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Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind Paperback – 15 Apr 1990

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George Lakoff (Author)
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4.3 out of 5 stars 9 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 632 pages
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press; New edition edition (15 April 1990)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226468046
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226468044
  • Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 4.1 x 24.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 329,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 starsin-depth description of a promising paradigm in linguistics
By A Customer on 8 Oct. 1998
Format: Paperback
When I read this book for the first time, it was like a revelation - Lakoff concentrates on the way people *really* think, not the way philosophers would like them to. His approach: We use cognitive models that we acquired in childhood to solve almost every problem - to estimate, to schedule, to infer. What strikes me most about the cognitive science of metaphor is the possibility to apply it to many fields like computer interface design, social sciences, linguistics, you name it. His argument is partly very sophisticated, yet understandable also for a non-philosopher, and he comes up with lots of examples and evidence. This book has become a kind of "creativity technique" to me, I find myself developing new ideas based on Lakoff's approach all the time. Among the people who have no scientific interest in the matter, I recommend this book to designers, programmers and everybody in the field of communication. It is worth every minute you read.
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3.0 out of 5 starsClassical Categories are Dangerous Things
By John M. Ford TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 8 Jun. 2011
Format: Paperback
George Lakoff delivers a book-long explanation of mental categorization from his perspective as a cognitive linguist. When this book was first published, cognitive psychology had recently escaped the limitations of behaviorism and was focusing on the mind. While this was progress, there was for a time an over-emphasis on disembodied computer models of thought. Lakoff's book helped counter this extreme by highlighting ways that our minds draw on culture and on our physical form to create concepts and reason with them.

In Part I: Categories and Cognitive Models, Lakoff describes the classical mathematical definition of a category that has been with us since Aristotle. Members of a category have a set of defining features which nonmembers lack. Various sized squares, for example, are squares because they have four sides of equal length which meet at right angles. He then reviews research evidence that most of the categories we think with do not have this structure. The category "bird" contains members like ostriches that are "less good" members than more central examples like robins and sparrows. He explores the implications of non-classical category structures for metaphors, mental models, and other issues in cognitive science.

Part II: Philosophical Implications examines the implications of the previous section for the philosophical underpinnings of cognitive science. Lakoff rejects objectivism--the view that there is a single, objectively-verifiable external reality--as a basis for knowledge. We must instead develop a cognitive semantics that is based on how humans reason without making a claim that it captures the single correct way of understanding the external world.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe dichotomy of the mind and body does not exist anymore
By A Customer on 12 Feb. 1999
Format: Paperback
George Lakoff, the premier cognitve scientist, overwhelms the reader with evidence that there is no disntiction between the body and the mind. All humans think in terms of the relationships it has with the body. The categories whether it is a radial or idealized cognitive model, show this relationship between the body and the mind, not separated from it. Moreso, the metaphors humans use have a connection with the body and mind relationship as well. Unlike the previous philosophers and linguists, these metaphors are intelligable if they are investigated with the proper methods as Lakoff shows. This leads to conclude that their is no such thing as an objective reality, and that due to putting all these bits of information into 5 to 7 main categories, humans overlook and categorize things in terms of characteristics that they look for to put it into categories. A truly objective reality is a chaotic reality. This book, when applied to the different cultures, does put a more relativistic approach as to how one should study a culture. Without a deep investigation into the language, there is no possible way to understand how one thinks. Categories are hidden in the language not just in the grammar, phonolgy or morphology, but in metaphors as well. Lakoff gives excellent methods to do this, and therefore, a much better way to understand human thought.
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5.0 out of 5 starsEnlightening!
By juggler on 3 Mar. 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
An exciting book that has helped me to understand better the way my mind works. Particularly valuable section on the question of how we perceive reality. Makes so much more sense than the relativist view that we cannot know reality and that therefore anyone's view is as valid as anyone else's.
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5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars
By barry Arthur Gage on 2 April 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
A mine of information and although I disagree with his thesis concerning objective knowledge a thoroughly worthwhile purchase.
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