In progress; still actively reading this one

Women Fire And Dangerous Things, or What Categories Reveal About the Mind

By George Lakoff

The title comes from an Australian aboriginal language (Dyirbal), which has a category (balan) that includes women, fire, and dangerous things (also some animals).

The author says that people assume women have something in common with dangerous things and fire, and feminists like it for that reason.

I actually understood it to be the opposite: the categories are women, fire, and dangerous things, and you fit into one. So women are neither fire nor dangerous.

• For most of history we thought we understood categories as abstract containers, things are either in or outside a category

  • Name drops Wittgenstein

• Eleanor Rosch came around with some knowledge bombs:

  • If categories are defined by properties that all members share, no members should be better examples of the category than any other
    • And YET people say that "robin" is more "bird" than "owl".

• Wittgenstein pointed out that classical categories have clear boundaries (common properties) but game does not fit the mold, since there are no properties that are in common by all games. Some have no competition (ring around the rosy), some have luck, other skill (some both!). And so on. How is chess like poker? Are they not both games? 🧐

  • Take it further: we introduced video games in the 70s and the category had to EXPLODE

    We can impose an artificial boundary for some purpose, but what's import is that extensions are possible, as well as artificial limitations

  • Look at numbers: first they were just integers, then rational numbers, real numbers, complex numbers, etc. etc.
    • But for some purposes we limit numbers to mean integers only or what have you.
      • But these aren't natural limitations
    • And the definitions change depending on goals.

Central Members

In classical category theory (which we RAIL against!), all members of a category are equal, they're defined by shared properties. None can be more equal than others.

But Wittgenstein points out that no one would ever exclude "integer" from their definition of number, so clearly they are "more number" than other numbers (like π).

Primacy

The adjective 'healthy': when I talk of a healthy body, and again of a healthy complexion, of healthy exercise: the word is not just being used equivocally ... there is what we may call a primary nuclear sense of 'healthy': the sense in which 'healthy' is used of a healthy body: I call this nuclear because it is 'contained as a part' in the other two senses which may be set out as 'productive of healthy bodies' and 'resulting from a healthy body'.... Now are we content to say that the exercise, the complexion, and the body are all called 'healthy' because they are similar? Such a remark cannot fail to be misleading. Why make it?

Grammar

Metonymy: How does "foot" refer to both a base of a mountain and a foot of a list? Does this make them similar?

A is the bottom-most part of the body. X is the bottom-most part of the mountain. X' is the bottom-most part of a list. Body is projected onto mountain, with A projected onto X. (Metaphor) Body is projected onto list, with A projected onto X'. (Metaphor) The word "foot" names A. A, X, and X' form a category, with A as central member. X and X' are noncentral members related to A by metaphor.

There's a huge longwinded bit here about a language where family members can be reduced, like your sister is the same as your sister's sister, and the author spends many, many pages going into examples and counter examples.

Color

Basic colors:
For a color term to be basic:

• It must consist of only one morpheme, like green, rather than more than one, as in dark green or grass-colored.
• The color referred to by the term must not be contained within another color.
• Scarlet is, for example, contained within red.
• It must not be restricted to a small number of objects.
• Blond, for example, is restricted to hair, wood, and perhaps a few other things.
• It must be common and generally known, like yellow as opposed to saffron.

English, and some other languages have 11 color categories

Black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and gray.

Other languages have as few as 2.

The more colors they add, they always come in the same order. Starts with cool and warm, then they add more. The third is always red. When it's 4, it's one of yellow, blue, or green.

So they get added according to this list:

Black, white
Red
Yellow, blue, green
Brown
Purple, Pink, Orange, Gray

The boundaries between the color ranges differ from language to language

BUT if you ask for the "best example" of a basic color term from a list of color chips, almost everyone picks the same one!

For example, in languages that have a basic term for colors in the blue range, the best example is the same focal blue for all speakers no matter what language they speak. Suppose a language has a basic color term that covers the range of both blue and green; let us call that color grue. The best example of grue, they claim, will not be turquoise, which is in the middle of the blue-to-green spectrum. Instead the best example of grue will be either focal blue or focal green.

Prototype Theory

Actually we have a prototype member of a category (e.g. Robin for bird) and everything is compared to that.

Going into this book, my thoughts on categories is that they, like models, are useful in some contexts, but not others. The book touches on this a little:

Barsalou has studied what he calls "ad hoc categories" — categories that are not conventional or fixed, but rather are made up on the fly for some immediate purpose. Such categories must be constructed on the basis of one's cognitive models of the subject matter under consideration. Examples of such categories are things to take from one's home during a fire, what to get for a birthday present, what to do for entertainment on a weekend, etc. Barsalou observes that such categories have prototype structure-structure that does not exist in advance, since the category is not conventional and does not exist in advance. Barsalou argues that in such cases, the nature category is principally determined by goals and that such goal structure is a function of one's cognitive models

Neutralization

Some words are neutral, like how boy is unmarked and singular, but plurals (boys) are marked by an s. Simple form is marked (or in this case not marked) by the simple structure.

Neutralization of contrasts can also occur in semantics. Consider contrasts like tall-short, happy-sad, etc. These pairs are not completely symmetric. For example, if one asks How tall is Harry? one is not suggesting that Harry is tall, but if one asks How short is Harry? one is suggesting that Harry is short. Only one member of the pair tall-short can be used with a neutral meaning, namely, tall. Since it occurs in cases where the contrast is neutralized, tall is referred to as the "unmarked" member of the tall-short contrast set. Correspondingly, it is assumed that tallness is cognitively more basic than shortness and the word marking the cognitively basic dimension occurs in neutral contexts

Models

There are many different models and structures. They include

Radial Structure

At the center of this is the "Mother", our typical mother is a female birth mother who gave half of the child's genes, cares for the child, is married to the father, is the legal guardian, and so on.

But we can deviate from that by changing variables, radiating outward:

Stepmother didn't give birth or supply genes, but is married to the father, and may nurture.

Adoptive mother is the legal guardian and nurtures

Birth mother gave birth but does not nurture

Biological mother gave birth, but someone else is "more motherly".

Surrogate mother, foster mother, unwed mother, genetic mother (donor) and so on.

Models and usages

Different models are useful in different states. For example, a working mother is a mother (by nurture) who works outside the home. A stepmom can be a working mother, but a birth mother who gives up her child cannot be.

This is because "working mother" uses the "nurture" model of mother, rather than some of the others (e.g. biological).

There is no one biological category that covers all fish. See also models are useful, not "true" reflections of the world. As the author would say, they reflect the mind, not the world.

For long stretches of this book, the meat-to-shell ratio is poor.

See Also

Categorization