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Three dogmas of embodiment: Cognitive linguistics as a cognitive science A brief history of embodiment in Cognitive Linguistics Philosophical foundations of the embodiment hypothesis

المؤلف:  Tim Rohrer

المصدر:  Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives

الجزء والصفحة:  P132-C1

2026-11-14

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Three dogmas of embodiment: Cognitive linguistics as a cognitive science

A brief history of embodiment in Cognitive Linguistics

Philosophical foundations of the embodiment hypothesis

In this brief history of the embodiment hypothesis, I have traced the evolution of the embodiment hypothesis from a hypothesis about the grounding of conceptual metaphors to one which has grown increasingly large in scope throughout its dialogue with other branches of cognitive science. This increase in scope has led to the present crisis as to what exactly ‘embodiment’ means within Cognitive Linguistics.

What we have lacked is a coherent framework which can tie these differing senses of the term together. While Lakoff and Johnson (1999: 112–113) offered a three-tiered proposal with cognitive, neurocomputational, and neurobiological levels of investigation, the usefulness of that proposal is limited by its tight focus on their particular research program, the Neural Theory of Language. Similarly, their broader discussion of the “levels of embodiment” (102–117) is hamstrung by the problematic notion of mental phenomena that are “completely and irrevocably inaccessible” to consciousness with respect to the level they label the “Cognitive Unconscious;” moreover, that failing also cripples their ensuing rejection of eliminativist dogmas in favor of methodological pluralism. I argue for adapting a more sophisticated and widely used theoretical framework from the cognitive sciences as an aid in clarifying the full range of current research of Cognitive Linguistics.