b. 1949
Mark Johnson (born 1949) is an American philosopher at the University of Oregon best known for his collaborative work with George Lakoff on conceptual metaphor theory and his foundational contributions to embodied cognition. His research argues that meaning, reason, and imagination are grounded in bodily experience and sensorimotor schemas rather than abstract symbol manipulation. He is a central figure in the cognitive science of language and pragmatist philosophy of mind.
Co-developed conceptual metaphor theory with George Lakoff in 'Metaphors We Live By' (1980)
Introduced the theory of image schemas as pre-conceptual bodily structures underlying meaning in 'The Body in the Mind' (1987)
Extended embodied cognition into ethics with 'Moral Imagination' (1993)
Contributed to naturalistic aesthetics and meaning theory in 'The Meaning of the Body' (2007)
Helped establish the empirical turn in philosophy of language and cognitive linguistics