General Semantics

[steve_bank]

I said to Peacegirl her philosophy to me was one of many that have come and gone, some persisting. General Semantics comes to mind.

I read Science And Sanity in the 70s.

https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Science-and-Sanity.pdf

Alfred Korzybski - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (/kɔːrˈzɪbski, -ˈzɪp-, -ˈʒɪp-, kəˈʒɪpski/;[1][2] Polish: [ˈalfrɛt kɔˈʐɨpskʲi]; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is "The map is not the territory".

General semantics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophic and scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate school of philosophy, a separate science, or an academic discipline, it describes itself as a scientifically empirical approach to cognition and problem solving. It has been described by nonproponents as a self-help system, and it has been criticized as having pseudoscientific aspects, but it has also been favorably viewed by various scientists as a useful set of analytical tools albeit not its own science.
General semantics is concerned with how phenomena (observable events) translate to perceptions, how they are further modified by the names and labels we apply to them, and how we might gain a measure of control over our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. Proponents characterize general semantics as an antidote to certain kinds of delusional thought patterns in which incomplete and possibly warped mental constructs are projected onto the world and treated as reality itself. Accurate map–territory relations are a central theme.
After partial launches under the names human engineering and humanology,[1] Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski[2] (1879–1950) fully launched the program as general semantics in 1933 with the publication of Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.
In Science and Sanity, general semantics is presented as both a theoretical and a practical system whose adoption can reliably alter human behavior in the direction of greater sanity. In the 1947 preface to the third edition of Science and Sanity, Korzybski wrote: "We need not blind ourselves with the old dogma that 'human nature cannot be changed', for we find that it can be changed."[3] While Korzybski considered his program to be empirically based and to strictly follow the scientific method, general semantics has been described as veering into the domain of pseudoscience.[4]
Starting around 1940, university English professor S. I. Hayakawa (1906–1992), speech professor Wendell Johnson, speech professor Irving J. Lee, and others assembled elements of general semantics into a package suitable for incorporation into mainstream communications curricula. The Institute of General Semantics, which Korzybski and co-workers founded in 1938,[5] continues today. General semantics as a movement has waned considerably since the 1950s, although many of its ideas live on in other movements, such as media literacy,[6] neuro-linguistic programming[7][8] and rational emotive behavior therapy.[9]

It is still around. I I member something about senator Hayakawa saying he diffused campus riots in the 60s or 70s by applying General Semantics.

Audio of Hayakawa on General Semantics.

swenator Hayakawa geberalm semantcs - Google Search

The book is where I picked up 'the map is not the countryside'. Korzybski said our social ils come from taking words for reality itself among other things.

Institute of General Semantics - Home

www.generalsemantics.org