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In The Meaning of the Body, Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic Metaphors We Live By. Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, and metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. He concludes that the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and that studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking meaning's bodily sources.
Throughout, Johnson puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. “Mark Johnson demonstrates that the aesthetic and emotional aspects of meaning are fundamental—central to conceptual meaning and reason, and that the arts show meaning-making in its fullest realization. If you were raised with the idea that art and emotion were external to ideas and reason, you must read this book. It grounds philosophy in our most visceral experience.”—George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics ...
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As a young child, Mark Johnson and his siblings would turn up to school battered and bruised by their alcoholic father, but no one ever investigated their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks and kept on falling for years. He was stealing at the age of six, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin when he was just eleven. A sensitive and intelligent boy, art college beckoned, but he ended up in prison instead. With searing honesty, Wasted documents Mark’s descent into the very depths of addiction and criminality. Hooked on heroin and crack, homeless on the streets of London with a price on his head, no one—least of all Mark—believed he would ever survive, never mind recover. And yet he somehow found the strength to pull through, and now runs his own thriving tree surgery business, employing and helping other recovering addicts. A shocking and inspirational story.
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The brutally honest memoir of physical and sexual abuse, drug addiction, crime, and ultimate redemption.
Mark Johnson's father had "LOVE" tattooed across his left hand, but that didn't stop the beatings. The Johnson children would turn up to school battered and bruised, but no one ever investigated their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks and kept on falling. For years.
Brought up in a home simmering with dark secrets, Mark began stealing at the age of six, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin when he was eleven. A sensitive and intelligent boy, art college beckoned, but he ended up in a violent prison instead. With searing honesty, Wasted documents Mark's spiraling descent into the very depths of addiction and criminality. Hooked on heroin and crack, homeless on the streets of London with a price on his head, no one—least of all Mark—believed he would ever survive, never mind recover.
And yet he somehow found the strength to pull himself back from the precipice while also helping other recovering addicts. His story is at once horrifying and inspirational—a heartbreaking account of one man's struggle to save himself, and help save others in the process....
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