The traditional view of the mind holds that poetic language is a special human ability requiring different cognitive and linguistic skills than employed in ordinary language. The author overturns the traditional perspective by showing how figurative aspects of language reveal the poetic structure of mind. Ideas and research from psychology, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory are used to establish important links between the poetic structure of thought and everyday use of language. The Poetics of Mind evaluates current philosophical, linguistic, and literary theories of...

The traditional view of the mind holds that poetic language is a special human ability requiring different cognitive and linguistic skills than employed in ordinary language. The author overturns the traditional perspective by showing how figurative aspects of language reveal the poetic structure of mind. Ideas and research from psychology, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory are used to establish important links between the poetic structure of thought and everyday use of language. The Poetics of Mind evaluates current philosophical, linguistic, and literary theories of...

This book describes the many ways that the mind and body are closely interrelated, and how human thought and language are fundamentally linked to bodily action. The embodied nature of mind is explored through many topics, such as perception, thinking, language use, development, emotions, and consciousness. People's embodied experiences are critical to the ways they think and speak and, most generally, understand themselves, other people, and the world around them. This work provides a strong defense of the idea that embodied action is critical to the study of human cognition.