Focusing on studies of how humans categorize objects and ideas, this book examines the new understanding of human thought which proposes that human reason is imaginative, metaphorical, and intrinsically linked with the human body.
The groundbreaking work that Language journal said no linguist could afford to neglect <p/> In Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, George M. Lakoff takes on the classical theory of categorization, which argues that the classes into which our minds and language group things and people are clearly defined and have strict boundaries. Lakoff argues instead that the mind and language build categories around protoypical examples, and that categories then radiate out from those central types. The book argues for embodied cognition and makes a powerful case that meaning cannot be reduced to abstract symbols or removed from the physical experiences of human perception.
