Experientialism is a philosophical view which states that there is no "purely rational" detached God's-eye view of the world which is external to human thought. It was first developed by

George Lakoff George Philip Lakoff (; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena. The conc ...

and Mark Johnson in ''

Metaphors We Live By ''Metaphors We Live By'' is a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published in 1980. The book suggests metaphor is a tool that enables people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to understand more abstract ...

''. Experientialism is especially a response to the

objectivist Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

tradition of transcendental truth most prominently formulated by

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

which still requires a commitment to what Lakoff and Johnson call "basic realism". Most importantly, this involves acknowledging the existence of a mind-independent external world and the possibility of stable knowledge of that external world. In '' Women, Fire and Dangerous Things'', Lakoff expands on the foundations of experientialism with research into the nature of categories.

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