April 9th, 2008 Fred McVittie
It is here that lucidity is at stake. Lucidity is precisely that which sets itself against this fixing of reality, this materialisation of truth, no matter what form it takes. In itself, it is nothing, and the only way of speaking of it would be that of negative theology, in the sense that it is not. It is neither a contract with reality nor with knowledge. It is a pact and, if it has anything to do with light, literally speaking, it is not with Enlightenment reason and objective knowledge. It would lie, to evoke a very beautiful image, at the intersection of the light issuing from the object and the light coming from the gaze. Or rather it would consist, as Musil says, in looking at the world with the eyes of the world – and not, as he says, in having the world at the distant end of the gaze [au fond du regard], because it would then crumble into absurd details, as sadly separated from each other as the stars at night… (Baudrillard, J. 2007)
It seems quite possible that there is a relationship between certain communication styles and our intentions with regard to the information we are trying to communicate. When we are striving for the creation of knowledge which we would like be considered as objective, that is, knowledge which, in metaphorical terms, has some of the features of an object, then we use a particular set of techniques, and these differ from the techniques we use when we are not seeking to create such a knowledge object. Furthermore, the kind of metalanguage we use when we talk about such styles is itself a contributor to the overall schema of knowledge within which the sense of our communication is formed.
In order to explicate this it is perhaps useful to remind ourselves what might be thought of as the prototypical, and possibly paradigmatic example of objectivity. As I have noted elsewhere in this writing, one of the key metaphors through which knowing is understood is through the association of KNOWING with SEEING. This metaphorical relationship is part of a larger set of body-based metaphors which map different types of knowing with different modes of sensory access; touch, smell, hearing, taste, etc. The KNOWING IS SEEING metaphor is particular relevant because it is through the entailments of this metaphor that many aspects of the structure of knowledge are articulated. As we will see, some of these entailments support the concept of ‘objective’ or ‘object-like’ knowledge, and allied to this, other entailments narrate the relationship between the subject (the receiver of the communication) and this knowledge object. It is these latter entailments which shape the metalanguage in which we talk about different communication styles.
To bring out the various entailments mentioned above we might remind ourselves of what the circumstances and conditions are in which SEEING takes place, for it is these circumstances and conditions which are carried over into the metaphor and which give structure to the otherwise abstract concept of KNOWING. For the sake of this example I am here listing the ideal conditions for seeing; the conditions under which, in the embodied physical world, we would best observe the objects around us in their most sovereign state.
Obviously, for seeing to take place there must be a space for the ’seer’ and the ’seen’ to occupy. Also, this space in which both seer and seen are present must be brightly lit. The space between the seer and the seen must be empty and without obstruction, and should also be neither so great that the object disappears into the distance (or over the horizon), nor so near that it cannot be focused upon, or presses against the body in an uncomfortable way. There should be no disturbance in the air between seer and seen, and that air should be free from vapours, fogs, shadows, distracting aerial effects, or in fact anything which might draw the attention of the eye away from the seen object. The air should be colourless, still, and to all intents and purposes, absent; it should approximate the condition of pure space, a perfect conduit for the gaze. These are the conditions one would wish to find at the summit of a mountain, and which might cause one to say “I can see our house from here”. This is the state of interstellar space, where the blackness of the sky is testament to its ability to allow the unimpeded transmission of the light. Crystaline moons with unambiguous, razor-sharp edges. Under such conditions objects achieve their greatest clarity and the features which define them as objects become most available.
If these are the conditions under which our sense of sight produces the most perfect representation of distant objects, clearly outlined and uniquely visible, then it should be the case that these same conditions are taken over as entailments when we wish to produce similarly perfect representations of metaphorical objects. When we want to convey the impression that our knowledge is objective we should find ourselves aspiring to such conditions within our language. We should also find ourselves making overt reference to these conditions when we describe our linguistic aspirations. So, for example, we might try to make our communication ‘clear’ or ‘lucid’, and also be able to say that that is what we are attempting. We might want to make our points (the directions in which we are pointing) as obvious and direct as possible. We would certainly avoid filling the vacuum of this space with conceptual fogs, or put up any obstacles to understanding. We like the space of objectivity to be colourless, so we would avoid purple prose, or the occluding shadows of the occult. Again, it is likely that we would be completely overt in our stating of these aspirations and take pride in our desire to avoid obscurantism through such ‘plain speaking’. These are the kinds of criteria for objective communication that we would cite in any metalinguistic discourse about how we talk about knowledge. The reason for this is clear (sic); in order to simulate in language the conditions in which objects optimally appear, we have to reproduce these conditions in the form of conceptual metaphors, effectively creating the conditions through which our knowledge can appear lucidly as object. When we say ’speak clearly’ we really mean ’simulate with your speech the emptiness of the space around the moon on a cloudless night in Winter, when the frost has taken all of the moisture from the air.’
Which raises the obvious next question of how such an airless space of language might be produced; what are the mechanisms by which this evacuation of atmosphere and blowing away of conceptual fog might be effected? Although a full retelling of this story of banishment and cleansing is beyond the range of this writing we might look to the recent history of how the word ‘metaphor’ has extended its reach for clues.
As noted elsewhere, until two decades ago the most usual understanding of the relationships between language and the world was one of an unproblematic division between the literal and the metaphorical. (For a good overview of this see Ortony, 1993). Developments in embodied cognition, grounded in evolutionary psychology, have demonstrated that our ability to conceptualise abstract concepts, including the concept of knowledge, is an adaptation of existing cognitive mechanism originally designed for to allow the body to sense and negotiate its environment. As linguistist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker describes it, the structures of cognition which in early humans, as in other animals, originally evolved to deal with the problems of moving through a physical spatial environment; sensing objects and movements, experiencing force and resistance, at some point were copied into other parts of the brain such that they became “scaffolding whose slots are filled with symbols for more abstract concerns like states, possessions, ideas, and desires.” (Pinker 1997, 355). The conclusion of these developments is a new understanding of the key role that metaphor plays in language and cognition. This is summed up by Lakoff and Johnson as follows:
Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish–a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act is fundamentally metaphorical in nature…. But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of (1981.3).
So is there a mode of communication devoid of such epistemological constructions? Only if we limit ourselves to talking of trees, and rocks, and rivers, which might be a relief; to match our minds one to one with the Newtonian and empirical world in which our bodies are most at home, to follow Thoreau who claimed that “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler”. However, as inheritors of the cognitive imperative, the restless desire to think not only out of the box but also in ways which are beyond the queerness of any suppositions, this is not really an option. What we are undoubtedly capable of is making extensive use of metaphors, imaginatively constructing elaborate structures of abstract thought without at any point being consciously aware that we are doing so. As Lakoff and Johnson put it:
Our conventional ways of talking about arguments presuppose a metaphor we are hardly ever conscious of. The metaphor is not merely in the words we use–it is in our very concept (1981.6)
One implementation of these ideas can be found in the so-called ‘Symbolic Modelling’ techniques developed by Lawley and Tompkins (2000) which are based on the ‘Clean Language’ work of therapist David Grove, and ultimately originating in the couselling/training practice of Neurolinguistic Programming. An underpinning assumption within this technique, and within NLP more generally, is that non-conscious cognition consists largely of conceptual metaphors, which together make up the internal ‘landscape’ of the client’s mind. Within this model, it is believed that personal development or the alleviation of personal problems, can be affected by more optimal organisation of this landscape, such reorganisation taking the form of a kind of internal imaginary psychogeography. The client is assisted in bringing to consciousness the metaphors they habitually use to frame and structure their experiences, with the assumption that such self knowledge can lead to a more effective inhabiting and management of this interior terrain. The usual communications that take place between client and therapist, as in other forms are communication, are rife with metaphors that both individuals contribute, but in this particular form of therapy such mutual metaphorical exchange would prevent the client from gaining effective knowledge of their own cognitive modelling processes. The desired aim is to surface only those metaphors which arise from the psyche of the client. To ensure that the therapist or counsellor does not ‘contaminate’ the communication by accidentally inserting their own metaphors into the communication Clean Language uses a deliberately restricted syntax which minimises the possibility of this contamination taking place. This syntax consists of a small number of questions and statements that the therapist uses to elicit responses and move the conversation forward. These are:
* And is there anything else about ……?
* And what kind of …… is that ……?
* And where is ……?
* And whereabouts?
* And what happens next?
* And then what happens?
* And what happens just before ……?
* And where does/could …… come from?
* And that’s …… like what?
(Lawley and Tompkins. 2000. 54)
The blanks in the sentences are filled in by playing back parts of the utterances made by the client, such that the original metaphors are largely kept intact. The sentences act as prompts by the therapist which allow the client to carry out further exploration of the internal landscape, moving the cursor backwards and forwards across the map whilst making minimum impact upon that environment themselves.
This interrogative and facilitative style of speech is the only example I have discovered of a linguistic strategy which approximates the literal, and even this assumes the existence of a spatially extended field of thought. Given also that it’s aim is the facilitation of knowledge, it is of no use whatsoever in generating, defining, articulating, constructing, or otherwise imparting knowledge itself. Any communication which has as its aim the transmission of ideas or concepts must inevitably set the terms of that communication through unconscious and covert metaphors. This includes the visual metaphors of clarity, directness, and lucidity which create the cognitive simulation of objectivity.
There are two possible implication for this analysis of the way language supports the construction of knowledge through conceptual metaphor. Firstly, there is the slightly vertiginous loss of certainty which inevitably accompanies the realisation that things were not as they seemed and that the prized goal of objectivity is sometimes made rather than found. This is particularly salient in this case since, not only has everything that was solid melted into air but the air itself has been sucked out along with the space which contained it. (Which irresistably reminds me of the scene in ‘Yellow Submarine’ when the Beatles are sailing through the Sea of Holes and Ringo reaches out and grabs one of these holes, a black circle of empty space, plucking it from its setting and putting it in his pocket. What was left behind after the removal of the hole doesn’t bear thinking about.) Within the overall context of conceptual metaphor theory and embodied cognition however, nothing has really changed. This is not the landscape of endlessly deferred meaning one finds within poststructuralism, nor the ‘nothing to scrute’ of Quine for example (1969, p. 5; cf. p. 27 and 1960, p. 58 and p. 77) who wrote that “The thesis of the inscrutability of reference tells us that it makes no sense to say absolutely, i.e., in any language or framework-independent sense, what objects a speaker is talking about. (According to the Stanford Encyclodpedia of Philosophy at least:an objective text if ever such a thing existed.) Within the terms of embodied cognition, the observation that most language, and indeed most thought, is metaphorical does not banish the world, but rather casts the body and the sense-making processes inherent in the body as the interface between thought and world. Objects remain objects and metaphorical objectivity becomes one of a number of imaginative poetic devices for the comprehension of the otherwise incomprehensible.
The second implication for this embodied view of the relationship between language and knowledge, and how cognition relates to both, is that there may be occasions when the knowledge figuring in the communication is not considered to be an object. If this were the case then setting up linguistic conditions, and by implication cognitive conceptual conditions, which simulate the condition of objectivity may be counter-productive, reminiscent of Polanyi’s example: “Suppose a lecturer points his finger at an object, and tells the audience: ‘Look at this!’ The audience will follow the pointing finger and look at the object” (Polanyi, M. 1969 pp. 181/182). This is all very well if the lecturer wanted the audience to look at the object, (the moon, say), but if the point was not where he was pointing or the aim where it was aimed, this constitutes a misdirection. It may be that a better strategy is to accept the inevitable power of language and the embodied cognition it evidences to constitute not only ontology but also epistemology, (it’s not a bug, it’s a feature). Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the writing I am doing here, and which you are reading, and the conceptual spaces that we share and which which we don’t share, and which for me rotate around the axis of my ‘I’ as for you they rotate around yours, is rarely engaged in the production of objects. Hold a rock in your hand, see a tree on the horizon. And all around is the white space, glowing and vibrant and eyeless.
Baudrillard, J. Hetero de Fe. International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. Volume 4, Number 2 (July, 2007). Translated by Rex Butler and Michael Wallace. ISSN: 1705-6411 http://www.ubishops.ca/BaudrillardStudies/vol4_2/v4-2-baudrillard-hetero-da-fe
Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1981). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Lawley, J. and P. Tompkins (2000). Metaphors in mind : transformation through symbolic modelling. London, Developing Company Press.
Ortony, Andrew. (1993) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge University Press
Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York, Norton.
Polanyi M. Sense-giving and sense-reading. In: Grene M, ed. Knowing and Being, Essays by Michael Polanyi. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969.
Quine, W.V.O. (1969) Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. NY: Columbia University Press.
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