What Korzybski, a Polish count and mathematician, accomplished is similar to what Aristotle did around 500 BC, and what Francis Bacon did in the 17th century. They summarised and compiled the methods of thinking up to their times. Korzybski did the same for the 20th century in the 1930's.
Korzybski
Brief Biography
Korzybski was known by Bachelard, and knew Bois personally. Bohm studied Korzybski's work, as did hundreds of other scientists, and Whyte did a keynote memorial address for the Institute of General Semantics in honor of Korzybski. They all embraced holism in one form or another.
What Korzybski, a Polish count and mathematician, accomplished is similar to what Aristotle did around 500 BC, and what Francis Bacon did in the 17th century. They summarised and compiled the methods of thinking up to their times. Korzybski did the same for the 20th century in the 1930's. He wrote only two books. The first, The Manhood of Humanity (1921) proposed seeing humans as time-binders, while plants were chemical binders and animals space binders. But it was his next book in 1933 that was most influential, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. S&S was listed as one of the most influential books of the 20th century by a survey of most of the prominent scientists around 1950. Gaston Bachelard, the great French scientist, philosopher and poet wrote in The Philosophy of No: 'The psychological and even physiological conditions of a non-Aristotelian logic have been resolutely faced in the great work of Count Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity. This volume of almost 800 pages is the prelude to an encyclopaedia whose plan aims at the reform, in a non-Aristotelian direction, of a great many sciences. It proposes this reform as a plan of sanity, as an education of energy and as the integration of active thought into life-progress.'
Much of Science and Sanity has been incorporated into our culture without any direct reference to it. Most people remember Korzybski's phrase 'The map is not the territory; the map doesn't cover all of the territory; and the map is self-reflexive (it becomes part of the territory)'. David Bohm acknowledged Korzybski's importance in his views.
The Institute of General Semantics founded by Alfred Korzybski in 1938 has a web site devoted to the philosopher and to general semantics - see in the Gateways below for details.
It advances the work begun by Korzybski, which he termed 'general semantics', a non-Aristotelian system. It conducts seminars, sponsors programs, publishes books and periodicals, and serves 'as a clearinghouse for those seeking information and training in the discipline'. Its web site expresses the hope that there will be 'greater world-wide access to Korzybski's work - - -, thereby accelerating the time-binding process.' The institute can also be reached at institute@general-semantics.org
The books:
Science and Sanity
Manhood of Humanity
LEARNING ABOUT KORZYBSKI
Where do Alfred Korzybski and his work fit into what we are trying to do here and into epistemics? We could perhaps say that everything we have in respect of the methods we are devising and promoting in epistemics began with him, and was passed on to us made clearer and expanded by the likes of Bois, Bachelard and LL Whyte. We now have tools which enable us to improve our evaluations so that they more closely correspond to 'what is going on', and such improved evaluating can lead to improvements in most areas of human life.
Advise and other sources
There is a separate article devoted to The Institute of General Semantics (see below), which was founded by Alfred Korzybski in 1938, and has its own web site devoted to the philosopher and to general semantics. It advances the work begun by Korzybski, which he termed 'general semantics', a non-Aristotelian system.
Where do Alfred Korzybski and his work fit into what we are trying to do here and into epistemics? We could perhaps say that everything we have in respect of the methods we are devising and promoting in epistemics began with him, and was passed on to us made clearer and expanded by the likes of Bois, Bachelard and LL Whyte. We now have tools which enable us to improve our evaluations so that they more closely correspond to 'what is going on', and such improved evaluating can lead to improvements in most areas of human life.
As we frequently find in so many aspects of our lives, there is an irony here. There are a number of groups, in addition to The Institute of General Semantics, practicing or promoting general semantics, or at least claiming to do so. Within some of them one may find a surprising level of controversy, and even hostility. While at first this appears to be at odds with the central purpose of general semantics, one reason may be that the subject with its revolutionary implications, and potential for 'intellectual certainty', attracts a certain level of over-simplification. There may, however, be a valuable lesson for us here. An inadequate or ill-prepared (or perhaps ill-equipped) approach to general semantics may quickly lead one into either, or both, a fool's paradise or a semantic jungle. Such an approach, for example, might be exhibited where there is a lack of self-reflexiveness, where the seeker after semantic clarity ignores his or her affective bias, and assumes 'objectivity'. Indeed, there may be no subject more conducive to self-delusion than general semantics, or the assumption that one is engaged in it. On the other hand without it we cannot proceed with examining our methods of evaluation or our stages of epistemic awareness.
Sadly some general semantics also attacked J. Samuel Bois in his lifetime, who has done so much in recognizing Korzybski and relating him to our world through epistemics. Bois had dared do what Korzybski said needed to be done: take his work past 1933. The critics had created a Bible and stuck to it, so Bois was a heretic twice over, in the Catholic Church and in the eyes of some general semanticists. Not all of course as more and more respect Bois. We can proceed then carefully with Alfred Korzybski with the assistance and further interpretations of Bois, Bachelard, Whyte, and in particular for our affective awareness with Tomkins.
But first go to your nearest library and look for a copy of Science and Sanity , or purchase it through the gateway link below. Contact the Institute of General Semantics for any further available information on Alfred Korzybski and General Semantics. It is at 86 85th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209-4208 USA.Phone: (718) 921-7093. Fax: (718) 921-4276. email: Institute@General-Semantics.org. URL: http://www.General-Semantics.org/. Ask the Institute for a "map is not the territory" color brochure. Watch this space as we bring you more information on this great mind.
Korzybski's Science and Sanity was named one of the most 100 influential books of the 20th century by a community of scientists, while Korzybski himself was a major influence on many writers including those on this web site.
The Institute is particularly interested in promoting Korzybski's time-binding process. Its web site is at http://www.General-Semantics.org/.
W. Paul Tabaka of Los Angeles is creating a Korzybski web resource, using the motto: 'In our human evolutionary development the structures of religions and sciences, because all man-made, do not differ psycho-logically- - - the fundamental theories must develop in converging lines of investigation and if they do not converge - - - they are revised.' Alfred Korzybski, 'What I Believe', April 1949. ALFRED KORZYBSKI: Collected Writings 1920-1950, pp. 654 and 657. International Non-Aristotelian Library 1990.
See more at
Korzybski Org.
KORZYBSKI AS SCIENTIST
In the Spring 2001 issue of Time-Bindings, there appeared three responses to an earlier (December 2000) query: "Has general semantics fallen away from hard science? Has it been taken over by psychologists and teachers?"
Korzybski as Scientist
Robert P. Pula
In the Spring 2001 issue of Time-Bindings, there appeared three responses to an earlier (December 2000) query: "Has general semantics fallen away from hard science? Has it been taken over by psychologists and teachers?" Here I would like to respond to those responses.
Sean Harrison concluded, I deem wisely, that " ... GS, or any tool, should be used and transformed by whomever can grasp it." Just what he intended by "transformed", I don't know. I have no objection to that notion (I've engaged in it somewhat myself) so long as the 'transforming' does not do violence to the system qua system, or corrupt the structural integrity of the special, non-elementalistic vocabulary Korzybski invented in building his system.
My friend in Paris, José Klingbeil, claims that GS "has been 'taken over' by 'philosophers' (not epistemologists)." Would that were so. 'Philosophy' might be much improved by that circumstance. José, who has studied with me, is quite (appropriately) rigorous in his exercise of general semantics. He heads a group which is translating Science and Sanity into French. I wish that he would write a paper for the General Semantics Bulletin or Time-Bindings detailing that 'takeover', round up the unusual suspects, and describe them to us.
Martha Bartter, another friend in formulating, makes the strongest points and disclaimers. In my view (and information) she is mistaken when she asserts that "Korzybski did not 'do' science. He did not practice, or teach, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc." As a matter of record, Korzybski, who had an ME (Chemical Engineering) from the Szkola Glowna (Main School) of the Warsaw Polytechnic, taught physics and mathematics (and French and German) at a gimnazium (roughly equivalent to an American junior college) in Warsaw. I emphasize that mathematics qualifies as the core language of the 'hard' sciences. I have long held and written that 'science' is primarily the language in which it is expressed, including its special vernacular in which the mathematics (that structural , relational language par excellence ) is embedded. A popular expectation for a 'scientist', for one who 'does' science, is that s/he work in a laboratory full of 'hardware'. Yet Einstein didn't work in an extensional laboratory and his 'experiments' were so-called gedankenexperimenten (basically, 'head trips'). I doubt that Martha Bartter or any other knowledgeable person would want to claim that, on that basis, Einstein was not a scientist. More on this below.
In America, Korzybski consulted daily in person and through correspondence with many of the leading scientists of his day, both in the United States and abroad. He often functioned as teacher in these situations, e.g., lecturing the biologist William E. Ritter, one of the founders of the Scripps Institution for Biological Research in LaJolla, California, on the organism-as-a-whole principle; teaching mathematical modes of evaluating to William Alanson White, director of St. Elizabeths (psychiatric) Hospital in Washington, D.C., and many others. He lectured all over the United States before learned, scientific societies and conferences, among them the International Mathematical Congress in Toronto, the Washington Society for Nervous and Mental Diseases, the American Mathematical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychiatric Society, etc. In Warsaw in September 1929, he presented a summary of his work (what was to become Science and Sanity ) before the Mathematical Congress of the Slavic Countries. (Readers of Time-Bindings will know that many of these are accounted for in Korzybski's Collected Writings .) He was everywhere billed and received as a scientist. Martha does a good job of stating what she considers Korzybski did do.
As hinted above, our discussion centers on our definition of 'science' and what qualifies a person to be called a 'scientist'. To spell that out, I will draw on my just-published paper, "General-Semantics and Semiotics: Similarities and Differences," which appeared in Lingua Posnaniensis 4 , Poznan (Poland), June 2001. " ... we should address the issue of whether semiotics and general-semantics constitute 'sciences' and, if so, in what senses."
Ever since the tremendous success of science and related technologies beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and burgeoning in the twentieth, anybody "with half a brain", as they say in the neighborhood, has wanted to be considered, to be thought of, as a 'scientist', at least as far as her/his field is concerned. 'Philosophy' has watched nervously as more and more powerful science (though 'uncertain' in the rigorous Heisenbergian and Korzybskian senses) has set limits to free but responsible speculating and system building. (We will not address here the problem of scientists, particularly some contemporary physicists and astrophysicists, who have ventured outside their areas of competence to construct cosmological 'descriptions' which have more the character of theology than science in the Popperian [disconfirmable] sense.) Those activities that have traditionally been listed among the humanities seem particularly prone to this hankering for 'respectability'.
We can distinguish three levels of 'science' on the basis of (a) the degree of rigor involved in its formulation and (b) the degree of challenging testability it allows related to risky predictions:
1) The 'hard' sciences-physics, the various chemistries, molecular biology, neuroscience, etc., all of which overlap, representing different levels of analysis and description, but methodologically similar with relation to the ability to test (challenge) hypotheses.
2) The 'soft' sciences-sociology, anthropology, some modes of clinical psychology, etc., characterized by a scientific attitude , but showing limited capability for the kind of testing (hypothesis challenging) available in the hard sciences. (Attempts at testing 'scientific' social theory in societal 'laboratories' were made in the recently ended twentieth century, with disastrous results.) Korzybski referred to this level of human evaluating/ formulating as the "semi-sciences".
3) The limitedly formulational 'sciences', characterized by the wish to be scientific in attitude and expression, attempts at being rigorously analytical, but without the capability of non-verbal testing, and limited at the level of predictive application. Here I place the logics, analytical philosophy a la polonaise , linguistics, certain modes of literary criticism, etc.
Within the 'hard' sciences (or attempts thereat), we can find degrees of rigor which reflect the range of the three levels I have just formulated. At Institute of General Semantics seminars, during the two-decade period 1977-1997, Professor Stuart Mayper and I presented special sessions on 'kinds' of science. Here is how I characterized those sessions in the General Semantics Bulletin in 1984 (No. 51, p. 112):
"The following worksheet, prepared by Dr. Stuart Mayper and Robert Pula for use at Institute of General Semantics Seminar-Workshops, is used for discussions of the epistemology of science as a human issue. The sheet represents a mere summary of points raised and debated at joint sessions conducted by Mayper and Pula which are designed to sharpen awareness of formulations and orientations which subtend Korzybski's system. An aspect of the session is the application of general semantics formulations to general semantics formulations , including investigation of the degree to which general semantics can be evaluated as an empirical science in the predictive as opposed to the merely descriptive sense." The sheet then identifies and characterizes four kinds of 'science' (accepted, erroneous, pseudo, and fringe).
Where should we place general semantics and semiotics within this rubric? Korzybski claimed that general semantics was (is) an "empirical science" for two main reasons: 1) he derived it, via inductive-deductive (abductive?) procedures from the established (challenged, tested, 'secured') science of his day, science that was (is) stringently empirical and predictive, 2) he made risky, testable predictions that his system, if applied in research, education and daily living, would result in beneficial, productive, sanity-inducing evaluational restructuring of the humans thus engaged. By now (the year 2002 of the 'third' millennium), a vast literature exists that substantiates Korzybski's claims. The 64 numbers of the General Semantics Bulletin are replete with reports, analyses, etc., by educators, scientists, medical doctors, psychiatrists and others, even artists, reporting successes and improvements in their fields related to applications of Korzybskian formulations in their work and lives. There exist several hundred masters and doctoral reports (dissertations), many of which are reports of extensive experiments, especially in education, using Korzybskian methods. So I would place general semantics at the boundary between 1 and 2 above: not able to be as 'hard' as physics, chemistry, etc., since the 'laboratory material' of general semantics is human; not so 'soft' as the sociologies, anthropologies, etc.
Semiotics seems to be, as practiced, overwhelmingly positioned at 3 in my rubric of 'science'. However, at the level of pragmatics and application to specific problems some semiotics activity may also inhabit the 'space' to which I have assigned general semantics. Yes, Korzybski did 'do' science. He, not Peirce or anyone else, formulated the first neuroscientific system-discipline , empirically grounded and sustained. That's why general semantics, through the agency of time-binding general semanticists and others, will continue to serve humankind in the on-going present and for the foreseeable future.
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