Yeah, he's so vehemently opposed to the idea of duality that the merest hint of it puts him in full battle mode. Now that we know he's so easy to set off, we can have fun poking him with sticks.
I just recognize that Cartesian dualism is an unjustifiable position. When an argument rests on a premise that assume Cartesian dualism, I know that I am being suckered with a religious argument.
It would be closer to say that if you use a metaphor as the premise of your argument, then your argument will necessarily require that the metaphor be true.
Really? I would have thought that it would have only required that the metaphor be applicable. So you are saying that a metaphor has to be literally true to be usable, not just metaphorically true?[/quote]
No, it requires the metaphor to be true. Otherwise it's a bad argument.
Now notice that you are actually changing the meaning of what I said by eliminating crucial qualifiers. A metaphor does not have to be literally true to be used
for reasons other than premises for arguments. It's only
I'll explain, mostly because I LOVE explaining things:
Here's a metaphor:
My love for you is an ocean.
If I were writing a poem, I could very well use that metaphor in a poem:
My love for you is an ocean, full of waves of love and devotion
My love for you is complex, its not just your looks or the great sex.
That's a totally crapsack poem, but it works. That's mostly what metaphors are for, poetic thoughts. However, if you use a metaphor as the premise of an argument, something interesting happens:
Premise: My love for you is an ocean.
Premise: Bob enjoys sailing his boat in the ocean.
Conclusion:Bob should sail his boat in my love.
ENT!! ENT!! WRONG!!! SEMANTIC CONFUSION WARNING!!!
That, simplified, is what LLOF has done.
She starts with a metaphor as a premise, and then draws a logical conclusion from that premise.
Premise: The mind and the body are separate. (Cartesian duality)
Premise: You are your mind. (ego-identification)
Conclusion: Gender is socially constructed.
That conclusion is only true if the premises are true. if they are only "metaphorically true" then the conclusion is only "metaphorically true."
If we then act on the conclusion, we are acting on "metaphorical truth" rather than factual truth. We have substituted the map for the territory.
Thus my opinion that it's a craptacular argument with no convincing power if you recognize what's going on. And as I've already pointed out, you don't need to know the conclusion to know that it's wrong (or at least not proved by the argument).