Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences
and
Department of English and
Comparative Literary Studies, Saurashtra University, Rajkot
Jointly organize
VII National Workshop
The Spirit of Democratic
Citizenship
(Radical General Semantics)
13-16 November 2013
Venue: Department of English and
Comparative Literary Studies
Saurashtra University, Rajkot
Gad Horowitz, a Canadian political scientist and a
professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada along with Shannon
Bell, a Professor and Graduate Programme Director in the York University
Political Science Department, Toronto had conducted the workshop.
Gad Horowitz introduces Radical General
Semantics RGS
GENERAL SEMANTICS
Toward
a new general system of evaluation
and predictability in solving human problems
and predictability in solving human problems
Alfred
Korzybski
Author of Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity
Author of Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity
GENERAL
SEMANTICS.
The term general semantics originated with
Alfred Korzybski in 1933 as the name for a general theory of evaluation,
which in application turned out to be an empirical science, giving methods for
general human adjustment in our private, public, and professional lives. His
study has led ultimately to the formulation of a new system, with general
semantics as its modus operandi.
This theory was first presented in his Science
and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.
“General semantics is not ‘the study of
words’ or ‘the study of meaning,’ as these terms are ordinarily understood. It
is more nearly correct to say that general semantics is concerned with the
assumptions underlying symbol systems and the personal and cultural effects of their
use. It is concerned with the pervasive problem of the relation of language to
reality, of word to fact, of theory to description, and of description to data
– of the observer to the observed, of the knower to the knowable. It is
concerned with the role of language in relation to predictability and
evaluation, and so in relation to the control of events and to personal
adjustment and social integration.” – Wendell Johnson
PREMISES OF GENERAL SEMANTICS.
The premises of the non-Aristotelian system
can be given by the simple analogy of the relation of a map to the territory:
1. A map is not the territory.
2. A map does not represent all of
a territory.
3. A map is self-reflexive in the sense
that an 'ideal' map would include a map of the map, etc., indefinitely.
Applied to daily life and language:
1. A word is not what it represents.
2. A word does not represent all of
the 'facts', etc.
3. Language is self-reflexive in the sense
that in language we can speak about language.
Our habitual reactions today, however, are
still based on primitive, pre-scientific, unconscious assumptions, which in
action mostly violate the first two premises and disregard the third.
Mathematics and general semantics are the only exceptions.
Self-Reflexiveness.
The third premise stemmed from the
application to everyday life of the extremely important work of Bertrand
Russell, who gave academic prominence to self-reflexiveness in his attempt to
solve mathematical self-contradictions by his theory of mathematical types. We
may speak (verbalize) about “a proposition about all
propositions,” but in actuality we cannot make a proposition
about all propositions, since in doing so we are in fact
producing a new proposition, and thus we run into stultifying
self-contradictions. Russell rightly called the products of these pathological
verbal performances “illegitimate totalities.” By such unconscious
over-generalizations we humans have been living, not very successfully.
Applied by Korzybski to our everyday lives,
self-reflexiveness introduced neuro-linguistic factors important for human
adjustment and maturity; i.e., the principles of different orders of
abstractions, multiordinality, the circularity of human knowledge, second-order
reactions, delay of reactions by space-time ordering, thalamo-cortical
integration, etc.
Consciousness
of Abstracting.
These principles in turn led to a general
consciousness of abstracting as the necessary basis for the
achievement of socio-cultural maturity. This produced, among others, means of
eliminating active false knowledge, which is known to breed
maladjustments. At the same time it was discovered that mere passive
ignorance in humans often is impossible, but becomes active
inferential knowledge, which may dogmatically ascribe some fictitious
'cause' for observed 'effects' the mechanism of primitive mythologies.
Inferential knowledge, however, when consciously accepted as
inferential, forms the hypothetical knowledge of modern science and ceases to
be a dogma.
“Towards
a deeper understanding of self, others and the world we live in.”
The
Structural Differential developed by Alfred Korzybski can be used to help
us visualize the abstracting process and “circularity of knowledge,” or feedback.
The broken parabola – represents the complex
submicroscopic, dynamic process level, inferred but not perceived, with
an indefinite number of characteristics.
The circle below the parabola represents the
object, person, situation, etc., that we perceive with our senses, abstracted
from the process level. This is called the object or macroscopic level
of ‘sense data,’ somewhat different for each person and from one time to
another.
The third abstracting level is called the label
or descriptive level, when we give a name or a description to what is
perceived at the object level.
Then we can make statements that generalize
or infer about the label or description, and continue these generalizations
indefinitely.
The holes in the diagram represent
characteristics. As we abstract, or select, from one level to the next we leave
out some characteristics, designated by the hanging strings.
The connecting strings indicate the
characteristics that are included in the subsequent level. As we generalize, we
include fewer and fewer of the originally-perceived characteristics and
introduce new characteristics by implication.
We can abstract on higher and higher orders,
and we can make higher and higher order verbal generalizations as we move down
the diagram and further from the immediate sense data.
Completing this cycle of abstracting, we
project onto the silent, dynamic levels our assumptions, inferences, theories
and beliefs.
At best this kind of knowledge is your
abstraction of someone else’s abstraction of an event. Often many levels of
abstraction are involved; reports of statements about generalizations from
inferences about events, etc.
These abstractions differ from person to
person based on their particular experiences, their backgrounds, capabilities,
interests, biases, etc. General Semantics, in its pedagogical mode, aims to
raise consciousness of this abstracting process, to teach people how to become
more tolerant and accepting of the limitations and potentialities in themselves
and others brought about by the process of abstracting. A consciousness of
abstracting is more, however, than a form of mental hygiene - it constitutes,
perhaps, a more general form of critical inquiry into the nature of language,
mediation, perception, and action. Consequently, General Semantics can be
understood, historically, within the tradition of critical theory, as a
rigorous intellectual orientation and mode of inquiry that has serious grounding
- even if today, in many academic circles, that grounding is not well known.
Abstraction is a kind of evaluation, in the sense that it picks out certain
features of the world or of experience as of interest. The attempt to
understand this distinction in a "scientific" fashion is meant to
provide a basis for evaluating and modifying attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs
of those being trained in General Semantics.
EXTENSIONAL DEVICES
To achieve the coveted consciousness of
abstracting, more appropriate evaluations, etc., techniques were taken directly
from modern physic mathematical methods, the use of which has been found
empirically effective and of most serious preventive value, particularly on the
level of children's education. Korzybski calls the following expediencies extensional
devices:
- Indexes to train
us in consciousness of differences in similarities, and similarities in
differences, such as Smith1, Smith2, etc.
- Chain-indexes to
indicate interconnections of happenings in space-time, where a 'cause' may
have a multiplicity of 'effects', which in turn become 'causes',
introducing also . Environmental factors, etc. For instance, Chair1-1
[NOTE, read chair “one” “one”] in a dry attic as different from Chair1-2
in a damp cellar, or a single happening to an individual in childhood
which may color his reactions (chain-reactions) for the rest of his life,
etc. Chain-indexes also convey the mechanisms of chain-reactions, which
operate generally in this world, life, and the immensely complex human
socio-cultural environment, included.
- Dates to give a
physico-mathematical orientation in a space-time world of processes.
- Et
cetera (etc.,
which can be abbreviated to double punctuation, such as ., or .; or .:) to
remind us permanently of the second premise “not all” to train us in a
consciousness of characteristics left out; and to remind us indirectly of
the first premise “is not” to develop flexibility and a greater degree of
conditionality in our semantic reactions.
- Quotes to
forewarn us that elementalistic or metaphysical terms are not to be
trusted and that speculations based on them are misleading. [In this
article single quotes are used for this purpose.]
- Hyphens to remind
us of the complexities of interrelatedness in this world.
“Form the habit of reacting yes to a
new idea. First, think of all the reasons it is good; there will be plenty of
people around to tell you it won’t work.” – Dr. Chauncey Guy Suits
Attendee : Pooja Shukla, Gazal Pasnani ,Pooja Mehta.
-- Gazal Pasnani
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