George Lakoff in the flesh

Mark Johnson organized a kind of a Festschrift-y thing for today and tomorrow, a conference of all of his past grad students who have worked on projects related to the embodied mind. I wish I could go to more of it! Tonight was the keynote talk, by his long-time colleague George Lakoff, who told stories of the two of them writing their books (esp. Philosophy in the Flesh) during long-distance phone calls. First, though, the former students surprised Mark with some tribute speeches (which had to be a surprise, as he would have vetoed it). Then Mark introduced George with a series of photos of the two of them, from decades in the past.

George's talk was more interesting than the one he did here for the general public a few years ago, and it seems that his political thinking has become better developed. The main point was that there are concepts that some societies do not have but badly need ("hypocognitions"), and he proposed some for our own society. He's hoping to publicize these ideas so they'll start becoming normal and stop sounding strange. The four concepts he mentioned today were: systemic causation, economics from the perspective of work done, body-supportive politics, corporations run our lives. He also explained why he believes the most essential freedom issues are education, control of one's own body, health care, and public infrastructure.