Editing Where Mathematics Comes From (section)

==Summing up==
''WMCF'' (pp.&nbsp;378–79) concludes with some key points, a number of which follow. Mathematics arises from our bodies and brains, our everyday experiences, and the concerns of human societies and cultures. It is:
*The result of normal adult cognitive capacities, in particular the capacity for conceptual metaphor, and as such is a human universal. The ability to construct [[conceptual metaphor]]s is neurologically based, and enables humans to reason about one domain using the language and concepts of another domain. [[Conceptual metaphor]] is both what enabled mathematics to grow out of everyday activities, and what enables mathematics to grow by a continual process of analogy and abstraction;
*[[Symbol]]ic, thereby enormously facilitating precise calculation;
*Not transcendent, but the result of human [[evolution]] and [[culture]], to which it owes its effectiveness. During experience of the world a connection to mathematical ideas is going on within the human mind;
*A system of human concepts making extraordinary use of the ordinary tools of human cognition;
*An open-ended creation of human beings, who remain responsible for maintaining and extending it;
*One of the greatest products of the collective human imagination, and a magnificent example of the beauty, richness, complexity, diversity, and importance of human ideas.

The cognitive approach to [[formal system]]s, as described and implemented in ''WMCF'', need not be confined to mathematics, but should also prove fruitful when applied to formal logic, and to formal philosophy such as [[Edward Zalta]]'s [http://mally.stanford.edu/theory.html theory of abstract objects]. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) fruitfully employ the cognitive approach to rethink a good deal of the [[philosophy of mind]], [[epistemology]], [[metaphysics]], and the [[history of ideas]].