George Lakoff. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Within the past decade, research in the cognitive sciences psychology, linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence has led to a new understanding of human thought. The prevailing view has been that reason is the disembodied manipulation of symbols, but George Lakoff is among the leading advocates of a new view proposing the human reason is imaginative, metaphorical, and intrinsically linked with the human body. Much of the support for the new, "experientialist" view of thought has come from studies of how humans categorize objects and ideas. It seems common sense that objects are grouped in categories because they share some trait. Such cases exist but are not the norm. The Dyirbal language of Australia is striking, for example, in that the words for women, fire, and dangerous things fall into one category, but not because women are considered fiery or dangerous. Citing a broad spectrum of research, Lakoff offers a sweeping critique of the assumptions about the mind that have prevailed since Aristotle. In proposing his alternative theory, Lakoff illustrates the basic creative process of human thought.