This book is about mathematical ideas, about what mathematics means-and why. Abstract ideas, for the most part, arise via conceptual metaphor-metaphorical ideas projecting from the way we function in the everyday physical world. Where Mathematics Comes From argues that conceptual metaphor plays a central role in mathematical ideas within the cognitive unconscious-from arithmetic and algebra to sets and logic to infinity in all of its forms.

About the Author
George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a founder of the generative semantics movements in linguistics in the 1960s and of the field of cognitive linguistics in the 1970s, and one of the developers of the neural theory of language in the 1980s and'90s. He is the co-author, with Mark Johnson, of Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh.Rafael Nunez is currently at the Department of Psychology of the University of Freiburg, and is a research associate of the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-editor of Reclaiming Cognition: The Primacy of Action, Intention and Emotion.


Book Information
ISBN 9780465037711
Author George Lakoff
Format Paperback
Page Count 512
Imprint Basic Books
Publisher Basic Books
Weight(grams) 812g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 190mm * 38mm