Metaphors of causality and containment: A cognitive challenge to the social sciences

Abstract: An exploratory look at how cognitive science, and namely the conceptual metaphor theory, can help social sciences come to grips with two of its central dilemmas that it shares with natural sciences: 1) The relationship between the local and the global in the world (e.g. how does an individual’s psychology determine the behavior of large groups of people); and 2) The constant interaction between the discrete and the fluid in our conceptualization of the world (e.g. how many people are necessary to constitute a society).

Metaphors of Containment and Causality