{"id":821,"date":"2010-11-17T23:07:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-18T04:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/?p=821"},"modified":"2010-11-17T23:07:02","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T04:07:02","slug":"what-does-aristotelian-system-mean-in-general-semantics-or-a-small-recommendation-to-make-general-semantics-a-little-easier-to-relate-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/2010\/11\/17\/what-does-aristotelian-system-mean-in-general-semantics-or-a-small-recommendation-to-make-general-semantics-a-little-easier-to-relate-to\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does “Aristotelian System” Mean in General Semantics?, or A Small Recommendation to Make General Semantics a Little Easier to Relate To"},"content":{"rendered":"

The title of Alfred Korzbyski’s 1933 work that introduces the field of general semantics is Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics<\/em>.\u00a0 The term “non-aristotelian” is of interest in this blog post.\u00a0 It is an important term within general semantics, and one which I feel is both obtuse and generally misinterpreted.\u00a0 Herein I aim to clarify its meaning by recommending a different, more relatable\u00a0term in place of “non-aristotelian,” as well as clean up some of the misinterpretation of the term that has happened for countless years.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In Science and Sanity<\/em>, Korzybski prides what he dubs “an extensional orientation.”\u00a0 By this phrase he means an orientation to reality that is fed by facts and the material world as opposed to simply fed by words.<\/p>\n

Korzybski sees many people operating under an “intensional orientation”–being informed by words over facts and material findings.\u00a0 For example, take the person who fears “The Axis of Evil”–the label U.S. President George W. Bush gave three countries.\u00a0 Were\u00a0this person\u00a0to actually commune with the\u00a0citizens of these countries, she would probably find people much less diabolical than the bushian label describes.\u00a0 This is to say that her fear is brought about\u00a0 unnecessarily by words (i.e., her intensional orientation), and reality would likely not be as generic and menacing as the label portends.<\/p>\n

If that example of an intensional orientation doesn’t suffice, just imagine that situation from your life when you were victimized by another person\u00a0that one time; perhaps you were told (words) that you could trust that person, leading you directly to trusting the person,\u00a0with reality proving\u00a0otherwise.\u00a0 An extensional orientation, the one championed by Korzybski, would have\u00a0directed you to be led by the facts and by reality, so suspicious behavior would potentially have led you to distrust the other person, and to squirrel out of your victimization.<\/p>\n

Korzybski borrows the terms “intension” and “extension” from logic.\u00a0 Both\u00a0intension and extension\u00a0have something to do with defining terms.\u00a0 First, intension: Intension is like defining a human being with a list of properties.\u00a0 Korzybski cites the “man is a featherless biped” as one example of an intension for a man, as well as “man is a rational animal.”\u00a0 Intension basically shows all of the characteristics that meet the criterion for use of the\u00a0word.\u00a0 (“Featherless? And a biped?\u00a0 Then\u00a0we can call it ‘man.'”)<\/p>\n

Contrast intension with extension: Extension is like defining a human being with a list of all the different things that qualify as “a human being.”\u00a0 Unless you’re a computer reading this entry, you’re a human being, so am I (the writer of this post), and so are your friends, family, et al.\u00a0 So for the extension of a human being, we have Ben Hauck, you (not your name, but you<\/em>), that friend of yours, that friend, that friend also, your father, your mother, and many, many others.<\/p>\n

To summarize the difference between the two terms, when you want to define any word, to give the intension you describe the characteristics of the thing the word represents, and to give the extension you point to<\/em> all of the things the word represents.\u00a0 Both have their places and benefits, but Korzybski sees a primitive need for use of extension by everyday people.\u00a0 People in his time (c.1933, and arguably today, too) got caught up in words and the reality they construct while forgetting to look at the things they represented to see if reality agreed with verbal reality.\u00a0 That is, people were eating up propaganda (which is suggested to be a road map) but failing to look at what was really going on (the territory the road map was allegedly representing).\u00a0 Extensionalization–i.e., developing an extensional orientation–is simply training oneself in the habit of downplaying words, accounts, stories, etc., and instead looking at and revering<\/em>\u00a0the reality, the actuality, what-is-going-on, etc.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Having now clarified what “extensionalization” means within Korzybski’s Science and Sanity<\/em>, we can apply his regard for the orientation to his use of the term “non-aristotelian” in general semantics.\u00a0 Korzbyski provides in the “Introduction to the Second Edition” of Science and Sanity<\/em> the extension<\/em> of his term “non-aristotelian.”\u00a0 Even better, at the same time he provides the extension of his term “aristotelian”!\u00a0 Both definitions come in the form of a chart found on pages lii-liv.\u00a0 (Click here<\/a> to view the pages within Google Books.)\u00a0 In the chart, Korzybski clearly and explicitly lists what kinds of orientations, attitudes, etc., are associated with the term “aristotelian,” and what kinds of orientations, attitudes, etc., are associated with the term “non-aristotelian.”<\/p>\n

Korzybski sums up each side of the chart with two different terms, which I just found in composing this post, and which correlate almost exactly to the recommendation I want to make herein.\u00a0 Korzybski sums up “aristotelian” as “antiquated.”\u00a0 And he sums up “non-aristotelian” as “modern.”\u00a0 Basically, “aristotelian” means “antiquated,” and so “an aristotelian orientation” means “having an antiquated orientation.”\u00a0 “Non-aristotelian” means “modern,” so “a non-aristotelian orientation” means “having a modern orientation.”\u00a0 Why are these equations helpful?\u00a0 Because both “aristotelian” and “non-aristotelian” are obtuse words (not to mention varying in meaning from the contexts of logic to ethics to tragedy).\u00a0 “Antiquated” and “modern” are also\u00a0words everyday people can better relate to.\u00a0 Furthermore, “antiquated” and “modern” are time<\/em> words, and the terms “aristotelian” and “non-aristotelian” generally lack any time sense except implying the time of and after the famed Greek philosopher.\u00a0 The time words\u00a0suggest what’s outmoded and old, and what’s current and relevant, at least in terms of the different orientations.<\/p>\n

The extension of the term “non-aristotelian” is given by the chart.\u00a0 To characterize the items in that list, most of them are simply ways of thinking<\/em>.\u00a0 That is what is meant by the term “orientation”: a way of thinking<\/em>.\u00a0 To shift from an aristotelian orientation to a non-aristotelian orientation–or an aristotelian system to a non-aristotelian system–is to shift from thinking in one way to another way.\u00a0 That shift specifically is the shift from the ways outlined in the left column of the chart\u00a0to the ways outlined in the right column.<\/p>\n

Given the extension of the term “non-aristotelian,” it should become rapidly clear that those writing about general semantics who equate aristotelianism with aristotelian logic<\/em> are misguided.\u00a0 “Aristotelian logic” tends to refer to the Laws of Thought attributed to Aristotle: The Law of Identity, the Law of Non-Contradiction, and the Law of the Excluded Middle.\u00a0 While Korzybski does take on those laws, Korzybski targets many, many more<\/em> old\u00a0ways of thinking.\u00a0 Furthermore, he groups at least one old way of thinking\u00a0 under the term “aristotelian” even though that way of thinking wasn’t around when Aristotle was alive<\/em>.\u00a0 To that point, note that Korzybski refers to the Newtonian system as “aristotelian”–it was developed in the time of Sir Isaac Newton, not in the time of Aristotle.<\/p>\n

This is to say that the term “aristotelian” is much broader than those people who equate it with aristotelian logic would imply.\u00a0 As further support, take Korzybski’s own characterization on page 43 of Science and Sanity<\/em>.\u00a0 In this passage, Korzybski drives home not that he’s talking about aristotelian logic but instead\u00a0about aristotelian science<\/em>.<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

In the days of Aristotle, we knew extremely little of science in the 1933 sense.\u00a0 Aristotle, in his writings, formulated for us a whole scientific program, which we followed until very lately.\u00a0 […] Obviously, in 1933, with the overwhelming number of most diversified facts known to science, the question is no more to sketch a scientific program for the future, but to build a system which, at least in structure, is similar to the structure of the known facts from all branches of knowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feeding this insight back into the chart, “aristotelianism” refers to Aristotle’s program for knowing the world, and probably to\u00a0ways of thinking\u00a0that were born directly from Aristotle’s program.\u00a0 “Non-aristotelianism” is any departure from Aristotle’s program.\u00a0 Such departures aren’t necessarily against<\/em> (“anti-“) aristotelianism; instead, they are simply just not<\/em> (“non-“) aristotelian.<\/p>\n

But a lot of the current scientific program (what you learned about the\u00a0Scientfic Method in school, for example)\u00a0presumably would take issue with Aristotle’s scientific program.\u00a0 Therefore, non-aristotelian science is modern<\/em>, and aristotelian science is antiquated<\/em>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Charles Eddington is the writer whose ideas got my wheels turning on this particular topic, and he inspired a different term than “antiquated.”\u00a0 Recently I downloaded Eddington’s 1928 book titled The Nature of the Physical World<\/em>, a collection of his 1927 Gifford Lectures.\u00a0 (It is available for free download<\/a> from the Internet Archive.)\u00a0 I downloaded it for some reason I no longer recall, but it was\u00a0likely because of some overlap with general semantics.<\/p>\n

Early on, Eddington talks about “The Downfall of Classical Physics.”\u00a0 He talks about old concepts of the atom and of space, and he talks about how new discoveries fed by scientific evidence were flipping some of the long-held assumptions about these topics.\u00a0 “Classical” was the word that proved interesting to me.\u00a0 In general semantics, might we use the word?\u00a0 Might we use the word “classical” to refer to the old ways of thinking that no longer really work?\u00a0 Might we call “aristotelianism,” “classicalism<\/em>“?<\/p>\n

The idea seemed great to me.\u00a0 Dubbing the left column of the chart “classicalism” contrasted what I thought would be a constructive term for the right side of the chart: “modernism.”\u00a0 That is, while Korzybski was talking about shifting our orientations from aristotelian to non-aristotelian, he was talking about shifting our orientations from classical to modern.\u00a0 So many people are living in modern times using classical theories!\u00a0 Square peg, round hole.<\/p>\n

So there is my small recommendation to make general semantics a little easier to relate to: Refer to those ways of thinking associated with aristotelianism as “classicalism.”\u00a0 Furthermore, refer to non-aristotelianism as “modernism.”\u00a0 You can still use the terms “aristotelian” and “non-aristotelian” (and you probably will have to if you’re teaching Science and Sanity<\/em>) but keep the terms “classicalism” and “modernism” close.\u00a0 They may help your student\u00a0understand you\u00a0better, sooner, etc.\u00a0 After all, it’s understandable why one would want to update from a classical way of thinking to a modern one!\u00a0 It’s not necessarily understandable why one would want to update from an aristotelian way of thinking to a non-aristotelian one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The title of Alfred Korzbyski’s 1933 work that introduces the field of general semantics is Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.\u00a0 The term “non-aristotelian” is of interest in this blog post.\u00a0 It is an important term within general semantics, and one which I feel is both obtuse and generally misinterpreted.\u00a0 […]<\/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":[94,156,152,161,164,154,157,106,159,158,160,155,162,153,69,165,163],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzybski","tag-antiquated","tag-aristotelianism","tag-aristotle","tag-charles-eddington","tag-classicalism","tag-extension","tag-extensional-orientation","tag-extensionalization","tag-intension","tag-laws-of-thought","tag-modernism","tag-newton","tag-non-aristotelianism","tag-science-and-sanity","tag-the-nature-of-the-physical-world","tag-ways-of-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","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=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}