My major goal in this paper is to compare the conceptual structure of happiness/joy with that of pain. Based on our intuitions, most of us believe that the conceptual structure of happiness is diametrically opposed to that of pain. As we...
moreMy major goal in this paper is to compare the conceptual structure of happiness/joy with that of pain. Based on our intuitions, most of us believe that the conceptual structure of happiness is diametrically opposed to that of pain. As we will see, this is not the case. The two concepts share a great deal of structure. Thus, the main issue I wish to investigate here is the following: Given that emotion concepts are constituted by at least four kinds of conceptual material (metaphors, metonymies, related concepts, and cognitive models), where do we find most of the similarities and most of the differences between these two concepts?
