[slibhb]

I've read the book and I find the first half great. It demonstrates the ubiquity of metaphor in language.

But its reach seriously exceeds its grasp. The book makes all kinds of bizarre claims. For example:

> the predominant implicit metaphor behind "argument" is battle/war/conflict, we intuit that there must be a "winner" and that we must "defeat" the "opponent" and other nasty implications

The reason we use war as a metaphor for argument is because wars and arguments are similar in an important way. They are methods of producing a decision when there is disagreement. That is: "war is the continuation of politics by other means". In the book, Lakoff makes the bizarre argument (I'm paraphrasing) "why can't we think of arguments like a dance?" Well, George, because a dance doesn't decide anything whereas arguments and wars do.

You can wax poetic about "collaborative exploration" all you like but the real question is, given a fork in the road, do we go right or left?

[digitaltrees]

That’s a valid point. But many “arguments” are not about a decision and are better thought of as exploration or discussion yet they are labeled “ARGUMENT” and that creates a posture exactly as you describe which results in the parties fighting to win rather than engaging in a curious dialogue about all elements of the debate.

[yboris]

I agree that the metaphor of war/battle/conflict is appropriate in numerous scenarios of arguments.

I took away from the book the (I think) important point that if you have different goals (than fight) but use the word "argument", many people can buy into the (wrong) metaphor and you are now cross purposes.