Alumni: George Lakoff

Senior Researcher, Artificial Intelligence
lakoff @ icsi.berkeley.edu

George Lakoff received his SB from MIT in 1962 and PhD from Indiana University in 1966. He is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. He previously taught at Harvard and The University of Michigan. He was one of the founders of the field of Cognitive Science, and is a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society. He was the principal discover of the nature of metaphorical thought. With Professors Charles Fillmore and Paul Kay, he developed the theory of construction grammar, and with Professor Jerome Feldman, he founded the Neural Theory of Language Group at the Institute. He is known for, among other things, his work on the nature of human conceptual systems, the development of cognitive social science, and the application of cognitive and neural linguistics to politics, literature, psychology, philosophy, and mathematics. His books include Metaphors We Live By with Mark Johnson), Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, More Than Cool Reason (with Mark Turner), Philosophy in the Flesh (with Mark Johnson), Where Mathematics Comes From (with Rafael Núñez), The Political Mind, Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant!, Whose Freedom?, Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute staff), and The Little Blue Book with (Elisabeth Wehling). He is now working with Srini Narayanan on a book on how brains think, building on ICSI research in the Neural Theory of Language Group.