General Semantics Seminar-Workshop Bibliography
By Robert P. Pula
Revised, Updated and Annotated, 1996
General semantics, begun with Korzybski's definition of humans as time-binders
in 1921, presented as a system/discipline in 1933, has, in the last six decades,
become a field. A public-sized library of books, articles, papers, studies,
dissertations -- even a few notorious novels -- rest on shelves all over the
planet. Some of them are excellent. Given the foundations of general semantics,
‘its’ library needs to include writings from related fields. “So
many books, so little time.” Our seminar bibliography, then, must be
highly selective, limited to items that for historical as well as formulational
reasons I deem required reading for the well-informed, well-trained, understanding
general semanticist.
This bibliography does not include a preponderance of works in general philosophy.
Nevertheless, I recommend that serious (not somber) students of general semantics
study (evaluate) at least a few surveys of the history of philosophy, the development
of scientific paradigms (Ptolemy/Aristotle-Copernicus/Galileo, Newton, Einstein,
...) to get some perspective of where we fit (and don't fit) in the evolution
of human formulating. Korzybski dedicated Science and Sanity to those
whose works “have greatly influenced my enquiry, ...” including Aristotle.
We should have at least some familiarity with his work. Students seem
not likely to develop a strong understanding of “non-Aristotelian”
without a strong understanding of “Aristotelian,” especially since
they represent a continuum.
I have included some detailed accounts of the work of the Polish mathematicians
and logicians (and mathematical logicians) who influenced Korzybski in his non-Aristotelian
direction. Serious, non- ‘gee-whiz’ training in general semantics
should include evaluating of Korzybski's explications of the sciences he built
his system on, aided by study of the writings of other scientists, both
contemporary and more recent. Reading writings that have had to be translated
can also promote your awareness of the planetary sweep of our enterprise. Some
of those have been included.
Most of the selected works listed here deal directly with general semantics
or with reports which seem resonant with general semantics formulations, 1921
... 1933 ... 1995 .... I have also included some critiques which the student
should be familiar with and, eventually, able to deal with. Works specifically
treating general semantics are marked: * .
The General Semantics Bulletin (1950...) and ETC: A Review of General
Semantics (1943...) are rich in pertinent materials, particularly at the
levels of explication and application. The Bulletin is generally the
more rigorous and scholarly journal, while ETC. more often (but not ‘always’)
features pieces of the ‘familiar essay’ type. Both contain much of
interest for those concerned with the history of general semantics, biographies
of leading formulators, etc.
Bachelard, Gaston, The Philosophy of No, 1940. Translated by
G. C. Waterston. New York: Orion Press, 1968. * Frenchman Gaston Bachelard
(1884-1962) was one of the early internationally known philosophers who recognized
the importance of Korzybski’s work: “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.” (The Philosophy
of No, p. 108) “The philosophie du non destroys nothing, Bachelard
held; it consolidates what it supersedes.” (Colin Smith, “Gaston Bachelard,”
in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 1, p. 234.) See below for a complete
listing of this important Encyclopedia.
Barrett, Stephen, M.D. and Victor Herbert, M.D., J.D., The Vitamin
Pushers: How the "Health Food" Industry is Selling America a Bill of Goods.
Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994. A non-technical, but well-grounded in rigorous
science, discussion of the unscientific (yea, anti-scientific) and outright
fraudulent claims made by purveyors of megadoses of vitamins, 'organic' foods
(what foods are not?), etc., etc. Chapter 2, "Thirty Ways to Spot Quacks and
Pushers," provides a short course in enlightened skepticism à la Popper
and Korzybski. To lighten the load, you might check out a video of The Inspector
General (starring Danny Kaye) in which Walter Slezak flogs "Yakov's Elixir"
(good for everything) to the 'great unwashed'.
Berman, Sanford I., Logic and General Semantics: Writings of Oliver
Reiser and Others. San Francisco (now Concord, CA): International Society
for General Semantics, 1989. * Oliver Reiser was, like Bachelard above,
an early academic philosopher (University of Pittsburgh) who became something
of a ‘Korzybskian’. I say “something” because Reiser, formulator
of a ‘world brain’, had a tendency to get excited. Nevertheless, he
wrote some telling analyses of the shift from Aristotelian to non-Aristotelian,
discussion of the Russell-Korzybski relationship, etc. Berman presents and discusses
a rich dose of Reiser’s formulations, those of others, and some of his
own. Two of Reiser’s books are listed below. This book available from the
IGS.
Black, Max, Language and Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1949. * Still one of the best-reasoned critiques of the foundations
of general semantics by a major American philosopher who comes from Lotfi Zadeh
country. Bruce Kodish has written an equally well-reasoned rejoinder, not yet
published. See also Gorman, Paulson and Youngren, listed below.
Bochenski, I.M., Contemporary European Philosophy. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1961. A brief, clear, accessible account of
philosophical trends of the first half of our century, trends of which Korzybski
was partly an expression.
----------, The Methods of Contemporary Thought. (1965) Translated
by Peter Caws. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968. A more explicitly methodological
examination of the historical-descriptive material covered in Bochenski’s
prior book.
Bois, J.Samuel, Explorations in Awareness. New York: Harper
and Row, 1957. Reprinted by the International Society for General Semantics,
1978. * Bois’ first book in general semantics, still an excellent
introduction.
----------, The Art of Awareness. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1966.
Third Edition, Fourth Printing, 1983. * Bois’ major work (I used
it as a text for a college-level course in general semantics in Baltimore),
somewhat marred by his lingering fondness for semi-mystical expression. (See
my review in the General Semantics Bulletin, listed below.)
----------, Communication as Creative Experience. Los Angeles: Viewpoints,
1968. * A pamphlet in which Bois presents what he sees as elaborations
and extensions of general semantics as related to the communicating human organism.
Built on further exposition of his Bachelard and Korzybski-derived “Epistemological
Profile,” introduced in The Art of Awareness.
----------, Breeds of Men: Toward the Adulthood of Humankind (Post-Korzybskian
General Semantics). New York: Harper and Row, 1970. * Bois’ most
lively book, in which he stakes his claim to having gone beyond Korzybski. The
‘breeds’ in the title refer to the stages of the Epistemological Profile,
culminating (temporarily, presumably) in “Breed 5,” which some of
us see as potentially regressive.
----------, Epistemics: The Science-Art of Innovating. San Francisco:
International Society for General Semantics, 1972. (Now publishing in Concord,
CA.) Bois’ last and most personal book in which he appears as an exemplar
of the formulational progression he has discussed here and in his previous publications.
I have not starred it because Bois writes that Epistemics is “an emergent
[My italics:RPP] from general semantics” and “a new science-art
of utopia designing.” general semantics qualifies as non-utopian.
Bourland, D. David, Jr. and Paul Dennithorne Johnson, eds., To Be
or Not: An E-Prime Anthology. International Society for General Semantics,
1991. * Not all general semanticists agree with Bourland’s campaign
to eliminate all uses of ‘is’ (forms of “to be”)
from English, but, at minimum, use of E-Prime for exercises in general semantics
training (developing consciousness of abstracting) seems useful. The book contains
discussion of E-Prime, applications, examples, etc. A second volume, More
E-Prime (same publisher), appeared in 1994.
Brillouin, Leon, Scientific Uncertainty, and Information. New
York: Academic Press, 1964. A superior explanation for the ‘intelligent
layperson’ of uncertainty, space-time, etc., and the role
of the (human) scientist in discovering-inventing science, by a noted French
physicist (the Brillouin Formula, Brillouin scattering, Brillouin zone, etc.)
working in America. It helped me to appreciate Korzybski’s discussions
in Book III of Science and Sanity.
Bronowski, Jacob, Science and Human Values. New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1959. Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecturer Bronowski discusses issues
which energized (and exercised) the Korzybski of Manhood of Humanity
(1921), triggered in Bronowski’s case by his writing of the official British
report on the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
----------, “Towards a Philosophy of Biology,” (Alfred Korzybski
Memorial Lecture) General Semantics Bulletin, No. 34, 1967, pp. 17-22.
Cognizant in physics as well as biology, Bronowski concludes his typically brilliant
lecture: “The living creature and its evolution are the two matched faces
of life. In this pairing, evolution is the creative partner: it does not solve
a problem, as the cycles of the organism do, but makes a genuine creation --
a creature. We can say of it what Piet Hein said of a work of art, in a penetrating
phrase: that it solves a problem which we could not formulate until it was
solved.”
----------, The Ascent of Man. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. This lucid
best-seller, based on Bronowski’s popular TV series for the BBC, draws
on the anthropology and archaeology of art as well as on the ‘hard’
sciences. Can be read with Edelman’s Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
(see below) for current evolutionary theory as it relates to the languaging/symbolizing
form of life.
---------- , The Common Sense of Science. New York: Vintage, n.d. A
brief, sturdy, surprisingly simple (but not simple- ‘minded’) discussion
of why the scientific way of evaluating is a superior way to get answers to
those questions for which there may be answers. (Does not address such question-complaints
as “Why was I ever born!?!”)
Carroll, John B., Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. See
below under “Whorf.”
Chase, Stuart, The Power of Words. New York: Harcourt, Brace
and World, 1954. * A balanced discussion of various approaches and contributions
to the examination of the role of language in human functioning, with emphasis
on Korzybski’s work in Chapters 12 and 13. Avoids the exaggerations of
Chase’s earlier Tyranny of Words, which led many to see general
semantics as an anti-higher order verbalization discipline, i.e., opposed to
higher order abstractions without which we could not construct a science.
----------, The Proper Study of Mankind (1948). New York: Harper Perennial
Library, 1967. * Does a good job of presenting developments in sociology,
philosophy, semantics, general semantics, etc., in a way which places Korzybski
in his early twentieth century context.
Chisholm, Frank P., Introductory Lectures in General Semantics.
(1944) Englewood, NJ: Institute of General Semantics, 1983 reprint. *
Based on a set of lectures given at an Institute seminar, Chisholm’s reader-friendly
expositions well illustrate how general semantics can be talked about by an
English teacher who understands some science. Special emphasis on problems in
education. This book available from the IGS.
Churchland, Patricia Smith, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science
of Mind-Brain. MIT Press, 1986. One of the better presentations of the (finally)
emerging movement in the neurosciences that rejects the elementalistic split
‘between’ ‘mind’ and brain. Her language isn’t yet
up to Korzybskian standards, but she seems evolving in that direction, especially
as she forthrightly faces up to epistemological issues.
Chwistek, Leon, The Limits of Science: Outline of Science and the
Methodology of the Exact Sciences. Translated by Helen Charlotte Brodie
and Arthur Prudden Coleman. Introduction and Appendix by Helen Charlotte Brodie.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948. An ‘unknown classic’ which
qualifies as a co-discussion of Bertrand Russell’s “Theory of Types”
and constitutes a formative statement, earlier adumbrations of which influenced
Korzybski’s formulations in a reactive way reminiscent of his responses
to Russell.
Edelman, Gerald, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the
Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1992. Taking a thoroughly anti-essentialist,
anti-dualist, anti- ‘mentalist’ stance, Edelman details the mechanisms
and functions of the human brain that have led to our becoming ‘thinking’,
evaluating organisms. He presents copious data which are markedly consistent
with Korzybski’s neuroscientific underpinnings of his neurolinguistic,
neurosemantic system, “cortico-thalamic integration,” etc.
Edwards, Paul, Editor in Chief, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
8 Volumes. New York and London: Macmillan, 1967. Reprinted, 1972. Perhaps the
best, most comprehensive English-language compendium of its type, written clearly
by specialists for the general reader, this work seems an indispensable source
for general semantics practitioners who study beyond the level of those who
limit themselves to prancing about the countryside intoning “The word is
not the thing!”
Einstein, Albert and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961. In a classic of popular scientific explanation
(and that difficult, tender art, collaboration), two giants of twentieth century
physics give a clear, non-mystical survey of the developments in physics culminating
in Einstein’s non-Newtonian system and later developments. It will help
you to understand why so much stuff on “Star Trek” is scientific baloney.
Gorman, Margaret, General Semantics and Contemporary Thomism.
Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1962. * Originally published
as Mother Gorman’s (she was for a time a Roman Catholic nun) doctoral dissertation
at Catholic University as The Educational Implications of the Theory of Meaning
and Symbolism of General Semantics in 1958, this excellent summary and respectful
critique of general semantics from the point of view on neo-Thomism makes very
useful, exercising reading for a student of general semantics, neophyte or veteran.
The writings of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), credited with ‘baptizing’
Aristotle, still provide the major, disciplined philosophical underpinnings
for Catholic theology. (Yes, I know, John Paul II is a fan of Husserl, Scheler,
et al.) Evaluating responsible critiques of general semantics provides an
excellent way to check up on what of and how well you have learned the system.
See also Black above, and Paulson and Youngren below.
Gregory, R.L., Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing.(1966)
3rd Edition, 1978, 2nd Reprinting, 1981. ‘The’ primer on its subject,
firmly grounded in neuroscience and perception studies, by one of (if not ‘the’)
world’s experts on how brains ‘see’ and what they do with it.
Profusely and illuminatingly illustrated.
---------- , The Intelligent Eye. New York: Mcgraw-Hill, 1970. A more
‘philosophical’ speculative treatment of material covered and suggested
in Gregory’s previous book.
Hayakawa, S.I., Language in Thought and Action. 5th Edition,
with Alan Hayakawa. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. * Probably
the most influential of the many popularizations and applications of Korzybski’s
work, Hayakawa’s major book has been often reprinted, revised and re-editioned
since its first iteration in 1939. Very well written, with apt applications
to the teaching of English and general human communicating, it nevertheless
misrepresents and misses some of the deeper epistemological implications of
Science and Sanity. The student can usefully read it in conjunction with
Bruce Kodish’s essay-review, “Getting Off Hayakawa’s Ladder,”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 57, 1993, pp. 65-76. Hayakawa’s
other (later) books should also be examined.
Heisenberg, Werner, Philosophical Problems of Nuclear Science.
(1952) New York: Fawcett World Library, 1966. An important discussion by one
of the original formulators of (restricted) uncertainty, made piquant by the
reader’s awareness that the author served the most certain tyranny (the
Nazi one) known to history.
Hobson, J. Allan, The Dreaming Brain. New York: Basic Books,
1988. I have often preached in seminars that dreams qualify as home movies which
we produce, direct, and in which we play all the parts. Dreaming is a very
active process. We invent what we ‘receive’. Psychiatrist and
neuroscientist Hobson puts flesh and bones on that assertion. He also makes
this provocative statement about the procedures of psychoanalysts (having observed
that the client-generated anecdotes they deal with do not even qualify as observations):
“... their interpretation more closely resembles speculative literary criticism
than it does scientific reasoning.” (p, 57)
Hofstadter, Douglas R., Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden
Braid. (1979) New York: Vintage Books, 1980. I suggested in my review of
this book (which the author thought was “kind”) that reader’s
might be better able to handle it after having mastered some Korzybski: consciousness
of abstracting, multiordinality of terms, neurolinguistic, neurosemantic effects
(feedback), self-reflexiveness, etc. I claimed that there are “... reverberations,
sympathetic vibrations between Hofstadter and Korzybski.” An adventure
in abstracting.
Huizenga, John R., Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century.
Oxford/New York/Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1993. An engaging, forthright
and devastating study of how not to do science. Valuable case study for
general semanticists, since the unspoken subject in this book is consciousness
of abstracting, modes of evaluating -- and time-binding ethics.
Infeld, Leopold, Albert Einstein: His Work and its Influence
on Our World. Revised Edition. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950.
Einstein’s (and Born’s) collaborator again delivers remarkably non-obfuscatory
clarifications: “Sometimes we hear that ‘time is a fourth dimension
in relativity theory,’ and we are impressed by the mystical sound of these
words. But there is nothing mystical about them. Events in the world must be
described by four numbers, three of them referring to positions and one to time.
Minkowski showed that it is much more convenient not to treat space alone as
the background of our events, but space-time.” (p. 45)
Janicki, Karol, Toward Non-Essentialist Sociolinguistics. Berlin
and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1990. * The author credits Korzybski
and Popper with being forerunners of what he calls “non-essentialist sociolinguistics.”
He relies too heavily on Hayakawa to get to Korzybski; nevertheless, an important
introduction to a kind of discussion that will soon lurch into the 21st century.
089925599X
Johnson, Kenneth, General Semantics: An Outline Survey. San
Francisco (Concord, CA): International Society for General Semantics, 1972.
* Written by a distinguished professor of the University of Wisconsin,
this clear outline presents many of the main terms within an overview of general
semantics as a system, an orientation based on self-challenging,
scientific ways of evaluating. For those who prefer their general semantics
in Italian, there is a translation (Lineamenti di Semantica Generale)
by Massimo Baldini, with an introduction by Francesco Barone, published by Armando
Armando (sic) in Rome. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , ed., Research Designs in General Semantics. New York:
Gordon and Breach Science Publications, 1974. * A compilation of papers
delivered at the Conference on Research Designs in General Semantics held at
Pennsylvania State University in 1969. Dr. Walter E. Weese noted in his review
(General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 38-39-40, 1972, pp. 121-122), “As
Mr. Johnson acknowledges in his introduction, few research designs per se
are described and/or discussed.” What the reader gets is suggestions about
and discussions of various approaches which might be taken in initiating research
in general semantics or research based on a general semantics methodology.
---------- , compiler, Graduate Research in General Semantics. Englewood,
NJ: International Non-Aristotelian Library/ Institute of General Semantics,
1992. * A goodly number (over 200) of advanced university-level projects,
including doctoral dissertations, are represented here. A good place to start
for those contemplating an advanced degree related to general semantics. This
book available from the IGS.
Johnson, Wendell, People in Quandaries: The Semantics of
Personal Adjustment. (1946) San Francisco (Concord, CA): International Society
for General Semantics, n.d. * One of the classics of ‘first generation’
popularizations of and applications of Korzybski’s work, focused on adequate
personal formulating. Use of the term ‘popularization’ may be misleading;
this is a sturdily written book, very sound, which can serve as an introduction
to the discipline for those who feel shy about starting off with Science
and Sanity. The Institute’s current booklist characterizes Johnson’s
book as ... “one of the finest and most accurate books yet written on the
system of general semantics.” This book available from the IGS.
---------- , Verbal Man: The Enchantment of Words. New York: Collier
Books, 1965. * Originally titled Your Most Enchanted Listener(1956),
Johnson presents here an insightful discussion of humans as languaging creatures
and the implications thereof.
Jordan, Z. (Zbigniew) A., Philosophy and Ideology. Dordrecht,
Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1963. In this book, which deals primarily
with post-World War II developments under the imposed Marxist regime, Jordan
provides (Part I, Chapters 1 through 5) a monograph-length dissertation on pre-World
War I and interwar philosophers found referenced in Science and Sanity:
Chwistek, Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz, Sierpinski, Skarzenski, Tarski and Zaremba.
Kodish, Susan Presby and Bruce Kodish, Drive Yourself Sane! Using
the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics. Foreword by Albert Ellis, Ph.D.
Englewood, NJ: Institute of General Semantics, 1993. * Alfred Ellis,
founder of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, wrote in his Foreword:
“... it applies Alfred Korzybski’s brilliant general semantics philosophy
to its reader’s everyday lives and shows them how to live more sanely in
a still highly irrational and partially insane world.” If you have a friend
who you evaluate would benefit from reading some general semantics, give them
this book. Very user-friendly. This book available from the IGS.
Korzybski, Alfred, Manhood of Humanity.(1921) 2nd Edition. Lakeville,
CT (now Englewood, NJ): International Non-Aristotelian Library/ Institute of
General Semantics, 1950. * The beginning work in general semantics which
culminated in Science and Sanity and Korzybski’s later writings;
the origin of the definition of humans as time-binders, with implications related
thereto. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , Time-Binding: The General Theory. Two Papers, 1924, 1926.
Lakeville, CT (Englewood, NJ): Institute of General Semantics, 1949. *
The bridging works between Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity,
relatively brief statements of much of what would be spelled out in 1933 (S&S).
Paper I begins with the remarkable statement: “All human knowledge is conditioned
and limited, at present, by the properties of light and human symbolism.”
Included in the Collected Writings, below.
---------- , Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems
and General Semantics (1933). 5th Edition, 1993. With a New Preface by Robert
P. Pula. Englewood, NJ: International Non-Aristotelian Library/ Institute of
General Semantics, 1994. * The major statement of and explication of
Korzybski’s system, the cumulatively founding work of general semantics.
Required reading and study for those who would understand Korzybski’s
system, as opposed to presentations by later writers who selected aspects to
popularize and, in some cases, develop -- and, in some cases, distort. Would-be
teachers of general semantics who apply for certification by the Institute of
General Semantics are required to attend a week-long seminar devoted to a guided
reading of Science and Sanity. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , General Semantics Seminar. Transcription of notes from
lectures given at Olivet College, 1937. 2nd Edition. International Non-Artistotelian
Library/Institute of General Semantics, 1964. * Korzybski’s ‘voice’
in print. An engaging record of how he presented his views, with vigor, rigor,
anecdotal examples, humor, etc. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , Foreword, with M. Kendig, to T.C. Pollock and J.G.Spaulding,
A Theory of Meaning Analyzed. General Semantics Monograph III. (1942) Englewood,
NJ: International Non-Aristotelian Library / Institute of General Semantics.
* Korzybski’s anticipation of Kuhn’s “paradigm shifts”
which caused much discussion in the sixties and since (see Kuhn below). See
also the note on the Cover Design in issues of the General Semantics Bulletin
since 1982. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , Selections from Science and Sanity. Introductory note
by author. International Non-Aristotelian Library/ Institute of General Semantics,
1948. Selected and arranged by Guthrie E. Janssen. 7th Printing with additional
materials, 1972. * Designed for those for whom the size and apparent
complexity of the whole book proved daunting, this reduction and reordering
of Korzybski’s text, minus the technically scientific Book III, was accomplished
by Guthrie Janssen as an experimental teaching text. Apparently, the experiment
was successful, since it’s in its 7th printing. Nevertheless, I consider
study of Book III necessary for a solid grounding in general semantics, especially
for teachers. This book available from the IGS.
---------- , Collected Writings: 1920-1950. Collected and arranged
by M. Kendig. Final editing and preparation for printing by Charlotte Schuchardt
Read, with the assistance of Robert Pula. Englewood, NJ: International Non-Aristotelian
Library/ Institute of General Semantics, 1990. * Probably the most important
publication in general semantics since Science and Sanity. Not only required
reading for study purposes, but fascinating as history. Includes Korzybski’s
last, great, paper, "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes," many
items not seen since their first publication, and some not previously published.
Their gathering here gives the reader an unprecedented opportunity to ‘witness’
the development of general semantics up to Korzybski’s death in 1950. This
book available from the IGS.
Kraft, Victor, The Vienna Circle. Translated by Arthur Pap.
New York: Philosophical Library, 1953. The author (Kraft) describes the work
of the school which, ignored in “the German cultural domain,” influenced
Russell, Wittgenstein and Korzybski. Had close connections with the Lwow-Warsaw
School, sometimes called the Warsaw Circle, some of whose members are also included
within studies of ‘Austrian’ philosophy. Compare with Barry Smith’s
Austrian Philosophy listed below.
Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
Second Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. The author of The
Copernican Revolution presents his, for many, revolutionary notion of shifting
paradigms as the engine which drives science as a cultural stop-and-start progression.
Compare with Korzybski’s earlier (1942) Foreword (with M. Kendig) to A
Theory of Meaning Analyzed, listed above.
Kuratowski, Kazimierz, Fifty Years of Polish Mathematics: Remembrances
and Reflections. New York ... Warszawa: Pergamon Press/ Polish Scientific
Publishers, 1980. Kuratowski, himself one of the group he tells about, gives
an eyewitness account of the very human side of the mathematical school which
influenced Korzybski’s formulations.
Laszlo, Ervin, Introduction to Systems Theory: Toward a New Paradigm
of Contemporary Thought. With a Forward by Ludwig von Bertalanffy. New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1972. In what might be called the Hungarian contribution
to our discussion, Dr. Laszlo presents an excellent survey-in-depth of what
I see as still current formulating in his subject(s). He appends a paper by
Jere W. Clark which concludes with this passage -- “... we would like to
draw on the words of Sir Julian Huxley: ‘we need a science of human possibilities,
with professorships in the exploration of the future ... [to integrate] science
with all other branches of knowledge, ideas and values relevant to man’s
destiny.’” Indeed. Both Laszlo and Clark participated in the general
semantics/general systems theory conference at Denver in 1970. (See Washburn
and Smith, below.)
Lee, Irving J., Language Habits in Human Affairs: An Introduction
to General Semantics. With a Foreword by Alfred Korzybski. (1941) 2nd Edition,
Edited by Sanford Berman, 1994. Concord, CA: International Society for General
Semantics. * Republished in conjunction with the Institute of General
Semantics, Lee’s book was probably Korzybski’s favorite among the
explications of his work (although he also thought highly of the work of Harry
Weinberg, listed below). Irving Lee was an excellent writer and had a special
gift for explaining general semantics derived from and applied to ‘real’
(extensional), non-trivial events and situations. His discussion of “The
Four ‘Is’es’” seems particularly apt, perhaps to be read
before and after you read Bourland’s approach. Particularly recommended.
This book available from the IGS.
---------- , How to Talk With People. (1952) San Francisco (Concord,
CA): International Society for General Semantics, n.d.* An excellent
handbook for improving communication in small groups. I used it, and the title
listed below, in committee process workshops I gave for staff at a major psychiatric
hospital in Baltimore in the late 1970’s. This book available from the
IGS.
---------- , and Laura Lee, Handling Barriers in Communication:Lecture-Discussions
and Conferee’s Handbook. (1957). * San Francisco (Concord,
CA): International Society for General Semantics, 1968. Based on The Lee Experiment
conducted at Illinois Bell Telephone Company in 1955, the book addresses what
its title promises in industrial/business environments.
---------- , Compiler and Editor. The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background
Readings in Semantics. (1949) San Francisco (Concord, CA): International
Society for General Semantics, 1967. * Contains important background
essays by world figures in the study of and speculation about the role of language
in human living. Korzybski’s 1923 “Fate and Freedom” is included.
This book available from the IGS.
Lindley, David, The End of Physics: The Myth of a Unified Theory.
New York: Basic Books, 1993. Addresses the quest for the absolute and the threatened
collapse into mysticism of some recent physics (i.e., physicists) -- purveyors
of anti-extensionalism. Compare with Steven Weinberg listed below.
Lukasiewicz, Jan, Selected Works. Edited by L. Borkowski. Amsterdam:
North Holland Publishing Company and Warszawa: Polish Scientific Publishers,
1970. One of the seminal sources of both general semantics and the Fuzzy Logic
of Lotfi Zadeh; studying Lukasiewicz and his fellows, even in translation, can
sharpen a general semanticist’s formulating. Non-Aristotelian does
not equate with sloppiness.
Luria, A.R. Higher Cortical Functions in Man. London: Tavistock,
1966. An early confirmation of the neurophysiological basis for what Korzybski
called levels/orders of abstracting, and his descriptions of the mechanisms
of abstracting, by the famed Russian neuroscientist who was at the leading edge
of research when he wrote this book.
Mayper, Stuart A., “Non-Aristotelian Foundations: Solid or Fluid?”
ETC: A Review of General Semantics. Vol. XVIII, No. 4, Feb., 1962, pp. 427-443.
* Dr. Mayper’s first published paper in the field, it still holds
up as a response to some of philosopher Max Black’s early objections to
Korzybski’s “non-Aristotelianism.”
---------- , “Tarskian Metalanguages and Korzybskian Abstracting.”
Methodology and Science, Special Korzybski Issue, Vol. 10, No. 2. Haarlem,
Netherlands: June, 1977. Reprinted in General Semantics Bulletin, No.
46, 1979, pp. 26-53. * A major logico-epistemological paper, able to
make its way through any series of conferences on the world mathematico-logical
scene. Not for the faint-hearted -- but then what is?
---------- , “The Place of Aristotelian Logic in Non-Aristotelian Evaluating:
Einstein, Korzybski and Popper.” General Semantics Bulletin, Special
Commemorative Issue (100th Anniversary of Korzybski’s Birth), No. 47, 1980,
pp. 106-111. * Reflect on this: most of you reading this (and surely
I who wrote this) won’t be around for the 100th anniversary of Korzybski’s
death in 2050. Get serious! Distinguishing a two-valued logic from a two-valued
orientation, Mayper places Korzybski in some fine company, concluding that
he remains “the greatest system-builder of the century.”
---------- , “Korzybski’s Science and Today’s Science,”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 51, 1984, pp. 61-67. * Operating
from our commitment to keep up with evolving science as a way of checking our
on-going scientific underpinnings, Dr. Mayper (Emeritus Professor, Chemistry,
University of Bridgeport and former student of Sir Karl Popper in London) concludes:
“Science and Sanity was a book ahead of its time, and, fifty years
later, it still is.” He would probably still say that’s so in 1995.
---------- , “Wu Li Thinking About Physics,” General Semantics
Bulletin, No. 51, 1984, pp. 68-82.* In this essay-review, Mayper
(no mean punster) does a sharp delineation of the degrees of wooliness he sees
in three popular (and actually popular) books about ‘physics’
by Pagels, Capra and Zukav. Mayper begins: “I can characterize them bluntly
by saying that Pagels’ is a very good book with careless spots, Capra is
a careless book with good spots, and Zukav [The Dancing Wu Li Masters]
is an infuriating book: so promising in prospect and so bad in execution.”
And you thought general semanticists were supposed to be a bunch of warm-fuzzyists!
---------- , and Robert P. Pula, “Four Kinds of ‘Science’,”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 51, 1984,p. 112. * A seminar worksheet
used by Mayper and Pula in a co-presentation dealing with “Accepted Science,”
“Erroneous Science,” “Pseudoscience,” and “Fringe Science.”
---------- , “Critical Thinking vis-a-vis general semantics,”General
Semantics Bulletin, No. 59, 1994, pp. 30-34. * Reprinted from
Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines. Mayper responds here
to some of the misevaluations in Dr. Richard Paul’s 1987 Alfred Korzybski
Memorial Lecture, “Critical Thinking and the Way We Construct the Meanings
of Things,” published in General Semantics Bulletin No. 55, 1990,
pp. 24-37. See also James D. French’s “General Semantics and Science:
A Response to Richard W. Paul” in the same issue, pp.38-42. This packet
of papers seems very important reading for general semantics students who have
already absorbed the major formulations of the system and want to consider the
relationship of general semantics to Critical Thinking qua ‘movement’.
Dr. Mayper’s less-formal, ruminative editorials in the Bulletin
can also be read for profit.
McCall, Storrs, editor, Polish Logic: 1920-1939. With an Introduction
by Tadeusz Kotarbinski. Various Translators. Oxford: The Clarendon Press,
1967. Sample papers from and historical data about the school that is proving
on-goingly seminal for worldwide developments in philosophy, methodology of
science, computer technology, etc. Those who survived World War II have continued
the work and trained an international body of student-colleagues who work all
over the world.
Mendelsohn, Kurt, The Quest for Absolute Zero: The Meaning of Low
Temperature Physics. NewYork: World University Library, 1966. An excellent
interpretive description of this subset of modern physics, in which the author
lets us know that the ‘absolute’ he refers to is relative; a measurement
not yet achieved.
Meyers, Russell, M.D., “Semantic Dilemmas in Neurology, Psychology
and General Semantics.” With commentary by Douglas Kelley, M.D., D. Med.
Sc., and Hervey Cleckley, M.D. General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 10-11,
1953, pp. 35-54. * Russell Meyers’ first paper for the Bulletin
(therefore, of historic moment) introduces his concerns for “Aristotelian
Dichotomies in the Neurologic Sciences” which are with us still.
---------- , “Potentials of General Semantics in the Age of Space.”
Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, 1958. General Semantics Bulletin,
1958, No. 22, pp. 3-12. * From the author’s concluding paragraphs:
“Man is as ‘natural’ as anything in the universe and his role
in the evolutionary process is in principle no different from that of the other
‘natural’ materials involved in the vast drama of ‘Nature’.”
“It now appears that the issue confronting us is ... arriving at some
sort of agreement ... that our goals should include maximal, self-actualizing
health for every person on earth. ... it would appear in order that one of our
goals is to emerge from a prescientific to a scientific culture.
“The prescription for this was published 25 years ago by Alfred Korzybski.”
And, in 1995, the Institute and others are still issuing that prescription.
---------- , “On the Dichotomy of ‘Organic’ and ‘Functional’
Diseases,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 32-33, 1966, pp. 21-37.
Presented as the Presidential Address before the American Academy for Cerebral
Palsy in 1963 and first published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology,
London, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1964, pp. 565-572. * Dr. Meyers, the
dean of general semantics oriented neuroscientists, who has had a distinguished
career as an innovatiove neurosurgeon, here takes on one of the deeply embedded
elementalistic usages in medicine and science.
---------- , “The Proprioceptive Matrix of Abstractions Called Mass,
Energy, Space and Time,” ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol.
33, No. 4, December, 1976. *Another focus on persisting elementalistic
misevaluations in science.
---------- , “On the Demons in Twentieth Century Neurology, Psychology
and Psychiatry,” Haarlem, The Netherlands, Methodology and Science,
Special Korzybski Issue, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1977, pp. 130-139. * This condensation
of a chapter from Dr. Meyers’ still (1995) forthcoming book presents the
history and present status (still in 1995) of structural neurolinguistic problems
in science and everyday usage.
-------- , “The Potentials of Neurosemantics for Modern Neuropsychology.”
Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, 1985. General Semantics Bulletin,
No. 54, 1989, pp. 13-59. * A summary updating of much of what Dr. Meyers
has written about throughout his long career (he is now [1995] a sparkling 91!),
he declares on p. 15: “I regard Korzybski’s Science and Sanity
as the most important book I have thus far read.” And “With few exceptions,
such modest contributions to science as it has been my lot to make during the
past 53 years have been mere applications of Korzybski’s broadly generalizable
non-Aristotelian formulations ...” He then brilliantly details those applications
within the context of twentieth century neuropsychology. If you’re studying
general semantics, you need to do yourself the favor of reading this.
Minteer, Catherine, Words and What They Do to You (1965). 5th
Printing. San Francisco (Concord, CA): International Society for General Semantics,
1971. * The Institute’s booklist rates the late Catherine Minteer’s
little book as “The most widely used of all teaching manuals for introducing
general semantics at the junior and senior high school levels.” When I
introduced it to several hundred junior and senior high school English teachers
in Baltimore County (the large county that wraps around Baltimore on the west,
north and east, reaching to the Pennsylvania border) in 1969, Minteer’s
book was well received and absorbed into the county’s curriculum. This
book available from the IGS.
Morain, Mary, Teaching General Semantics: A Collection of Lesson
Plans for College and Adult Classes, 1969; Classroom Exercises in General
Semantics (1980); Bridging Worlds Through General Semantics, 1984.
San Francisco (Concord, CA): International Society for General Semantics. *
All three books contain materials (lesson plans, lectures, outlines, applications
to many fields) from the pages of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics.
Grist for the mills of teachers, students, lecturers, writers, etc. This book
available from the IGS,
Mordkowitz, Jeffrey, “Korzybski, Colloids and Molecular Biology,”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 55, 1990, pp. 86-89. Jeff Mordkowitz,
now President of the Board of the Institute, checks to see if Korzybski knew
what he was talking about in the 1920’s and 1930’s and how that stacks
up with current knowledge and usage.
Paulos, John Allen, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its
Consequences. New York: Vintage, 1990. The best-selling book which convinced
many that they need not fear mathematics. Korzybski did not expect, and did
not suggest, that everyone who studies general semantics needs to become a mathematician;
he did strongly urge that emerging non-Aristotelians develop a ‘feel’
for the mathematical way of looking at things; the recognition of mathematics
as a specifically relational (structural) language, and its great value
for structuring our personal way of evaluating. Paulos’ engagingly written
book is the best I know for helping in accomplishing that. Highly recommended.
---------- , Beyond Numeracy: Ruminations of a Numbers Man. In a manner
similar to Quine’s in Quiddities (see below), Paulos “ruminates”
on many issues in philosophy, neurology, notions in mathematics, etc., all from
a firmly mathematical orientation. In that regard, quite korzybskian. A more
sophisticated follow-up to Innumeracy, but still not requiring expertise
in math manipulating.
---------- , A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper. This lively, clear-eyed
examination could well be subtitled “And the TV, and the radio, and public/private
speech of all sorts.” Presents an array of examples of misleading and just
plain wrong use of mathematics (statistics, probabilities, counting, averaging,
percentaging, etc.) in most areas of public life, from the policy level through
legislation to often disastrous implementation. Economics, science-as-practiced,
eating hysteria, sports, pseudoscience in support of ‘alien abductions’,
etc., are also stared at. An excellent multifaceted example of how mathematical
evaluating can help create a saner world.
Paulson, Ross Evans, Language, Science and Action: Korzybski’s
General Semantics -- A Comparative Study in Comparative Intellectual History.
Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1983. Paulson’s is the first
book I know of to so thoroughly place Korzybski within and beyond his sources.
He devotes chapters to asking such questions as “What was the influence
of Korzybski’s European, and specifically Polish, background on the initial
formulation of his philosophical and semantic theories?”; “What was
the influence of the American context ...?”; “What was the impact
of renewed contact with the Polish logical school [in Warsaw in 1929] ... ?”;
and (you`ll love this one) “What happened to general semantic ideas and
those who advocated them in the United States ... ?” Compare with Allen
Walker Read, “Formative Influences on Korzybski’s General Semantics,”
listed below, and Robert Pula’s “Korzybski’s Polish Matrix,”.
Potter, Robert R., Making Sense: Exploring Semantics and Critical
Thinking. (1974) 2nd Edition. New York: Globe Book Company, 1978. *
Despite its subtitle, this is a high school and college freshperson (!) text
in general semantics, suitable for the general reader. Perhaps alone among texts
at this level, it introduces such fundamental general semantics formulations
as “non-Aristotelian system,” “elementalism,” “extensional/intensional
orientations,” the Structural Differential, etc. Some adults have reported
it useful to them in sorting out some korzybskian notions not previously clear
to them.
Presby Kodish, Susan, “Reflections on Levels of Knowing and
Existence by Harry L. Weinberg,” General Semantics Bulletin,
No 60, 1994, pp. 57-67. Dr. Presby Kodish wrote this piece in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for certification by the Institute of General Semantics
for teachers in general semantics. She begins with a valuable discussion of
the vexed question of “how to evaluate popularizations and explications
of general semantics.” She presents some of Korzybski’s stated requirements,
lists six suggestions of her own, then applies those to Weinberg’s book:
“I found infrequent violations of the system and much to commend.”
(See below for the listing of Weinberg’s book.)
Pula, Robert P. The numerous general semantics writings of this author
are listed in the separate Pula bibliography.
Quine, Willard van Orman, From a Logical Point of View: Logico-Philosophical
Essays. Second Edition, revised. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963. ‘Surely’,
it must interest a general semantics reader to see that the title of Quine’s
first chapter is “On What There Is.” Much, much clarifying stuff here
for someone who plans “to read a book sometime” (Korzybski to Charlotte
Schuchardt [Read], c. 1938).
---------- , Quiddities: An Intermittently Philosophical Dictionary.
Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1987. An entertaining (in
a ‘brainy’ way) set of brief essays that addresses many of the themes
of twentieth century science, philosophy, mathematical logic, aesthetics, etc.
-- and quite a few issues that have been around for three thousand years (that’s
an approximation). Quine has been a major player in the games he describes.
Here’s an example of the kind of play he allows himself during a serious
exposition (he has been discussing truth and beauty as polarities): The alethic
[truth] and aesthetic poles need a third, the ethical, to round out the immemorial
TRINITY: the true, the good, and the beautiful. Still further ones clamor at
the gates. (Block that metaphor. These are poles, not Poles.).” Quine thus
illustrates one of my ideals: Let’s be serious but not somber.
Rapoport, Anatol, Operational Philosophy. (1953) New York: Academic
Press/Science Editions, 1965. Russian-born Anatol Rapoport, (who is also a brilliant
pianist) was a close associate of Hayakawa. He had connections with European
(primarily Austrian) logico-philosophical practitioners and seemed to approach
Korzybski from their less ‘engaged’ (but not dis-engaged) perspective.
Operational philosophy can be seen as cognate with the extensional orientation.
Read, Allen Walker, “Formative Influences on Korzybski’s
General Semantics,” General SemanticsBulletin, No. 47, 1980,
pp. 55-62.* The famed linguist and general semanticist (see his “Profile”
in The New Yorker, September 4, 1989, pp. 51 ... 74) provides essential
reading for ‘placing’ general semantics and understanding its formulational
ties with other systems and points of view, especially in America. Can be read
as a companion piece to Robert Pula’s “Korzybski’s Polish Matrix”
in this same Korzybski Centennial issue of the Bulletin, listed in the
separate Pula bibliography.
---------- , “Is There a Place for ‘Mysticism’ and ‘Occultism’
in General Semantics?” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 49,
1982, pp. 141-142. Reprinted as “The Place of ‘Mysticism’ and
‘Occultism’ in the Scientific Orientation” in The Humanist,
Vol. 43, No. 5, Sept.-Oct., 1983, pp. 12-13, 46. * As we might expect,
Dr. Read’s answer is a qualified “No” -- qualified by his awareness
of the role that speculation, hunches, ‘intuitions’, even fantasy
may play, especially at the beginning of a scientific quest. But the rigors
of self-challenging scientific methology and consciousness of abstracting function
as a safeguard, disallowing commitment to ‘mystical’ or ‘occult’
programs. May be read with profit in conjunction with his paper on ‘utopianism’,
listed below.
---------- , “Changing Attitudes Toward Korzybski’s General Semantics,”
(Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture), General Semantics Bulletin, No.
51, 1983, pp. 11-25. * General semanticists are obliged to apply general
semantics to their general semantics. Allen Walker Read conducts such an exercise
in his historically and formulationally based ‘tour’ of “...
what I have experienced in general semantics during the past five decades.”
Also available as a cassette from the Institute.
---------- , “Is General Semantics Compatible With Utopianism?”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 52, 1985, pp. 23-35. * A profound,
wide-ranging discussion which concludes that general semantics can be applied
societally for amelioration, not ‘perfection’.
---------- , “How Important Is the Terminology of Korzybski’s General
Semantics?” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 59, 1994, pp. 35-40.
* Responding to some structurally unsound formulating by D. David Bourland,
Jr., especially as he claims it to be korzybskian, Professor Read details his
affirmation that “Terminology that reflects structure is important; ...”
Reiser, Oliver L., The Promise of Scientific Humanism: Toward A
Unification of Scientific, Religious, Social and Economic Thought. New York:
Oskar Piest, 1940. Numerous early approving references to Korzybski by this
now too-little known philosopher who spent almost his entire career at the University
of Pittsburgh and was for a time associate editor of The Humanist. Reiser
(cf. Bachelard, above) places Korzybski firmly within the formulational world
of his day but well understands how he extended it. He gave one of the earliest
live, public discussions of Korzybski’s methodology as presented in Science
and Sanity before the A.A.A.S. in December, 1934.
---------- , “From Classical Physical to Modern Scientific Assumptions,”
in Papers from the Second American Conference on General Semantics. Compiled
and Edited by M. [Marjorie Mercer] Kendig. Chicago: International Non-Aristotelian
Library/Institute of General Semantics, 1943, pp.69-78. A concise delineation
of scientific assumptions from Democritus to Korzybski, concluding that “The
great merit of Korzybski’s system is that he saw the implications of what
was happening in the growth of physical science and mathematics and was able
to anticipate what the consequences of these developments (‘revolutions’)
would be for biology, psychiatry and sound education.” This most interesting
volume of 80 papers by some outstanding people (including, for example, Ora
Ray Bontrager, W. Burridge, Francis P. Chisholm, Hervey Cleckley, David Fairchild
[whose wife was the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell], S. I. Hayakawa, Wendell
Johnson, Douglas Kelley, M. Kendig, Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski, Irving
J. Lee, Robert Lord [producer of such movies as The Dawn Patrol, The Prince
and the Pauper, Dodge City, One Foot in Heaven, etc.], Adolf Meyer, the
founder of psychobiology, Elwood Murray, Allen Walker Read, and Benjamin Lee
Whorf) is out of print but may be consulted in libraries, including, by appointment,
the library at the Alfred Korzybski Research and Study Center in Closter, New
Jersey.
---------- , The Integration of Human Knowledge: A Study of the Formal
Foundations and the Social Implications of Unified Science. Boston: Extending
Horizon Books/Porter Sargent, 1958. Reiser seems not to have been able to evolve
to seeing ‘spiritual’ factors as human nervous system events; like
Bois, there appears a residual mystical inclination, some unconscious identifying,
hankering after ‘absolutes’, etc. For example, on p. 235 he affirms:
“But growth and evolution (physical and biological) types of motion or
change in which physics has hitherto not been interested, are not [Reiser’s
italics] relative. These are forms of change (motion) to which present relativity
considerations do not apply.” Despite this, when he’s being primarily
descriptive of historical developments, Reiser functions as a stimulating guide
to twentieth century science/philosophy. For a sympathetic discussion and evaluation
of his work, see Dr. Berman’s book listed above.
Rose, Steven, The Conscious Brain. New York: Vintage Books,
1976. Rose’s first book is still useful even though it’s now almost
20 years old. (In the burgeoning neurosciences updating is more critical in
the late 1900’s than, say, physics.) He is one of the leaders in well-structured
talking about one’s research. See my review in General Semantics Bulletin
Nos. 44-45 listed in the Pula bibliography.
---------- , The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind. New York,
London, Toronto, Sydney/Auckland: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1993. The kind of
update mentioned above, with a summary of Rose’s theories, experimental
methods and results to the time when he turned off his word processor. The language
seems not as sturdy as in his first book, but there is much of value here for
the student of neurolinguistic systems.
Schaff, Adam, Introduction to Semantics. New York: Pergamon/Macmillan,
1962. Perhaps the first major Polish evaluation of Korzybski, by a leading scholar
whose main concern is to survey the field, tell what it’s about, and consider
its problems. Part One is titled “Research Problems of Semantics”
and includes chapters on “Linguistics,” “Logic,” “Semantic
Philosophy,” and “General Semantics.” Not surprising for a (then)
official Marxist, Schaff is critical of Korzybski in the first half of his chapter,
then writes (p. 100): “For all its oddity and its simply maniacal traits,
Korzybski’s conception includes something which cannot be dismissed lightly.”
And, loc cit, “Let me also point out to those with a liking for
easy triumphs, that from the philosophical point of view Korzybski is
sometimes a hard nut to crack precisely for a Marxist critic.” Interesting
stuff.
Scientific American. Special issues on the human brain, September 1979
and October 1992 [check it]. Can be read to get a sturdily detailed sense of
progress in the on-going investigation of the ‘organ of thought’;
also inklings of how much more there seems to do. Language-brain relationships
are covered.
Skolimowski, Henryk, Polish Analytical Philosophy: A Study and a
Comparison with British Analytical Philosophy. International Library of
Philosophy and Scientific Method. New York: The Humanities Press, 1967. A pioneering
work in English which brilliantly delivers on the title’s and sub-title’s
promises.
Smith, Barry, Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano.
Chicago: Open Court, 1994. Recent research on the rise of scientific philosophy,
the Vienna and Warsaw Circles, with major focus on Brentano, Marty, Meinong
and Witasek, Twardowski, Kotarbinski, von Ehrenfels, and Menger.
Swanson, Marjorie A, Scientific Epistemological Backgrounds of General
Semantics. General Semantics Monographs IV. Lakeville, CT (Englewood, NJ):
International Library Publishing Company, 1959. Though using the now outmoded
term ‘electro-colloidal’ (see Jeffrey Mordkowitz’s listing above),
Dr. Swanson gives a thorough explication of scientific data as correlated with
Korzybskian terminology. Delivered originally as lecture-demonstrations for
Institute seminar-workshop participants, most of whom were not professional
scientists, the written form is designed explicitly but not simplistically for
any literate, adult non-scientist. Yet I have known several working scientists
who have found her printed lectures clarifying and helpful for their own work
and for promoting understanding in areas outside their realm of expertise. This
book available from the IGS.
Taubes, Gary,Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold
Fusion. New York: Random House, 1993. Another devastating study of how not
to do science. Also a valuable case study for general semanticists.
Thayer, Lee, ed., Communication: General Semantics Perspectives.
New York: Spartan-Macmillan, 1970. The curiously selected editor (by Elwood
Murray) comes close to attacking general semantics. Based on his lack of knowledge,
he says in his Editor’s Preface many curious things, e.g., “What Korzybski
(and some of his followers) called for indirectly is a condition of life in
which every man is perfectly adapted to his environment -- and hence necessarily
controlled by it. Such a science of man would be his ultimate dehumanization.”
Sure might. But, as I trust you will learn in this seminar and your further
studies, that represents not at all what uncertaintist general semantics
is about. At the personal and social level we are about amelioration.
Despite Thayer’s misevaluations, the collection of papers in this book
are very worth studying, some of them particularly so. Some authors represented
are (alphabetically): J. Samuel Bois, D. David Bourland, Sister Margaret Gorman,
S.I. Hayakawa, Kenneth Johnson, Wendell Johnson, M. Kendig, Stanley Krippner,
Harry Maynard, Elwood Murray, Neil Postman, the brothers Pula (Bob and Tad),
Anatol Rapoport, Allen Walker Read and Charlotte Schuchardt Read.
Ulam, S. (Stanislaw) M., Adventures of a Mathematician. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976. In telling the story of his life,
the famed mathematician shares a world perspective on the development of mathematics
from World War I through the seventies. His style is reader-friendly, even chatty,
not full of formulae, since his purpose is not to teach math but to tell the
human story of international mathematics via events in the lives of the mathematicians
who made it.
Washburn and Smith, eds., Coping with Increasing Complexity: General
Semantics and General Systems Theory. NewYork/London/Paris: Gordon and Breach
Science Publishers, 1974. Results of a friendly encounter between general semanticists
(Institute of General Semantics) and general systems theorists (Society for
General Systems Research) conducted during ‘campus unrest’ at the
University of Denver in May, 1970. The papers printed here discuss how the two
disciplines might correlate “in a mutually productiveway.” In 1970
the environment provided a penetrating backdrop of “ ... the ecological
crisis, student unrest, information overload, alienation and depersonalization,”
increasing complexity -- and the ongoing Vietnam War. One of the young professors
at the conference, hearing the din outside our room, suggested that we suspend
our deliberations, since he saw them as irrelevant given the state of the campus.
I argued that precisely then was the time for us to persist in our negentropic
enterprise. We continued. Among the contributors: Bela Banathy, J. Samuel Bois,
D. David Bourland, Jere W. Clark, Stuart C. Dodd, Alvin A. Goldberg, C. Andrew
Hilgartner, Kenneth Johnson, Ellwood Murray, Robert Pula, Charlotte Read and
Lee Thayer.
Watzlawick, Paul and Others, The Pragmatics of Human Communication.
New York: New York: Norton, 1967. The author refers to the permeating influence
of general semantics in his work but does not talk about that explicitly in
his text. An excellent literary yet practical application of general semantics,
general systems theory and other approaches to languaging-humans-in-action.
I used it as a text for a human communications course (general semantics) at
the Westinghouse School of Applied Engineering Science near Baltimore, a course
which featured a student (mostly engineers!) ‘production’ of Edward
Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, treated as a case study.
Weinberg, Harry, Levels of Knowing and Existence: Studies in General
Semantics. Lakeville, CT (now Englewood, NJ): International Non-Aristotelian
Library Publishing Company, 1973. * This reprint of Dr. Weinberg’s
1959 book keeps available what may be the best ‘middle level’ text
in general semantics. After several chapters devoted to a sound summary of korzybskian
general semantics, Weinberg makes some telling applications: “Seamntitherapy,”
“Religion,” “Structure and Function in Cybernetics and General
Semantics.” For a lucid discussion of strengths (mainly) and weaknesses
in Weinberg’s book, see Susan Presby Kodish’s essay-review in the
General Semantics Bulletin, listed above. This book available from the
IGS.
Weinberg, Steven, Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist’s
Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature. Can be read as a companion piece
to Lindley’s The End of Physics (above). With perhaps more elegance
and authority than Lindley, but with no less frankness, Nobel Prize winner Weinberg
details the age-old quest for the ‘absolute’ and the need to face
up to not having it.
Weiss, Thomas and Kenneth H. Hoover, Scientific Foundations of Education.
Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Company, 1957. This qualifies as a neglected book
on the general semantics shelf. Yet it may qualify as, up to its date of publication,
better than any other general text used in education courses for would-be public
school teachers in America. Working from a general semantics base, Weiss and
Hoover address the whole range of topics, linguistic, scientific, philosophical,
historical, etc., related to the educational endeavor. Recommended for general
adult students of general semantics, but especially those who are working on
the firing line.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee, Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Papers
of Benjamin Lee Whorf. (1956) Foreword by Stuart Chase. Edited and with
an Introduction by John B. Carroll. Twenty-first printing. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1993. The collected papers of Whorf wherein the ‘Whorfian hypothesis’
is frequently laid out; what the linguist Henry Lee Smith called the “Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski
hypothesis.” (General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 32/33, 1966, p. 16).
See also Korzybski’s succinct statement in Science and Sanity, pp.
90-91, and my “The Nietzsche-Korzybski-Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?” in
ETC., listed in the separate Pula bibliography.
Whyte, Lancelot Law, The Next Development in Man. (1944) New
York: New American Library, 1966. The famed English philosopher’s ‘blueprint’,
which avoids Teilhard de Chardin’s finalism. M. Kendig wrote that it is
“... a book which, though entirely independent of, remarkably parallels
Korzybskian analyses, ... .” “This seems a prime example of the omnipresent
non-aristotelian trends in Twentieth Century thought, ... .” Whyte gave
the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1969 (see General Semantics Bulletin,
No. 36, 1969, pp. 6-13).
Wolenski, Jan, Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School.
Revised and translated by the author and Olgierd Wojtasiewicz. Synthese Library
/ Volume 198. Dordrecht / Boston / London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989.
A recent well-written report and analysis (a philosophical bestseller in Poland;
Lee Auspitz [Commentary, June 1989, p. 58] reports that in a 1988 poll,
Wolenski’s book was rated by young philosophers as one of the most important
books published in the 1980’s) of the work by the school which has had
(and is having) such influence in the world. Again, as are the other similar
entries in this bibliography, listed here because of the influence on Korzybski
and because I deem their study necessary for full understanding of Korzybski
(how he is similar to and different from those antecedents) and helpful
for sharpening one’s non-poetic formulating.
Youngren, William H., Semantics, Linguistics, and Criticism.
New York: Random House, 1972. In his Preface Dr. Youngren, who intended to write
a different book, tells us why he wrote this one: “When I thought about
an introduction to the anthology [his original project], it occurred to me that
general semantics would be a good point of departure. For while the direct influence
of Korzybski and his followers was not nearly as strong as it once had been,
I was convinced that it was still to their books that most teachers of English
usually turned for answers to the large theoretical questions about language
that lie outside the proper subject matter of linguistics -- questions about
how language works and how it is related to the outside world.” “The
more I read, the more I wrote, and the anthology was gradually abandoned in
favor of a book which would start with an examination of general semantics and
then go on to elucidate what I took to be the most important relations of linguistics
and linguistic philosophy to literary criticism.” (p. ix) A useful exercise
for the student-reader can be to alertly distinguish when Dr. Youngren is dealing
with “Korzybski,” “ certain of his ‘followers’”,
“general semantics,” and when he confuses the ‘three’. Dr.
Youngren also writes reviews for the bi-monthly American Record Guide.
Well, this should be enough to keep you off the street for a while or two.
When you’ve ‘finished’ with these, you can read the 619 items
listed in the bibliography to Science and Sanity. Happy formulating!
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