alleged objective facts. This kind of analysis is predicated on understanding Nietzsche’s various prima facie conflicting pronouncements by finding their intended audience. Nietzsche is not interested in finding eternal truths, rather his pragmatic concern is to move various audiences from their complacent beliefs. What is needed to move one target audience might be the opposite of what is needed at another time to move another targeted audience. Nietzsche is aiming at local interventions rather than global philosophical truths. This suggests a general model for Nietzsche interpretation: To understand a given Nietzsche text, first try to find who his intended audience/ audiences is/are and from what beliefs is he trying to pry them, and in what direction he seeks to move them. The general thought behind this piece is that Nietzsche should be regarded more as a psychologist or Kulturkritker than as a philosopher in the modern sense (one who is interested in questions of ultimate ontology, epistemology, etc.). I also suggest in this piece that careful attention be paid to Nietzsche language, in particular his use of the metaphoric of degeneration. To this end I analyze his use of martial and forensic metaphors. Footnote 14 touches on the highly important and vexing question of his responsibility for his subsequent use arguing that Nietzsche's culpability lays not so much in his particular claims but in his very language.Article (Reprinted in "Oxford Readings in Philosophy: Nietzsche", edited by B. Leiter and J. Richardson, Oxford University Press, 200

Using photo elicitation to understand first-year student experiences: Student metaphors of life, university and learning

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Metaphor. The good argument in science communication

The relation between metaphor and argumentation in science communication is becoming a crucial tool for critical metaphor studies. In this article, by means of a crossed analysis (epistemological, cognitive and linguistic), I focus especially on a peculiar dynamic of metaphor use in scientific communication showing opposite, paradoxical attitudes towards the use of metaphors, respectively, ubiquity vs. invisibility, inclination vs. resistance, deliberate vs. non-deliberate. In this way, an overall philosophical reflection about the underlying reasons for the ambivalence in the use of metaphor in scientific communication would be proposed and discussed

The creative potential of metaphorical writing in the literacy classroom

Creativity is difficult to define and a universal definition remains elusive. However, common words associated with creativity affirm that it concerns novelty and originality, hallmarks of many great and enduring texts. Students can also be encouraged to surface original ideas through constructing their own creative texts. This article outlines such a project that focuses on metaphorical writing with students in the primary school setting. When teachers foster creativity in the literacy classroom, they provide openended lessons, encourage variety and innovation, and allow time to play with ideas. Engaging students in writing their own metaphorical texts is one way in which students can generate novel responses and multiple interpretations as outlined in this paper. The students’ texts reveal unique voices that range from the playful to the dramatic in their creative exploration of what it means to be human. The potential of such writing for engaging students is discussed alongside the value of metaphorical writing for encouraging emotional exploration, imagination and sheer enjoyment

Context-induced creativity and the figurative use of taste terms

For reasons of space, we only discussed one text in which the metaphors used seem to take their root in the context in which it has been written. One text is definitely not enough to make any definite claims on how widespread this phenomenon is. Given what we know about the two domains - Food and taste - one has reasons to believe that when speakers/conceptualisers (e.g. journalists) describe something which stands in some relation to both, they may intuitively be reaching for taste metaphors of the kind described above on the premise that this kind of ‘ornamentation’ will add some spice to what the addressee might otherwise consider a trivial (and boring) topic. At the same time, taste is only one among many properties a particular item of food or a substance (e.g. sugar) has. In consequence, one may well imagine contexts in which it is not its taste, but other properties (e.g. what Harbottle [1997:183] refers to as its 'pure white and deadly’ image) that will make the conceptualiser reach for a particular linguistic or conceptual metaphor