‘<\/span><\/div>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.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn a couple of published essays and plenty of unpublished correspondence behind the scenes, I’ve been championing a change in that verbiage.\u00a0 I feel it does not do justice in characterizing general semantics, and actually\u00a0does harm to general semantics.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n
I crafted a statement this morning that really hit me in a positive way.\u00a0 Up until this morning, I have dwelled on the relationship language has to general semantics.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I wrote at first:<\/p>\n
‘<\/span><\/div>General semantics is<\/strong> the study of language and its effects on thinking and behavior.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nBut suddenly I wondered, What if I flip-flop things a bit?\u00a0 What if I flip-flopped “language” and “thinking” in this definition?\u00a0\u00a0I did, and I got this statement:<\/p>\n
‘<\/span><\/div>General semantics is the study of thinking and its effects on language, behavior, and culture.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnd it hit me: General semantics is not so much about language as I had thought.\u00a0 Instead, it is more about thinking than it is about language.\u00a0 Language is definitely a subject, but it’s less of a subject than thinking.\u00a0 General semantics pays attention to language, but it more so pays attention to thinking.\u00a0 That is, the starting point in general semantics is thinking.<\/em><\/p>\nAt least that is the thought for now.\u00a0 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:<\/p>\n
\n- It solves the troublesome problem of addressing the place of scientific thinking within the field of general semantics.<\/em>\u00a0 The definition essentially sorts scientific thinking (like the general principle of uncertainty, non-elementalism, etc.) under the topic of “thinking.”<\/li>\n
- It helps to understand why there’s such an importance placed on sanity.<\/em>\u00a0 Sanity has to do with thinking, not so much to do with language.<\/li>\n
- It prioritizes the interests in general semantics.<\/em>\u00a0 First thinking, then<\/em> language and\/or behavior and\/or culture.<\/li>\n
- It does not invoke jargon in defining general semantics.<\/em>\u00a0 Jargon from general semantics can alienate someone who is just learning about general semantics.\u00a0 For a number of years general semantics was referred to as “a non-aristotelian discipline.”\u00a0 Well, if you’ve never heard of general semantics, you’re probably going, “Huh?!”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
There are a number of other things this defintion does for general semantics.\u00a0 In terms of the Institute of General Semantics, it aids the organization in the teaching and promotion of general semantics.\u00a0 As I see it, it makes general semantics more relevant to people, more attractive in that relevance, and easier to digest and conceptualize.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Although I have characterized the defintion of general semantics as “a hobby,” it is actually quite a serious pursuit for me.\u00a0 If you have any personal or professional feedback on this entry, feel free to comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I heartily admit that one of my hobbies is of the nerdy sort.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 On the homepage of the IGS website, there is a description […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,6],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-definition","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}