From Objectification to Personification. Darwin’s Concept of (Natural) Selection
From Objectification to Personification. Darwin’s Concept of (Natural) Selection

Summary/Abstract: The article presents an analysis of conceptual metaphors used by Darwin to describeartificial and natural selection. It is established that three kinds of metaphorization areemployed: objectification to conceptualize artificial selection, and agentification andpersonification to conceptualize natural selection. It is argued that the evidence of Darwin’stext justifies identifying agentification as a special type of metaphorization. Further it isclaimed that the ordering of metaphors: objectification – agentification – personification demonstrates the primacy of objectification with respect to more elaborate metaphors andrecapitulates the phylogenetic development of the process of metaphorization. The articlealso addresses the motivation for Darwin’s anthropocentric language.

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