(1949-present) American philosopher, chair of the deparment of philsophy at Southern Illinois University. Along with longtime collaborator, Berkeley linguist George Lakoff, he has strongly advocated the view of human concsciousness as being even more strongly metaphoric than rational.

Together they have co-authored both Metaphors We Live By (1983) and Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought (1999). Johnson has also written The Body In The Mind: The Bodily Basis Of Meaning, Imagination, And Reason (1987).

The most concise introduction to their thought can be found in Perspectives on Cognitive Science (1981; Donald A. Norman, ed.), chapter 8: The Metaphoric Structure of the Human Conceptual System.


  • Perspectives on cognitive science / Donald A. Norman, editor.
    Norwood, N.J. : Ablex Pub. Corp. ; Hillsdale, N.J. : L. Erlbaum Associates, 1981.
  • Metaphors we live by / George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
    Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1980.
  • Women, fire, and dangerous things : what categories reveal about the mind / George Lakoff.
    Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • The body in the mind : the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason / Mark Johnson.
    Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • Philosophy in the flesh : the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought / George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
    New York : Basic Books, c1999.

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