I heartily admit that one of my hobbies is of the nerdy sort. I’ve hobbied in the last couple years in crafting a better definition of general semantics.
A lot of this hobby comes from serving as webmaster for the Institute of General Semantics. On the homepage of the IGS website, there is a description of general semantics that currently reads:
‘General Semantics (or GS) can be referred to as a general system of evaluation and awareness. It provides a systematic methodology to understand how you relate to the world around you, how you react to this world, how you react to your reactions, and how you may adjust your behavior accordingly.
In a couple of published essays and plenty of unpublished correspondence behind the scenes, I’ve been championing a change in that verbiage. I feel it does not do justice in characterizing general semantics, and actually does harm to general semantics. I believe that this kind of definition may be the first major orientation many people have to general semantics (given the boom in internet learning over book learning that has occurred in the last decade). So, I feel it is critical to craft a definition of general semantics here that sets people up better for the topic and doesn’t alienate them (as I feel the current statement on the homepage does).
I crafted a statement this morning that really hit me in a positive way. Up until this morning, I have dwelled on the relationship language has to general semantics. I’ve essentially made it primary, even citing the use of the word “semantics” in the name of the field as a reason to focus on language. I wrote at first:
‘General semantics is the study of language and its effects on thinking and behavior.
But suddenly I wondered, What if I flip-flop things a bit? What if I flip-flopped “language” and “thinking” in this definition? I did, and I got this statement:
‘General semantics is the study of thinking and its effects on language, behavior, and culture.
And it hit me: General semantics is not so much about language as I had thought. Instead, it is more about thinking than it is about language. Language is definitely a subject, but it’s less of a subject than thinking. General semantics pays attention to language, but it more so pays attention to thinking. That is, the starting point in general semantics is thinking.
At least that is the thought for now. What this definition does is a number of things for general semantics, as well as a number of things for the Institute of General Semantics:
- It solves the troublesome problem of addressing the place of scientific thinking within the field of general semantics. The definition essentially sorts scientific thinking (like the general principle of uncertainty, non-elementalism, etc.) under the topic of “thinking.”
- It helps to understand why there’s such an importance placed on sanity. Sanity has to do with thinking, not so much to do with language.
- It prioritizes the interests in general semantics. First thinking, then language and/or behavior and/or culture.
- It does not invoke jargon in defining general semantics. Jargon from general semantics can alienate someone who is just learning about general semantics. For a number of years general semantics was referred to as “a non-aristotelian discipline.” Well, if you’ve never heard of general semantics, you’re probably going, “Huh?!”
There are a number of other things this defintion does for general semantics. In terms of the Institute of General Semantics, it aids the organization in the teaching and promotion of general semantics. As I see it, it makes general semantics more relevant to people, more attractive in that relevance, and easier to digest and conceptualize. It prevents general semantics from being marginalized as “just one discipline of many,” but instead the prime field for analyzing the effects of thinking on language, behavior, and culture. While there may be other fields that analyze the effects of thinking on language, behavior, and culture, this field is founded specifically in the perspective of Alfred Korzybski and related thinkers, and other fields are founded in the perspectives of their respective thinkers.
Although I have characterized the defintion of general semantics as “a hobby,” it is actually quite a serious pursuit for me. If you have any personal or professional feedback on this entry, feel free to comment below.
See also: definition, marketing
March 14th, 2010
by Bruce Kodish
You’re making progress, Ben. Your new definition gets much closer to the korzybskian understanding, which I’m interested in developing.
Since effects become causes and causes become effects, change “effects on” to “relation to” and I like the definition even better:”General semantics is the study of thinking and its relation to language, behavior, and culture.”
Since you point at that GS is not the only school of ‘thought’ that studies those relations, we could also replace ‘the’ with ‘a’: “General semantics is a study of thinking and its relation to language, behavior, and culture.”
If we eliminate the ‘is’ here, then we can say “General semantics studies thinking in its relation to language, behavior, and culture.”
To make it more actional showing that GS doesn’t actually do anything but someone does it: “In GS we study thinking and its relation to language, behavior, and culture.”
Of course, ‘thinking’ in korzybskian GS involves ‘feeling’ as well, so at least for ourselves, we can put single quotes around the term, as Korzybski did, to indicate the organism-as-a-whole-in-environment connection. Many people treat ‘thinking’ elementalistically, as if separate from a feeling, breathing, etc., person. What Korzybski actually sought to study—’evaluation’—includes ‘thinking’, ‘feeling’, verbal and non-verbal.
I could say more but I won’t. As a rough first cut, your new definition could serve nicely to start with. Most significantly, you’ve gotten your priorities straight and won’t mislead people to over-focus on language per se.
March 14th, 2010
by Ben Hauck
The Author
Hi Bruce!
I much appreciate the comments, as well as reading the entry. Thanks!
I definitely see your point about how effects become causes. I noted that (though not in text) when writing the definition, that, Hey!, language influences thinking, as does behavior influence thinking, and culture influence thinking! There’s a circularity of sorts to their interactions.
For now (my thinking fluctuates, as I’m betting you are aware), I’m liking the sequence reflected by this definition. It makes thinking the first consideration, and language, behavior, and culture subsidary interests. That is, we can talk about language all we want, but in general semantics, we need to get around to talking about thinking.
Something like that. I see what you mean about using “relation.” Myself, I really hate that word in some contexts, specifically this kind of context. The word has caused me so many mental problems in trying to figure out what it means (refers to) when it appears. In the context of this definition, if it said “General semantics is the study of thinking and its relation to language, behavior, and culture,” my fear is that the definition potentially invokes discussions of conceptual relations between thinking and language/behavior/culture, rather than discussions of causal relations. In other words, the term “relation” bothers me a lot of the time because it is often used vaguely. In fact, or at least in my opinion, “cause” and “effect” both imply a relation of a specific kind (i.e., causal relations), and this kind of relation I see as very important in the context of general semantics, and worth specifying explicitly.
I’m not too much a fan of referring to general semantics as “a” study, as I’m coming from a marketing perspective and I’m trying to distinguish, not marginalize, general semantics. If I wanted to describe general semantics, sure, I might find reason to say “a” study. But I’m not trying to describe general semantics as much as I’m trying to position and market general semantics. So seeing it as “the” study is more of interest to me.
And eliminating “is” also goes against my interests. I’m trying to answer the general-interest question a friend of mine might ask. That question? “What’s general semantics?” If I follow with something more complicated than “General semantics is…,” I feel I’m probably not answering his question. Plus, while such an answer follows with an is-of-identity, it is not an is-of-identity in the is-of-congruence sense of “identity” (“identical in all respects”), but an is-of-positioning sense of “identity” (synonyms like persona, character, personality, etc.). That is, I’m not trying to say that general semantics is identical in all respects with the study of thinking…, etc., but instead I’m saying that general semantics is positioned as the study of thinking…, etc.
I believe I understand your aims to take my proposed definition and translate it under korzybskian guidance. I appreciate those approaches and find value to them. However, through my own past use of them, I’ve come to appreciate them within limits, and when it comes to marketing, esp. to laypeople, I believe they interfere with the promotion and marketing of general semantics in such a way that if I adopted them when marketing general semantics, I’d find myself quickly agreeing with the statement that “General semantics is eating itself.” That is, if I observe korzybskian advice when crafting marketing messages, I’ll get in the way of my own goals and basically create something unmarketable. That is my opinion based on my experience in already trying that.
I mean, I could say “General semantics refers to the study of thinking-feeling in relation to language-speech-behavior-culture, etc.,” and in doing so utter some sort of truth, but I make for quite an ugly, alienating statement that doesn’t answer Joe’s simple question, “What the heck’s general semantics, Ben?” Plus, the layperson isn’t going to understand the reasoning behind the hyphenation, the avoidance of using “is,” the disuse of the commas and the word “and,” the strategic use of the word “etc.,” and so on. Sure, those could be inclusions to spark further conversation, but in my opinion, they shouldn’t happen at the initial what-is-general-semantics question. If Joe wants to know more, he’ll ask some more questions about general semantics. 🙂
Thanks again for reading and commenting, Bruce!
Cheers,
Ben 🙂