Causation Is Control Over An Object Relative To A Possessor
metaphor
Source: Economics → Causal Reasoning
Categories: cognitive-sciencelinguisticsphilosophy
From: Master Metaphor List
Transfers
To cause something is to control who has what. This metaphor maps the economics of possession — giving, taking, withholding objects relative to a possessor — onto causal reasoning. The cause is an agent who transfers, bestows, or removes an object from a possessor; the effect is the possessor’s changed state of having or lacking. It belongs to the object-case variant of Lakoff’s Event Structure system, where attributes are possessions and changes are transfers of ownership.
Key structural parallels:
- Causing as giving — “The victory gave them confidence.” “The drug gave her relief.” “Experience gives you perspective.” The causal agent transfers an object (the effect-as-attribute) to the affected party. Causing someone to have a quality is giving them something.
- Causing loss as taking — “The scandal robbed him of his credibility.” “The disease took her mobility.” “Inflation stripped them of their savings.” The causal agent removes an object from the possessor. Causing someone to lose a quality is taking something away.
- Prevention as withholding — “The embargo denied them access to markets.” “Bureaucracy kept the funds from reaching the village.” “She withheld her approval.” The causal agent prevents the transfer of an object to a would-be possessor. Preventing an effect is refusing to hand over the goods.
- Enabling as making available — “The scholarship afforded him an education.” “New technology offers possibilities we never had.” “The law grants citizens the right to vote.” The causal agent makes an object accessible to the possessor without forcing the transfer. Enabling is putting the goods within reach.
- Causal reversal as repossession — “The court restored her rights.” “Therapy gave him back his confidence.” “The reform returned power to the people.” Undoing an effect is returning the object to its original possessor. Causal reversal is a return transaction.
Limits
- Possession implies zero-sum — if causing is giving someone an object, then the giver should no longer have it. But many causes produce effects without depleting the cause: a teacher gives knowledge without losing it. The possession metaphor imports a conservation law that does not apply to most causal processes.
- Ownership obscures shared causation — objects have one owner at a time (typically). When multiple causes jointly produce an effect, the metaphor struggles to represent shared contribution. Who gave the patient health: the surgeon, the medication, or the patient’s immune system? The possession frame wants a single giver.
- The transaction model implies voluntariness — giving and taking are volitional acts. But many causal processes involve no agent: erosion takes topsoil, gravity gives objects weight. The metaphor’s economics frame forces personification of impersonal causes.
- Attributes are not discrete objects — you can give someone a book, and the book remains identifiable. But “confidence” or “relief” are not bounded objects. The metaphor reifies continuous qualities into countable things, which obscures the gradual and contextual nature of most attributes.
- The possessor’s role is passive — in the transfer model, the possessor receives or loses objects at the agent’s discretion. This underrepresents the affected party’s own role in being affected: a student does not just receive knowledge but actively constructs understanding.
Expressions
- “The victory gave them confidence” — causing a quality as transferring an object to a possessor
- “The scandal robbed him of his reputation” — causing loss as taking an object from someone
- “Experience gives you wisdom” — causing understanding as bestowing a possession
- “The disease took her strength” — causing debilitation as removing a possession
- “The embargo denied them access” — preventing an outcome as withholding an object
- “Therapy gave him back his peace of mind” — reversing an effect as returning a possession
- “New technology offers unprecedented possibilities” — enabling as making an object available
- “The recession stripped families of their security” — causing deprivation as forcibly removing possessions
- “The law grants citizens the right to assembly” — enabling by authority as officially bestowing an object
Origin Story
This metaphor appears in the Master Metaphor List (Lakoff, Espenson & Schwartz 1991) as part of the Event Structure metaphor system, object case. Where the location case maps causation onto controlling where an entity goes, the object case maps it onto controlling what a possessor has. The two systems are parallel but structurally distinct: the location case produces spatial language (“put in danger,” “drive to ruin”) while the object case produces transactional language (“give confidence,” “take away freedom”). Both systems are grounded in embodied experience — infants learn early that agents can give objects to people and take objects away, and this transfer logic extends to understanding all forms of causation where one agent changes another’s attributes.
References
- Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. & Schwartz, A. Master Metaphor List (1991), “Causation Is Control Over An Object Relative To A Possessor”
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) — the Event Structure metaphor system, object case
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (1980) — ontological metaphors
Related Entries
- Causation Is Control Over An Entity Relative To A Location
- Causation Is Control Over Relative Location
- Causation Is Commercial Transaction
- Causes Are Forces
- Action Is Control Over Possessions
- Properties Are Possessions
Structural Neighbors
Entries from different domains that share structural shape. Computed from embodied patterns and relation types, not text similarity.
- Data Is Fuel (natural-resources/metaphor)
- Necessary Prerequisite for Change Is Source of Moving Entity (journeys/metaphor)
- People Are Batteries (electricity/metaphor)
- Force Is a Substance Directed at an Affected Party (fluid-dynamics/metaphor)
- Time Is Motion (embodied-experience/metaphor)
- Vomit Draft (biology/metaphor)
- Opportunities Are Objects (physical-objects/metaphor)
- Causal Precedence Is Temporal Precedence (time-and-temporality/metaphor)
Structural Tags
Patterns: flowforcecontainer
Relations: causetransformenable
Structure: pipeline Level: primitive
Contributors: agent:metaphorex-miner