Purposes Are Destinations

conceptual-metaphor Journeys → Event Structure

Categories: cognitive-science linguistics philosophy

What It Brings

Having a purpose is having somewhere to go. Achieving a purpose is arriving. This mapping is a core component of Lakoff and Johnson’s Event Structure metaphor system, which maps the abstract structure of events, actions, and causation onto the concrete structure of spatial motion. PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS is the component that gives purposeful activity its sense of direction: you are going somewhere, and that somewhere is what you intend to accomplish.

Key structural parallels:

Goals as places — a purpose is a location you haven’t reached yet. “She’s headed for a promotion.” “We’re aiming for profitability.” “He’s on his way to becoming a doctor.” The metaphor spatializes intention: what you want to do becomes where you want to be.
Progress as approach — getting closer to your purpose is getting closer to the destination. “We’re almost there.” “We’re a long way from our goal.” “We’re closing in on a solution.” The metaphor gives purposeful activity measurable distance — you can be near or far from accomplishing something.
Means as paths — how you achieve your purpose is the route you take. “There are many ways to get there.” “She took an unusual path to success.” “What’s the fastest route to market?” Strategy becomes navigation: choosing among possible routes to the same destination.
Obstacles as impediments on the path — difficulties are things blocking the road. “He ran into a problem.” “We hit a wall.” “There’s a roadblock ahead.” The metaphor makes difficulties feel external and spatial — something in the way, not something wrong with the traveler.
Failure as not arriving — falling short of your purpose is failing to reach the destination. “She never got there.” “The project stalled.” “We fell short of our target.” The metaphor makes failure a matter of distance rather than quality.

Where It Breaks

Purposes change during pursuit — destinations don’t. When you walk to Paris, Paris doesn’t move. But purposes shift as you work toward them: you learn things that change what you want. The destination metaphor makes changing your goals feel like moving the goalposts (another spatial metaphor, and a pejorative one). In reality, revising your purpose in light of experience is often the smartest thing to do.
Arrival is too final — reaching a destination means the journey is over. Achieving a purpose rarely works that way. Getting the promotion, launching the product, finishing the degree — these accomplishments open new purposes rather than ending purposeful activity. The metaphor creates a misleading “and then what?” moment at the point of achievement.
The metaphor privileges single destinations — journeys typically have one endpoint. People typically have multiple, competing purposes. The destination frame makes trade-offs between purposes hard to think about: you can only go to one place at a time. This is why “torn between” feels like such an apt description of conflicting goals — the body literally cannot travel two directions simultaneously.
Distance is not difficulty — the metaphor equates how hard something is with how far away it is. But some purposes are close and hard (quitting a habit), while others are far and easy (a long but straightforward certification process). The spatial mapping conflates effort with distance.
The metaphor hides purposelessness — if having a purpose is having a destination, then not having a purpose is being lost. The frame pathologizes exploration, wandering, and open-ended activity. Sometimes the most productive thing is to travel without a destination in mind, but the metaphor makes this feel directionless rather than generative.

Expressions

“He’s on his way to a promotion” — career progress as spatial approach to a destination
“She’s headed for trouble” — future negative outcome as a place being approached
“We’re a long way from our goal” — distance as measure of remaining effort
“What’s the fastest route to market?” — strategy as navigation
“We’ve arrived at a decision” — resolution as reaching a destination
“He never got there” — failure as non-arrival
“She’s going places” — future success as travel to desirable destinations
“We’re closing in on a solution” — approach as problem-solving progress
“The project stalled” — loss of progress as a stopped vehicle
“Moving the goalposts” — changing the purpose/destination mid-pursuit, treated as cheating

Origin Story

PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS is part of Lakoff and Johnson’s Event Structure metaphor system, developed across Metaphors We Live By (1980) and elaborated in Philosophy in the Flesh (1999). The full system maps: states to locations, changes to movements, causes to forces, actions to self-propelled motions, purposes to destinations, means to paths, and difficulties to impediments.

The claim is that this mapping system is not an arbitrary cultural convention but grounded in universal embodied experience: infants learn about purposeful action through physical movement toward objects before they can conceptualize abstract goals. The infant reaches for a toy (purpose = destination, arm movement = means, distance = remaining effort). This sensorimotor experience becomes the cognitive template for all purposeful activity, no matter how abstract. Whether you are pursuing a PhD or pursuing happiness, you are still, cognitively, reaching for something.

References

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (1980), Chapters 14-15
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh (1999), Chapter 11 — the most detailed account of the Event Structure metaphor system
Lakoff, G. “The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor” in Ortony, A. (ed.) Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edition (1993)
Johnson, M. The Body in the Mind (1987) — the embodied grounding of source-path-goal schemas