IMAGINATION AND REASON

Proponents of embodied reason have justifiable reasons to propose we reexamine the motifs upon which the whole structure of our logic and reason are predicated, given the pervasiveness of metaphorical and analogical reasoning, and the use of mental spaces and practical inferences to link ideas in our logical and rational processes. Studies in cognitive science provide three crucial empirical findings about the nature of the human mind. First is the inherently embodied nature of the mind. Second is the predominantly unconscious nature of human thought. Third is the principally metaphorical character of our abstract concepts. There is ample evidence to show that our abstract reason is the product of our imaginative thought process. Evidently, the metaphorical elaboration and extension of ideas involves a structural analogy that includes the correlative activities of the emotional, imaginative, and cognitive components. Our imaginative mechanisms avail us of the structures of image schemata and the invaluable patterns of metaphor and metonymy that enable the extension and elaboration of those schemata. Ostensibly, human reason is as imaginative as it is embodied.

Autorentext
Jude Godwins holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy (Wuerzburg, Germany). He also holds a MA (Munich, Germany), a BA and BD (Urban, Rome). He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy (with a concentration in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind). Jude researches into the co-givenness and the simultaneity of the mind and the body.