general, and meaning in particular is not a transcendental fact, rather it is a consequence
of our physical existence, and the environment, where we, the rational agent, is situated.
Of course, this one is not the recent finding. If we minutely examine the entire line of
development then it will become prominent that embodiment hypothesis starts to
germinate just after the Cartesian Meditation, by which our intellectual activity has been
imbued, for last three hundred years. In our concluding session we will talk on this issue,
since embodiment hypothesis by and large is considered as the self-proclaimed manifesto
of the cognitive science in general and cognitive semantics in particular.
5. Conclusion
Cartesian argument upholds the view that mind and body are two different substances.
Mind is non-extended, whereas body is extended. Mind-body interaction is impossible,
because of having difficulty in explaining the causal interaction of a non-spatial mind and
a spatial body, on any normal understanding of causality. In reaction to this issue,
occassionalism argues that mind and body never causally interact, but run in two parallel
realms, though perfectly synchronized, but un-touching. The synchronism is imposed by
divine intervention. On the contrary, epiphenomalism claims that mental events are the
reflection of the underlying physical events, but have no causal properties of their own.
Finally the thesis of the property dualism claims that the mind consists of the non-spatial
element of a spatial thing (here, brain) (Wilkinson 2000).
What is interesting here, is not the differences between these three anti-Cartesian
traditions, rather the quest for an unknown substratum, where the impasse between the
phenomenological world and physical world can be boiled down. In consonance with this
grand dialectics, we would like to summarize the following points, which remain implicit
in this paper:
(a) Cartesian rationalism acts as a basic stable foundation of the scientific enquiry in
general and cognitive semantics in particular.
(b) Scientific knowledge is cumulative. So, the genesis of a theory should be properly
rooted within the previous system of knowledge.
(c) The development of cognitive semantics is a result of successive augmentation of
the Cartesian notion of ‘principles of logic’.
(d) The amplification of the Cartesian core is a voyage towards the metaphysics from
the Cartesian foundation.
(e) This metaphysical turn ultimately directs towards the study of cognition, to
understand the nature of the existence with fuller extent.
Notes:
1. Acknowledgement: It would be unjust if I don’t acknowledge the help of my colleagues. With
sincere gratitude, I thank to Mr. Biswanath Swain (Philosophy), who has taken the burden for
going through the each drafts, leading to its present form, several times. I am also deeply indebted
to Fr. K. J. George (Philosophy), who with his deep insight in Greek and Latin, helps to
understand some of the Greek and Latin terms. I am benefited by the several discussions of Prof.