From the Stray Thought Bin: Sanity and Science

Korzybski wrote Science and Sanity as a critique of 'science'1933 as much as anything else. He had posited that 'sanity' might depend on a practical understanding of the generalized attitude and approach required for positive time-binding (the successful acquisition and growth of useful knowledge). He called this attitude and approach the extensional orientation or method, encapsulated in his discussion of the Structural Differential (SD) in the book. With this as his measure (he had originally called the SD, the "Anthropometer") he rated 'science'1933— the date of the book's publication—as not entirely 'scientific' or 'sane'. Now what about 'science'2014? 

Korzybski's General-Semantics

"General[-]semantics is not any 'philosophy', or 'psychology', or 'logic', in the ordinary sense. It is a new extensional discipline which explains and trains us how to use our nervous systems most efficiently. It is not a medical science, but like bacteriology, it is indispensible for medicine in general, and for psychiatry, mental hygiene, and education in particular. In brief, it is the formulation of a new non-aristotelian system of orientation which affects every branch of science and life. The separate issues involved are not entirely new; their methodological formulation as a system which is workable, teachable and so elementary that it can be applied by children, is entirely new." 

— Alfred Korzybski , "Introduction to the Second Edition 1941", Science and Sanity, Fifth Edition (1994), pp. xxxviii-xxxix

Korzybski's General-Semantics "Wordle"

The Symbolic Form of Life: Korzybski and Cassirer

In Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski memorably wrote: 

The affairs of man [humankind] are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. Man’s achievements rest upon the use of symbols. For this reason, we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic [evaluational] class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us. (Science And Sanity, Fifth Ed., p. 76)

Independently of Korzybski, philosopher Ernst Cassirer also saw the defining importance of symbolism in understanding human life. Cassirer published the three volumes of his work, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, in 1923-1929, a few years after Korzybski’s Manhood of Humanity. In a later work, An Essay on Man, Cassirer—apparently unaffected by Korzybski's work, although the two men had corresponded—wrote the following:

Man has, as it were, discovered a new method of adapting himself to his environment. Between the receptor system and the effector system, which are to be found in all animal species, we find in man a third link which we may describe as the symbolic system. This new acquisition transforms the whole of human life. As compared with the other animals man lives not merely in a broader reality; he lives so to speak, in a new dimension of reality.…Reason is a very inadequate term with which to comprehend the forms of man’s cultural life in all their richness and variety. But all these forms are symbolic forms. Hence, instead of defining man as an animal rationale, we should define him as an animal symbolicum. By so doing we can designate his specific difference, and we can understand the new way open to man––the way to civilization. (pp. 24-26)

Korzybski, who had carefully read Cassirer’s work, would differ from Cassirer in this way: he insisted from the time of his 1921 work Manhood of Humanity onwards, that this new psycho-biological way open to humanity, took humanity out of animal existence and merited its placement into an entirely new taxonomic "kingdom" of life—as time-binders. "Man", he repeated often, "is not an animal!"   

In spite of this difference, not so little to Korzybski,  he dedicated his book Science and Sanity to the works of Cassirer (1), among others, which “greatly influenced my enquiry.” Such scholarly acknowledgement was typical of Korzybski. 

Also typically of Korzybski (trained as an engineer), he formulated the symbolic mechanism in terms of time-binding, in order to provide a practical way to apply Cassirer’s and others’ insights about human culture to living life—your life. In 1925 he wrote to Cassirer, then still in Germany,  

As a engineer I am trying to formulate modes of action but this involves a host of theoretical issues, some as yet unresolved, and until the scientists scrutinize the theoretical issues, it will never become a mode of action. It seems to me that the conditions of the world are deeply upset mostly [due] to the exposure (destructive) of old doctrines, which were false and at present a lack of a general theory of human action... (Korzybski to Cassirer, April 28, 1925)

Notes

(1). Cassirer's books, Substance and Function and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, published in one volume in English by Open Court in 1923, affirmed Korzybski's general view of epistemology, and of all Cassirer's writings probably had the deepest effect on Korzybski. 

Science and Sanity at 80

This month, October 2013, marks the 80th anniversary of the publication of Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. 

When the book finally came out on October 10, 1933, the U.S. was in the first year of F.D.R.'s first administration. Despite whatever lift people's spirits may have had from the president's multiordinal, inaugural day reassurance in March that they had nothing to fear but fear itself, from his "New Deal" plans, and from the much anticipated ending of alcohol prohibition; the U.S. still seemed sunk in the depths of the Great Depression. Internationally, news didn't seem so good to Korzybski either: Hitler had become the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi Party had begun to consolidate its tyrannical control there. Along with Stalin, ensconced in Soviet Russia, and the Japanese Empire spreading itself across East Asia, the world didn't seem like such a happy place. To Korzybski, with what he called his "theory of sanity", it seemed like as good a time as any to offer his own infusion of sanity, as much as the world could take.

It was no easy task. He had begun writing what would become Science and Sanity in 1921, just after the publication of his first book, Manhood of Humanity. It had taken 12  demanding years devoted to writing and research. By 1932 with the book mainly done, Korzybski and his wife Mira turned down a few publishers willing to publish the book if Korzybski could guarantee the production cost by means of advanced sales. Under such terms the book could sell for as much as $10 retail (over $100 in today's money), a price that surely would have put off most potential readers during a major economic depression. Instead, the Korzybskis started The International Non-Aristotelian Library and Publishing Company (INALPCO), financed primarily through Mira's work painting portraits on ivory for "the rotten rich" (as they sometimes referred to her  wealthy clients). As self-publishers they could offer the book for a more reasonable "educational discount" price of $5.50, when ordered directly from their printer/distributor, Science Press. 

With the Korzybskis' considerable expenses in getting the book published (they remained in debt for a few years afterwards), the book's price certainly wasn't intended to make them rich. But Korzybski offered his "educational discount" to make the book as accessible and as available as possible to his main audience: the 'average intelligent layman'. And he never wavered from his view that the work that his book introduced, perplexingly labeled "general semantics", was not intended mainly for academic and scientific/technical specialists, but for that average intelligent man, woman, and even child, on the street. For years, he had paid membership dues to a British group, The World Association for Adult Education whose motto seemed just in line with his own efforts: "The multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world." 

Until his death 17 years later, Korzybski developed the implications of his work, promoting research, refining his insights, and reaching thousands of students individually and in group seminars, mainly through the auspices of the Institute of General Semantics which he founded in Chicago as a non-profit educational organization in 1938 with a few of his close students, his most serious "co-workers" as he liked to call them. 

By the time of his death on March 1, 1950, he had already  made a notable cultural impact in the U.S. and elsewhere, reaching perhaps the high point of critical appreciation of his work. Numerous popularizations of his work had already appeared. By 1949, one year before his death, he had begun receiving serious academic recognition at such places as Yale University, where he was invited by faculty there to conduct a seminar and lecture; the Cooper Union, where he addressed an audience of about 800 people on "Time-Binding: The Foundation for General Semantics"; the University of Denver where he taught a seminar before attending the "Third American Congress on General Semantics", sponsored by that university; and the University of Texas where he was the only independent, non-academic scholar invited to present a paper as part of a symposium on perception, along with a panel of some of the best and brightest figures in the behavioral/social sciences of that period. (Korzybski died while completing the editing and his  personal secretary and literary assistant, Charlotte Schuchardt, went to Texas alone to present his final paper, "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes".)

Since his death, Korzybski's bright light has slowly faded. With the hindsight of 80 years since Science and Sanity's publication, what Korzybski actually taught has gotten somewhat obscured by the perpetuation of the errors made by a torrent of inept but influential critics, like Martin Gardner. Perhaps even more damagingly, it has gotten obscured by 'followers' like S. I. Hayakawa whose light and popular writing on 'semantics' showed an inadequate grasp of Korzybski's work, focusing mainly on Hayakawa's limited applications to language teaching, just one aspect of Korzybski's substantial, deep, and multi-faceted general theory of human evaluation. Depending on inadequate accounts as well as simply through the passage of time, Korzybski's work has thus become widely unread and, where acknowledged, often misread and superficially understood. 

But if you hear the siren call to plumb the depths of Korzybski's system of applied epistemology and his foundational framework for human knowledge and personal and social sanity, there is no substitute to reading Science and Sanity, now in its Fifth Edition. (Don't forget Manhood of Humanity and Collected Writings either!) Don't get put off by the size of the book or mathematical formulas within. Those of you who hear the call, may actually find Science and Sanity—and his other works—as I do: compellingly written with a rare combination of clarity, rigor, wit, and usefulness for living. 

And finally a shameless plug.  If you do feel that you need to ease into Korzybski's own writing with some introductory reading first, Drive Yourself Sane, written by myself and my wife Susan and now in its Third Edition, does present Korzybski's system in a brief, but accurate and comprehensive manner. Following that, there exists no better source than my own Korzybski: A Biography if you wish to follow Korzybski's own advice that "...when you read a book. Read not only what you read, but study the author." Korzybski: A Biography captures the adventure of his extraordinary life while tracing in detail the development of his work. Then, you'll definitely be ready to tackle Science and Sanity, and the rest of his work as well.  

From the Stray Thought Bin - Wonders of the World

Despite its many horrors, the world remains a place of many wonders to explore. And you the wonderer, not apart from the world, remain among the most wondrous parts of it. 

Foreword to the Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity

In 2010, Lance Strate, then the Executive Director of the Institute of General Semantics (IGS), and Corey Anton, Series Editor of the IGS's New Non-Aristotelian Library Series, asked me to write this "Foreword to the Second Edition" of Korzybski's Selections from Science and Sanity, originally edited by Guthrie Janssen with Korzybski's consultation and approval. Although I would have advertised that fact and posted this much sooner, a number of unforeseen events intervened that kept me from doing so. But given that this is the 80th Anniversary year of the original publication of Science and Sanity, it seems like a good time to remedy that situation. 

I opine that this new second edition of the authorized abridgment of Korzybski's famous work is not without some graphical design and editorial problems. For one thing, I'm not crazy about the book's large size (11 and 1/2" by 9") or its green cover which I find unattractive. This Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity is also missing the original first edition's marginal page references to the unabridged book, which I find regrettable. More seriously, at least one of Korzybski's important diagrams was botched on page 152 by the book designer and appears completely indecipherable. That  designer also originally deleted italics in the text, which Korzybski used for emphasis. This last mistake was later corrected after I pointed it out, but as an writer and editor myself, I know how little slips and creeping errors can corrupt a text, so a thorough editorial run-through with the First Edition seems advisable.

Still, if you haven't read Science and Sanity, I consider this Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity most welcome as a readily available, inexpensive, and more inviting (because much shorter) version of Korzybski's great work. So without further ado, here is a link to my "Foreword to the Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity". 

The book can  be purchased from the Institute of General Semantics or from Amazon.com. 

Korzybski on Poetry

"...poetry often conveys in a few sentences more of lasting value than a whole volume of scientific analysis." 
— Alfred Korzybski, 
p. 437, Science and Sanity

The Last Science and Sanity Podcast

The Science and Sanity Podcast group, hosted by Heron Stone, has finished its reading of Korzybski's book. I'm not a fan of the computerized-voice chapter readings, but the discussions, available on iTunes and Talkshoe, have kept me very interested indeed. Since I discovered the group only a few months ago, I feel happy to have had the opportunity to contribute to its final few sessions. 

After the group finished Book II with a discussion of Chapter XXXI - "Concluding Remarks", I contributed to the last three sessions that followed :

For the first on Nov. 20, Heron played an audio recording (38a)  of the speech (and subsequent Q&A period) I gave on "Korzybski's Legacy: What Is It? How Do We Carry It On?" in New York City in October at the 2011 Institute of General Semantics (IGS) Conference. The presentation gives an overview of Korzybski's life and work and the subsequent development of it at the IGS and elsewhere. You can read about it and download a pdf of the presentation here. A lively Science and Sanity podcast group discussion followed afterwards (38b).  

Then, on Nov. 27 I did a presentation on "The Genesis of Science and Sanity" (39) based on the research I did in writing Korzybski: A Biography. Listen to this for an 'executive summary' of what Korzybski was aiming at and the process he went through in producing his great work. 

Yesterday, December 4, I talked about the 'problematic'—for many—final Book III of Science and Sanity (40). Because of its heavy-looking mathematical and scientific content, even many people who have read the rest of the book, decide to skip it. I discussed what Korzybski was trying to accomplish by writing it and gave an approach to reading it that I think can help reduce the intimidation factor of that part of the book or even the intimidation factor of the rest of the book. 

I've been told that 'no one likes to hear a recording of their own voice'. That certainly fits me. But I'm still learning. And even given the ums, ahs and some digressions that I didn't care for, I feel pleased that I did manage to pack a lot of  content into the presentations. Download the four audio segments 38a, 38b, 39 and 40 for your iPod/mp3-player from iTunes or Talkshoe Together these four provide a solid introduction to Korzybski's work for any curious person who wants to learn more and a good introduction to Heron Stone's entire S&S podcast series. I hope you enjoy the discussions as much as I did.  

The General Evaluational Value of Mathematics and the Exact Sciences

"Now those who are professionally engaged in human affairs, economists, sociologists, politicians, bankers, priests of every kind, teachers . , [etc.,] 'mental' hygiene workers, and psychiatrists included, do not even suspect that material and methods of great general semantic [evaluational] value can be found in mathematics and the exact sciences. The drawing of their attention to this fact, no matter how clumsily done at first, will stimulate further researches, produce better formulations and understanding, and ultimately create conditions where sanity will be possible." —Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, p. 538

Korzybski's Books in Two Sentences

In Manhood of Humanity (1921), Korzybski developed a theory of how humans function as a species—time-binding. In Science and Sanity (1933), he elaborated upon the mechanism of time-binding and how an individual could use this mechanism to develop his or her human potential.

"Let Us Consider" by Russell Edson

In his poem "Let Us Consider" Russell Edson is talking about us, our human potential for nuttiness and identification (in the korzybskian sense of the term) not just about some 'strange' wackos. You can read in Korzybski's book Science and Sanity about the continuum that he saw from objectification of higher order abstractions, to delusions, to illusions, to hallucinations. You can also read about the fuzzy continuum from 'sane' (and who is fully sane) to unsanity to insanity. I know many so-called 'normal', so-called 'sane' people who are clearly going in the 'wrong' direction along that continuum and are not as far as they think from frying roses and scraping shadows. Some of them have thought of themselves as 'general semanticists'. I, of course, am not excluded from consideration. "Let Us Consider", indeed. 

Logicomix, Science, and Sanity

I consider Logicomix a very important book for anyone who wants to begin to understand some of the important people and issues in the foundations of mathematics that profoundly influenced Alfred Korzybski in his work.

And it turns out that in its treatment of the relationship between 'logic', 'mathematics', and 'sanity', Logicomix comes close to some of Korzybski's most central concerns about mathematics, science, and sanity. Indeed Korzybski's work seems like 'the elephant in the room' in the story—not mentioned by name, perhaps not even recognized, but all-pervasive. For no one treated the relation of mathematics and science to human 'sanity' with greater depth and seriousness than Korzybski.

Korzybski and the Parable of the Flappers

In 1941, Korzybski was trying to get out the Second Edition of Science and Sanity. The First Edition, published in October 1933, had sold out by the end of 1939. Various problems and delays had occurred since then and Institute of General Semantics now had a large number of back orders to fill.

Korzybski had been working on the “Introduction To The Second Edition,” since sometime in mid-1940. After multiple drafts and much serious editing he had sent it off to the printer, Science Press, late that year. By February 1941, he had received the publisher’s proofs of the "Introduction" and had started another round of editing. (He would finish the "Introduction" in March although further correction of proofs would continue afterwards). He was also working on the “Supplementary Bibliography of the Second Edition,” the new book jacket and was editing the proofs of the rest of the new front and back matter. This included a new page of the volumes of the International Non-aristotelian Library. The books there included one already published (Science and Sanity), those in preparation (including the upcoming Lee and Hayakawa books, Language Habits In Human Affairs and Language In Action, respectively) and the revised list of books whose authors would “be announced later.” Of the fifty-seven titles listed on that page only the three noted above ever got published. (Korzybski could be called naïve but he believed in aiming high.)

He had also selected a new opening epigraph for the book to replace the ‘Fable of the Amoeba’ from The Meaning of Meaning by Ogden and Richards that he had used in the First Edition. This new epigraph, to be placed after the dedication page, expressed even better than the previous one the central message of Korzybski's book. It consisted of several related passages from Chapter II of Part III of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. It described Gulliver’s visit to the flying island of Laputa and his experience with some of its more well-to-do inhabitants. 

A Laputian Gentleman Taking A Walk

Below I've included the complete quote that Korzybski abstracted:

"At my alighting, I was surrounded with a crowd of people; but those who stood nearest seemed to be of better quality. They beheld me with all the marks and circumstances of wonder, neither, indeed, was I much in their debt ; having never, till then, seen a race of mortals so singular in their shapes, habits, and countenances. Their heads were all reclined either to the right or the left ; one of their eyes turned inward, and the other directly up to the zenith. Their outward garments were adorned with the figures of suns, moons, and stars, interwoven with those of fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsicords, and many other instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed, here and there, many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried pease, or little pebbles (as I was afterwards informed). With these bladders they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning ; it seems, the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons, who are able to afford it always keep a flapper (the original is climenole) in their family, as one of their domestics, nor ever walk abroad, or make visits, without him. And the business of this officer is, when two or three more persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresseth himself. This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and, upon occasion, to give him a soft flap on his eyes, because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of jostling others, or being jostled himself, into the kennel.   

It was necessary to give the reader this information, without which he would be at the same loss with me, to understand the proceedings of these people, as they conducted me up the stairs to the top of the island, and from thence to the royal palace. While we were ascending, they forgot several times what they were about, and left me to myself, till their memories were again roused by their flappers; for they appeared altogether unmoved by the sight of my foreign habit and countenance, and by the shouts of the vulgar, whose thoughts and minds were more disengaged.  

. . . And although they are dextrous enough upon a piece of paper in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet, in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music. They are very bad reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition, unless when they happen to be of the right opinion, which is seldom their case. Imagination, fancy, and invention they are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in their language by which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of their thoughts and mind being shut up within the two forementioned sciences ."

JONATHAN SWIFT (Gulliver's Travels, A Voyage to Laputa)