Parable: The Literary Mind-3

This projection of one story onto another may seem exotic and literary, and it is – but it is also, like story, a fundamental instrument of the mind. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is a literary capacity indispensable to human cognition generally. This is the second way in which human mind is essentially literary.  One special kind of literature, parable, conveniently combines story and projection. Parable serves as a laboratory where great things are condensed in a small space. To understand parable is to understand root capacities of the everyday mind, and conversely.

- Mark Turner

Explanation of the Quotation by Mark Turner

Mark Turner, a cognitive scientist and literary theorist, known for books like The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language, argues that the human mind is fundamentally "literary." This quotation comes from his exploration of how basic mental operations mirror the core tools of literature. He is pushing back against the idea that storytelling, metaphor, and narrative projection are rarefied, artistic activities reserved for poets and novelists. Instead, they are everyday cognitive necessities.

 

Breaking It Down

 

"THIS PROJECTION OF ONE STORY ONTO ANOTHER"

 

This refers to conceptual projection or blending:

the mental act of taking one narrative framework, a "story", and mapping it onto another situation or story to make sense of it.

 

Example:

You hear about a political election and unconsciously project a "race" or "battle" story onto it. Or you understand your career struggles by projecting the "hero’s journey" story onto your life.

 

It’s not just decoration—it’s how we reason analogically. We don’t experience raw facts; we project familiar story structures onto new experiences to interpret, predict, and act.

 

"...MAY SEEM EXOTIC AND LITERARY, AND IT IS – BUT IT IS ALSO... A FUNDAMENTAL INSTRUMENT OF THE MIND."

 

Turner acknowledges that this feels sophisticated and "bookish," but insists it is not an add-on. It is as basic to thought as logic or perception.

 

"Like story":

Earlier in his work, Turner establishes that narrative (story) itself is a core mental tool—we parse time, causality, agents, goals, and change in story-like sequences. Projection is the second key literary capacity.

 

"RATIONAL CAPACITIES DEPEND UPON IT. IT IS A LITERARY CAPACITY INDISPENSABLE TO HUMAN COGNITION GENERALLY."

 

This is the provocative core claim:

Rationality is not purely abstract or logical in the classical sense of formal deduction. Much of our reasoning relies on these literary operations—projecting one scenario onto another, compressing complex ideas into narrative forms, and blending them.

 

Without the ability to project stories, we couldn’t do every day reasoning like planning, moral judgment, scientific analogy, or legal argumentation. What looks like "pure reason" often rests on these imaginative projections.

 

"THIS IS THE SECOND WAY IN WHICH HUMAN MIND IS ESSENTIALLY LITERARY."

 

The first way is story itself: we think in narratives.

The second is projection: we blend and map stories onto each other.

Together, these make the mind "literary" at its root—literature didn’t invent these; it refines and heightens capacities we already use constantly.

 

THE ROLE OF PARABLE

 

A parable (like the ones in the Bible, Aesop’s fables, or Kafka’s short pieces) is a perfect miniature laboratory. It is:

- A compact story.

- Designed for projection: the listener is meant to map the simple tale onto their own larger, more complex reality, e.g., the Parable of the Good Samaritan projects a story of unexpected mercy onto questions of ethics and group identity.

 

- Parables "condense great things in a small space." They exploit our natural cognitive tendencies to reveal deep truths efficiently.

- Conclusion: Studying how parables work helps us understand the "root capacities of the everyday mind." Conversely, understanding everyday cognition (how we blend stories) illuminates why parables are so powerful.

 

WHY THIS MATTERS

 

Turner’s larger project (along with collaborators like Gilles Fauconnier on conceptual blending theory) is to show that advanced human cognition—language, creativity, culture—emerges from these basic imaginative operations rather than from a separate "rational module." Literature isn’t a luxury; it’s a mirror and amplifier of the mind’s deepest workings.

 

In short: The quotation asserts that what we call "literary thinking" (story + projection) is not an elite activity but the groundwork of human thought. Parables are especially useful because they make these invisible mental processes visible and study-able in concentrated form.

 

This view bridges the humanities and cognitive science: literature can teach us about psychology, and psychology can deepen our understanding of literature.

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