General Semantics

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General semantics is an educational discipline created by Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) during the years 1919 to 1933. General semantics (GS) is distinct from semantics, a different subject.

The three major premises of the system are

  1. the map is not the territory it represents
  2. the map does not show all of the territory it represents and
  3. the map is self-reflexive.

The mapmakers are us human beings, the territory is 'reality.' The goal of the system is to develop a continual consciousness of the limitations expressed by the map-territory paradigm, together with routine checking of our reactions to, and impressions of, the world (our maps) with what is actually going on in the world (the territory). These nonverbal as well as verbal reactions and impressions (which include sensations and feelings) are considered abstractions provoked or derived from our physical, biochemical, and neuro-semantic environments. The hope is that 'consciousness of abstracting' would give one the freedom, as in science, to revise even fundamental assumptions, if necessary. According to GS theory, the most accurate and reliable maps at a date are made by science.

Contents

Other aspects of the system

There are more elements, but these three in particular stand out:

  • Time-binding: The human ability to pass information and knowledge between generations at an accelerating rate. It is said to be a unique capacity, separating us from animals. Animals pass knowledge, but not at an exponential rate, i.e., each generation of animals does things pretty much in the same way as the previous generation. For example, humans used to look for food, now we grow or raise it. Animals are still looking.
  • Silence on the objective levels: As 'the word is not the thing it represents,' Korzybski stressed the nonverbal experiencing of our inner and outer environments. During these periods of training, one would become "outwardly and inwardly silent."
  • The system advocates a general orientation by extension rather than intension, by relational facts rather than assumed properties, an attitude, regardless of how expressed in words, that, for example, George 'does things that seem foolish to me,' rather than that he is 'a fool.'

Korzybski's books

Korzybski's major work was Science and Sanity, an Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, published in 1933. His first book, in which he defined time-binding and explained its ramifications, was Manhood of Humanity, published in 1921. A third book of his writings, Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings 1920-1950, was published in 1990.

History

Korzybski's most well-known student was S. I. Hayakawa, who wrote Language In Thought And Action (1941), which became an alternative Book-of-the-Month Club selection. An earlier and less influential book in 1938 was The Tyranny of Words, by Stuart Chase. A current book is Drive Yourself Sane, by Susan and Bruce Kodish, published in 2000.

Two major groups were formed in the United States to promote the system: the Institute of General Semantics, in 1938, and the International Society for General Semantics, in 1943. In 2003, the two groups merged into one organization, now called the Institute of General Semantics, with headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. There is also a European Society for General Semantics, and an Australian Society for General Semantics.

During the period of the 1940's and 1950's, general semantics entered the idiom of science fiction, most notably through the works of A. E. van Vogt and Robert A. Heinlein. In 1952, it was pilloried in Martin Gardner's influential book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. L. Ron Hubbard claimed that his work was based partly on general semantics, but the compliment was not returned. Writing in Etc: A Review of General Semantics, in the fourth quarter of 1951, Hayakawa said, "The lure of the pseudoscientific vocabulary and promises of Dianetics cannot but condemn thousands who are beginning to emerge from scientific illiteracy to a continuation of their susceptibility to word-magic and semantic hash." ("Dianetics: From Science-Fiction to Fiction-Science," pp.280-293.)

Under the surpervision of psychiatrist Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, U.S. medics in World War II used general semantics to treat over 7,000 cases of battlefield neuroses in the European theater. Kelley is quoted in the preface to the third edition of Science and Sanity. The development of Neuro-linguistic programming owes debts to general semantics.

General semantics has continued to exert some influence in popular psychology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and education. Usually because of the efforts of individual teachers, it has been taught at various times and places (sometimes under other names) in high schools and universities in the United States; but in general, the system has had no consistent home in academia.

See also

External links

If you get an error, try using a search engine for the exact name.

References

fr:Sémantique générale nl:Algemene semantiek simple:General semantics

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