General Semantics Bulletin No.71

General Semantics Bulletin
Yearbook
of the
Institute of General Semantics
Number 71, Membership Year 2004
Fort Worth, TX
Honorary Trustees, 1940 Executive Director
APPOINTED BY ALFRED KORZYBSKI Steve Stockdale
Gaston Bachelard
Maxim Bing Assistant Executive Director
Abraham A. Brill Jennifer Carmack
W. Burridge
Ross McC. Chapman,
George E. Coghill
Arthur Stone Dewing Board of Trustees
Franklin C. Ebaugh Officers
P. H. Esser President, Andrea Johnson
David Fairchild Vice President, Irene S. Ross Mayper
Clarence B. Farrar
Treasurer, Lynn Schuldt
William Healy
Lancelot Hogben Secretary, Susan Presby Kodish
Earnest A. Hooten Recording Secretary, Robert R. Potter
Smith Ely Jelliffe
Edward Kasner Board Members
Cassius J. Keyser George J. Barenholtz
Nolan D. C. Lewis Sanford I. Berman
Ralph S. Lillie Laura Bertone
Bronislaw Malinowski Walter W. Davis
Raymond W. McNealy Milton Dawes
Adolf Meyer Allen Flagg
Winfred Overholser
James Douglas French
Stewart Paton
Raymond Pearl Gregg Hoffmann
William F. Petersen Bruce Kodish
Roscoe Pound Susan Presby Kodish
George S. Stevenson Martin Levinson
M. Tramer Harry Maynard
Walter L. Treadway Jeffrey A. Mordkowitz
Richard Weil, Jr. Gerard I. Nierenberg
George K. Zipf Frank Scardilli
Honorary Trustees
APPOINTED 1963 AND SINCE
Robert Blake, Joseph Brewer, Douglas G. Campbell, Hadley Cantril, Stuart Carter Dodd, R.
Buckminster Fuller, Henri Laborit, Abraham Maslow, Myres S. McDougall, Joost A. M. Meerloo,
Russell Meyers, E. DeAlton Partridge, Allen Walker Read, J. Gordon Roberts, F. J. Roethlisberger,
Jesse H. Shera, Alvin M. Weinberg
© Institute of General Semantics
The Scientific Philosophy of General Semantics
General Semantics (GS) qualifies as an unusual, tough- to-‘pin down’, interdisciplinary field. “Is it a science or
a philosophy?” Perhaps GS may best be seen as neither ‘science’ nor ‘philosophy’ but rather as both/and––a scientific
philosophy applicable moreover to the life concerns of ‘the man and woman in the street’.
In the scientific realm, GS has elements which bring it within the larger field of the behavioral/social sciences.
Here, the main accomplishment of Alfred Korzybski, the original formulator of GS, was theoretical: his integrative
theory of human evaluation based on knowledge from a variety of fields. Formulated as a foundation for a new
interdisciplinary science of humanity, GS suggests methodological guidelines for all (yes, all) areas of inquiry and
has substantive implications for ongoing research on neuro-evaluative, neuro-linguistic factors in human behavior.
In addition to this, GS focuses on examining underlying assumptions in a way that many people would call
“philosophical.” Korzybski did not find that term entirely congenial––chiefly because it had become associated with
verbalistic speculations detached from scientific/mathematical knowledge and practical application. However, he did
respect the work of some philosophers, especially some of those who worked in mathematical logic and the theory of
knowledge or epistemology. Indeed, he viewed his own inquiry into “the structure of human knowledge”as “an up-
to-date epistemology.” Korzybski pioneered in applying knowledge from mathematics, physics, biology, neuroscience,
psychiatry, etc., to epistemological questions, and conversely, in applying an up-to-date, scientific epistemology to
physics, biology, psychiatry, etc.––and especially to everyday life. He contended that factors of sanity exist within the
work of mathematicians and scientists.
A great deal of wisdom was present in the culture when Korzybski formulated GS. Nonetheless, much of this wisdom
did not get applied. To an appalling extent––despite the work of Korzybski and many others––it still doesn’t. With its
emphasis on daily life application, the scientific philosophy of GS has preeminent value in providing specific methods for
practicing a scientific attitude—an attitude of inquiry—for individuals, groups and organizations.
— Bruce I. Kodish
GENERAL SEMANTICS BULLETIN
Membership benefits of the Institute of General Semantics include a subscription to this an-
nual yearbook/journal for both individuals and organizations. Libraries and others can receive copies
by paid subscription. Single copies of this issue: $15.00. Extra copies for members: $10.00. You
can obtain back issues as well (contact the Institute office).
Marjorie Kendig, then educational director of the Institute, began the General Semantics Bul-
letin (GSB) in 1950, and continued on as editor until 1964. Since then, a distinguished group of
Editors-in-Chief have followed, including D. David Bourland, Jr. (until 1971), Charlotte Schuchardt
Read (until 1978), Robert P. Pula (until 1985), and Stuart A. Mayper (until 1997), with James D.
French continuing to the present.
INSTITUTE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS

The Institute itself has existed even longer. Founded in 1938 in Chicago, it has continued as an
international organization for training, research, and development in general semantics, the non-
Aristotelian discipline first formulated by Alfred Korzybski. Individual membership in the Insti-
tute is open to anyone interested in its work. See the application form at the end of this issue for
membership information.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTACT US:

You may address mail intended for the Institute to Jennifer Carmack, Assistant Executive
Director, Institute of General Semantics, 1412 Texas Street, P.O. Box 1565, Fort Worth, Texas
76101-1565. E-mail: igs@time-binding.org. The Institute’s telephone number is (817) 886-3746,
and the fax number is (817) 886-6685. Web: www.time-binding.org.
GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

The Bulletin invites submission of (1) original technical and/or expository papers in the field of general
semantics, (2) papers that bear on methods and techniques of general-semantics education or training, (3)
papers that relate applications of general semantics formulations and methods to other fields and to specific
problems, (4) papers that relate modern scientific/mathematical, philosophical, scholarly, technological and
other societal developments to general semantics, and (5) papers on the history of general semantics. The
more knowledge of general semantics that authors can bring to bear, the better the chances that their work
will be published. Important books for Bulletin authors include Manhood of Humanity and Science and Sanity,
by Alfred Korzybski, and The Collected Writings of Alfred Korzybski, edited by M. Kendig (and Charlotte
Schuchardt Read, with Robert P. Pula).
Major articles are either invited or submitted and refereed by the editors and/or appropriate experts in
the field. Desired length varys from 500 to 5000 words. Use the “Style Notes” on the following page as a
guideline for GSB usage. Please send manuscripts for consideration, and other communications, to Editor-
in-Chief, General Semantics Bulletin, at the Institute’s address. Include a stamped, self-addressed enve-
lope. Manuscripts should be double-spaced and typed or processed in high quality print mode. Place the
author’s name, address, phone and email on the title page. Submit your manuscript with a brief abstract and
a one paragraph biographical note. For references and substantive comments, provide consecutively num-
bered endnotes with superscript number in the text. Bibliographies should follow the author-date system
guidelines outlined in The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition. Upon acceptance, we will request elec-
tronic submission. Upon publication, the Institute of General Semantics will have limited copyright for se-
rial publication in print and/or electronic form.
GENERAL SEMANTICS BULLETIN
Editor-in-Chief: James D. French
Senior Editors
Bruce I. Kodish The introduction of these linguistic and semantic in-
Susan Presby Kodish novations, in order to make our language and orien-
Irene Ross Mayper
tations ‘similar in structure’., is up against older neu-
Cover Design rological canalization (‘Bahnung’, ‘law of facilita-
Edward Dawson tion’), . Thus the difficulties are tremendous, and
only consistent drilling can establish a new nervous
Production Editors
canalization, which introduces new neuro-semantic
Susan Presby Kodish
Bruce I. Kodish orientations and new ‘habits’ (canalization).
— Alfred Korzybski in “Letter to Co-Workers,”
Cover in Collected Writings
Front: Robert P. Pula
Back: Kenneth G. Johnson
STYLE NOTES
Quotes
In order to accommodate the use of quotes as a Korzybskian extensional device to standard quotation practices,
the following procedure has been adopted by the General Semantics Bulletin:
A. SINGLE QUOTES (extensional device): (1) To mark off terms and phrases which seem to varying degrees
questionable for neuro-linguistic, neurophysiological, methodological or general epistemological reasons, e.g.,
‘mind’, ‘meaning’, ‘space’ or ‘time’ used alone, etc. (2) To mark off terms used metaphorically, playfully, etc.
B. SINGLE QUOTES (standard usage): (1) To indicate a quotation within a quotation.
C. DOUBLE QUOTES (standard usage): (1) To indicate a term or phrase used by some referred to person but not
necessarily indicating a direct quote. Example : What Korzybski referred to as the “semantic reaction” . (2) To
indicate a direct quotation from a named source .
D. TERMINAL QUOTES (General Semantics Bulletin usage):Commas, periods and other terminal punctuation
go outside of single quotes. They go inside double quotes as per standard usage.
“General Semantics”
The term “general semantics” does not refer to some sort of ‘generalized linguistic or philosophical semantics’.
Rather “general semantics”— a unitary term—names our particular discipline—a general theory of evaluation
which includes verbal and non-verbal aspects. Thus when writing about general semantics, use the term
“general semantics.” We abbreviate general semantics as “GS” with capital letters. When using the term as a
modifier, as in the phrase “a general-semantic(s) approach,” we use a hyphen, as in standard usage, to indicate its
unitary nature.
Extensional Devices
We encourage authors to use extensional devices and techniques in their writing. These methods include index-
ing, dating, using etc., quotes, hyphens, English Minus Absolutism, using non-elementalistic terms, avoiding ‘ises’
of predication and identity, etc. For further details see “Using General Semantics” by Susan Presby Kodish on the
IGS website, << http://www.time-binding.org/learningctr/sk-using.htm >> . See also Korzybski’s “Letter to Co-
Workers,” in Korzybski’s Collected Writings, quoted from above.
General Semantics Bulletin
Number 71, 2004
Contents
118 Editor’s Essay: The Extensional Definition of Time-Binding
by James D. French
110 On the Teaching of General Semantics (2003 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture)
by Sanford I. Berman
123 General Semantics and the Philosophy of Science: From Pre-Aristotelian to Post-Einsteinian
by Sanford I. Berman
150 In the Name of Skepticism: Martin Gardner’s Misrepresentations of General Semantics

by Bruce I. Kodish
164 Memorial Time-Binding:

Christopher Barrows Sheldon
Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga
Gregory Sawin
“Fisherman’s Net” by Gregory Sawin
Robert R. Blake
169 In Memorium, Thomas E. Nelson
170 Thomas E. Nelson: A Biography

by Molly Nelson-Haber
174 General Semantics and the Shaping of the Future

by Thomas E. Nelson
179 Kenneth G. Johnson – Teacher, Mentor, Friend:

1 About Ken Johnson by Gregg Hoffmann
1 Reflections of Ken Johnson by Andrea J. Johnson
181 Remembering Ken Johnson

by Irene Ross Mayper
1
CONTENTS 7
182 General-Semantics Professional Activities of Kenneth G. Johnson

by Susan Presby Kodish1
184 The General-Semantics Writings of Kenneth G. Johnson

by Susan Presby Kodish
1
186 Relevant?
by Kenneth G. Johnson
188 Remembering Bob Pula:

Endearing Bob Pula by Susan Presby Kodish
Bob Pula: Thank You, Sir by James D. French
191 From The Notebooks of Robert P. Pula
192 Writing and Teaching General Semantics: Robert P. Pula’s Legacy

by Bruce I. Kodish
195 The Annotated General-Semantics Bibliography of Robert P. Pula

by Robert P. Pula
110 Science and Sanity: Preface to the Fifth Edition, 1993

by Robert P. Pula
120 Some Comments on the Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics

by Steve Stockdale
122 News from the Institute (September 2003 – August 2004)
125 IGS Books and Other Media: Annotated Catalog
131 Order Form for Books and Other Media
132 Read House — Institute of General Semantics, Fort Worth
134 IGS Membership Application

Editor’s Essay 2004
THE EXTENSIONAL DEFINITION OF TIME-BINDING
By intension, we might define time-binding as "The actual and potential ability of a life form to
transmit knowledge and information at an expanding rate from generation to generation." So far,
the human race is the only known life form to have done this. Other species on earth have a limited
ability to pass information to the young; but it is not a capacity with the ability to accelerate over
time with the generations.
But categories are fuzzy. Perhaps there exists some rudimentary potential acceleration there,
particularly with apes and dolphins. And humans may be able to assist other species onto the time-
binding path. If a species ever did develop such an ability to bind time, I would argue for classify-
ing it not solely as ‘animal’, but as another time-binding life form.
As we know, no definition of time-binding can include ‘everything’ of importance about it; but,
as I see it, including "expanding rate" in the above definition serves to emphasize the 'fact' that time-
binding is not simply additive, but geometrical in its progression. It accelerates. Now the rate of
acceleration at different times can be very slow, covering many generations before visible change,
or extremely rapid.
By extension, we could define "time-binding" by listing the actual results of the efforts of hu-
man generations over time, as in the random and partial list below:
11. space-flight 21. art 41. robotics

12. sports 22. film 42. tools
13. language 23. commerce 43. paper
14. sociology 24. philosophy 44. cartography
15. agriculture 25. comedy 45. medicine
16. television 26. metallurgy 46. automation
17. history 27. ecology 47. biology
18. ethics 28. measurement 48. psychiatry
19. radio 29. money 49. politics
10. physics 30. clothing 50. birth control
11. accounting 31. electric lights 51. computers
12. music 32. planetology 52. holography
13. automobiles 33. anthropology 53. schools
14. cooking 34. experiments 54. mathematics
15. telemetry 35. democracy 55. statistics
16. writing 36. mass production 56. weapons
17. pottery 37. cloth 57. calendars
18. theories 38. telephones 58. poetry
19. law 39. astronomy 59. lasers
20. books 40. chemistry 60. religion
Etc. ....
THE EXTENSIONAL DEFINITION OF TIME-BINDING 9
This list, impressive in its large number of achievements, provides a way to sharply distinguish
between animals and human beings. We can ‘see’ the difference. I call it the extensional definition
of time-binding.
The list came about many years ago (mid 1970s) as the result of a classroom exercise in which
I had asked the students to list some of the things that human beings have developed over the cen-
turies that animals, for the most part, have not. I just wanted a list, and was not concerned if an item
already belonged to a previously listed item as a sub-category, e.g., “computers” under “tools.”
Through this exercise, the students actively participated in the extensional definition of time-bind-
ing (each creating a unique list), thus giving them a real ‘feel’ for this important GS principle.
The exercise not only seemed to be valuable in helping the students to understand time-bind-
ing; it also helped them to grasp the difference between intension and extension. By intension, I had
defined “time-binding” the way one might see it in a dictionary; but by extension, the class defined
it with a list of examples.
Such a list could prove of value in illustrating over/under defined terms; that is, the term “time-
binding” is over-defined by intension, and under-defined by extension. Also, perhaps it could be
used to illustrate reflexiveness. For example, we could have the following additional items on the
list: the theory of time-binding, general semantics, and the extensional definition of time-binding.
In other words, the list could include itself as a time-binding development.
Bear in mind that in time-binding there may be cross developments that work against the gen-
eral progressive momentum, just as in a river there may be crosscurrents that work against the gen-
eral flow of the water. I use the term crossbinds to characterize them. Identity theft, for example,
would be an example of a crossbind: of something that grew out of record keeping, but that works
against it and time-binding in general. Criminal activity of any type could be considered as a
crossbind, of course. Another example would be Adolf Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf; and then there
are certain dogmatic creeds, and so on. A given thing can also have both time-binding and
crossbinding elements in play. For example, an automobile can get you across town faster; but the
exhaust from cars in general may pollute your lungs. The interplay between time-binding and
crossbinding could be said to determine the general rate of progress of the human race.
— James D. French
ET CETERA ........... ,.
2003 ALFRED KORZYBSKI MEMORIAL LECTURE
ON THE TEACHING OF GENERAL SEMANTICS

BY SANFORD I. BERMAN
(Delivered at the Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics,
Las Vegas, Nevada, November 1, 2003)
INTRODUCTION
BY BRUCE I. KODISH
What a great honor to be here to introduce our speaker for this evening, Sanford I. Berman.
Doctor Berman, known to his friends as Sandy, joins a line of distinguished presenters, in one
of the most important, though perhaps least known, annual speakers’ series on the planet: The Alfred
Korzybski Memorial Lecture, also known as the AKML.
Since 1952, when the first Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture happened, we’ve had such indi-
viduals as Ashley Montague, Buckminster Fuller, Abraham Maslow, Jacob Bronowski, L. L. White,
George Steiner, Gregory Bateson, Kenneth G. Johnson, Neil Postman, Albert Ellis, Steve Allen,
Robert P. Pula, and many others.
I feel particularly delighted tonight that we will hear as AKML speaker, Sandy Berman, who
has directly devoted a significant part of his life energies to the growth of general semantics. Sandy
very accurately fits my criteria of a Renaissance man, which includes a fierce appetite for experi-
ence, broad ranging interests, and multiple talents in many different forms of creative expression.
Now, I thought that I came up with this on my own, but I later found out that, a number of years
ago, some newspaper writer wrote a column about Sandy entitled, “Renaissance Man.” So, I con-
sider that as independent corroboration of my evaluation.
I’ll just give you a short list of some of Sandy’s many accomplishments, which might fill the
CV’s [curricula vitae’s] of quite a few less talented individuals.
Sandy started out in his native Minnesota—I’ll just go over his academic background. He has a
Bachelor’s degree in Radio and Communications from the University of Minnesota; a Master’s in
Speech from Teacher’s College, Columbia University; and he received his doctorate in Speech
Communications from Northwestern University, where he then assisted Dr. Irving J. Lee in his fa-
mous general-semantics classes.
And Sandy had also studied with S. I. Hayakawa, and at the Institute of General Semantics. And
his doctorate work was directly related to general semantics, in the speech discipline.
Since the 1950s, Sandy has had multiple, and sometime concurrent careers, as a university lec-
turer, nightclub entertainer, stage hypnotist . . .
I’m constantly learning things about Sandy and his many lives. He’s done work as a seminar
presenter, a motivational speaker, and a success coach, a popular author, a newspaper columnist, a
businessman, and a serious scholar in the history and philosophy of science, and scientific episte-
mology.
And I want to just briefly mention his book, Logic and General Semantics, which has his edit-
ing with additional articles and his own commentary on the work of the long forgotten philosopher,
Oliver L. Reiser—a very important philosopher in relation to general semantics. And I, and many
of the top people in terms of general-semantics scholarship, consider this one of the most important
works on philosophy and the relationship between philosophy and general semantics, that’s been
written in a very long time.
ON THE TEACHING OF GENERAL SEMANTICS 11
Sandy has served as president of the International Society for General Semantics, and on the
Board of Trustees of both the Society and the Institute of General Semantics. In recent years Sandy
has also become prominent as a GS philanthropist, sharing some of the rewards of his successes to
support a variety of GS-related projects. These include establishing three university Chairs in gen-
eral semantics in the communications departments at San Diego State University, the University of
California at San Diego, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, our host for this conference.
The scope of Sandy’s span of activities could leave a person breathless, but I feel glad to report
that Sandy seems to breathe rather easily. Some of this may result from his internalizing of general
semantics. But I also consider that it may have something to do with an important aspect of Sandy
that I have abstracted from observing him in action over a number of years. His deep love of people,
and his heartfelt desire to help in whatever way he can.
Now tonight, Sandy’s talk will not go as advertised. He will not speak primarily —although I
don’t know what he is going to say—but he told me that he had changed the topic from “GS and the
Philosophy of Science” to focus on teaching and training in general semantics.
So I will now present to you Dr. Sanford I. Berman.
SANFORD I. BERMAN: Thank you very much, Bruce. When I count to three, you’ll wake up!
[audience laughter]. That introduction was like a glass of perfume, smells pretty but it shouldn’t be
swallowed.
I changed my speech because I don’t believe in reading speeches—I learned that from Irving
Lee—but I did write a 50-page paper, [See following article] and I hope the speech tonight will be
more enjoyable, because I brought all my best jokes and illustrations to demonstrate how Irving J.
Lee lectured at Northwestern University—and how I did also—but not nearly, nearly as well, be-
lieve me.
First I want to mention, because we are video-taping this speech and making it available, people
will ask, “What are some good books in general semantics?” And [addressing Bruce Kodish] I’m
returning your kind words by mentioning that this is the best new book-length introduction on gen-
eral semantics [Drive Yourself Sane, by Susan Presby Kodish and Bruce I. Kodish].
I teach on a sophomoric level, as you’ll see tonight. And others of you teach on a more scien-
tific, scholarly level. You’ll see a more scholarly level perhaps in the paper that I wrote already, on
the history of man’s thinking, from pre-scientific thinking—the projections and animisms, and other
kinds of misevaluations, pre-scientific thinking of pre-scientific man—to the aristotelian era, and
Galileo, Newton—to Einstein—to post-einsteinian thinking, of quarks and string theory. In fact,
I’ve added on to the structural differential, the electrons, protons, neutrons, sub-microscopic level—
further up are the string theory and quarks.
I’ve underlined 150 books—I don’t just read books, I underline them, mark in the margin ev-
erything related to general semantics—and as far as I know not too many people have written books
on the relationship between general semantics and the philosophy of science. And I do this, as I
point out in the paper, because there are many people who have been critical of general semantics.
In fact, I didn’t bring it with me, but some of you might like to know, I did send to Jeff Mordkowitz
and to Paul Johnston, a book I edited , of some really fine articles on general semantics written by
Hayakawa, Rapoport (on what is the aristotelian structure of language), Stuart Chase, and many
others. I edited that book. I hope it will come out next year.
12 GENERAL SEMANTICS BULLETIN 71, 2004
I also edited another book on critics of general semantics. Irving Lee once said, “You know,
we’ve got to deal with the critics of general semantics”—like Bruce did [General Semantics Bulle-
tin #64] with Max Black on his [Black’s] book on logic—and I’ve got another book on quite a few
critics of general semantics, because many of these criticisms are based upon total misunderstand-
ing.
One critic said that if you want to learn general semantics, you don’t go to Science and Sanity.
And yet Korzybski ‘invented’ general semantics in Science and Sanity. So that paper will be com-
ing out.
This is a fine introductory book [Drive Yourself Sane]. And there is another book—as you well
know, we publish this, still a classic—People in Quandaries.
When Jeff Mordkowitz taught at the seminar [2001, in Arcadia, CA], he asked me something
about how can we train in general semantics, and if I had any ideas. I replied that I had added onto
Wendell Johnson’s People in Quandaries—if you look in the back of the book, you’ll see “seman-
tic exercises”—and I did add at least five more things that teachers can do to help extensionalize
your understanding of general semantics.
Also, I brought an outline of a book that I wrote 40 years ago. I’ve got one chapter left to finish.
I got involved in my nightclub career in San Diego, literally working day and night for 40 years.
I apologize if I talk about myself, but as Sam Bois said—in the introduction to one of his books,
either the Art of Awareness or the other one, Explorations in Awareness—“Who else’s nervous sys-
tem can I talk about?”
I’m going to talk tonight about drawing people to general semantics. Why don’t we have more
people in general semantics?
One of the reasons I became a nightclub hypnotist is because everybody in the world wants to
be entertained, they don’t want to be educated.
When I had my success motivation seminars I changed the title from “general semantics and
effective communication” to “success motivation” because I found out that more people would rather
learn how to become millionaires than learn how to lessen misunderstandings.
And so while I started off with 300 students, the number went down to 200, and 100, through
the years, and when we had the difficulties with gas availability in 1974, we’d have 50 students;
and then it went up. But I taught it for 15 years, with two or three hundred people in the class sleep-
ing [in trances] all over the place.
You see my seminars were under hypnosis and self-hypnosis, and I became a nightclub hypno-
tist because I dislike ignorance and stupidity of all kinds. The best way to educate people that hyp-
nosis is true is to show them on the factual level.
Many years ago I took a course in parapsychology at the University of Minnesota, from Dr.
William Heron, and he put on a demonstration of hypnosis, and I said to myself, “Why is this aca-
demic professor doing this carnival stuff?”
People still have that kind of evaluation toward that taboo word, hypnosis. And so for my minor
in anthropology and PhD, I wrote several papers on primitive mentality, as well as taboos. And I
just happen to have made a lot more money as a nightclub hypnotist than I would as a teacher, I
believe, in one-fifth the time.
But the big money of course is buying real estate. The lady from Wisconsin said, “I hear you’re
in real estate.” And I said “No, I only buy it.” There’s a big difference.
And this is why I can give money for this conference.
I’m also going to give money to train people to lecture, or have you train them to lecture rather,
like Bob Eddy did the other day. As soon as Bob got out of the gate, I knew he was a professional
lecturer. He did everything that a professional one does.
So today I want to talk very quickly about a course that I developed.
I’ve lectured on effective communication and general semantics to companies all over the country,
especially when I was in Chicago.
Tonight I’m going to talk about stupidity and ignorance and lack of knowledge, because people
have still not been taught the important principles of general semantics.
Those of us who have written books on general semantics still have not abstracted one-tenth of
what Korzybski wrote about. Irving Lee said, “There’s a gold mine of information here.” And I try
to present it on the easy-to-understand level of abstraction.
Well, what do we mean by that?
Many of you are familiar with Bill Haney’s test on inferences. This was his PhD dissertation.
Around that same time, I made a test for x-number of different principles: projection and misunder-
standing, for example.
When I open my class, I don’t give the students a lecture on general semantics at all. I simply
ask questions.
“Which girl do you think is more beautiful, Diane Darling or Elsie Zadrovski? Betsy Hacraft or
Louise Love? Lisa Hoy or Joy LaMar?”
Which fellow do you think is more handsome: Tim Condon or Abe Schwartz? Allen Dale or
Nick Nipopolous?”
Well, I go up and down the rows, and would you believe it, they answer the questions before I
start to lecture on anything in general semantics. In other words, they know what the person looks
like by the name alone!
Now we did videotape my lectures at San Diego State once and the next day I came in and I
lectured in class and I read the same questions, and did they answer them? No, they were laughing
like heck, because they had changed, they had realized that it was stupid to answer those kinds of
questions.
We don’t know from the words alone.
So I have many different quizzes that I give my students that I want to share with Steve Stockdale
and others.
One quiz is on projection and misunderstanding, another on the two-valued orientation, and
many, many others.
Bill Haney called his quiz an “EQ test”, an Evaluation Quotient. And I said no, you’ve got to
index it. Your test is only for the fact-inference principle—EQ1. I developed tests for many different
principles—EQn.
I hope that some of you will take me up on this to construct your own kind of a quiz before you
give your students a lecture on general semantics—because many philosophy professors used to
dismiss general semantics as “old stuff”—yet they were the ones who violated the principles the
most, some of the ones who had that kind of an allness orientation.
So you’ve got to construct a quiz to invite the students to misunderstand, invite them to jump to
conclusions, invite them to behave stupidly.
And I only say this because I was teaching 50 top executives for about 13 years at the Univer-
sity of Chicago’s Management-Development Seminar. And they loved this kind of training. These
were all presidents and vice-presidents of large corporations.
I’d give them a quiz before the lectures, and I’d give them a quiz at the end. At the beginning,
one guy got about 56 wrong out of about 70 or so. And at the end of the course, he came up with his
test—he had only about four or five wrong—and he came up, and he was almost mad at me. He
said, “You mean to say I was this god-damned dumb?”
I almost said, “Yes.” [audience laughter]
They also say, “Why didn’t I get this stuff 30 years ago?” And all of you may be asking, “Why
aren’t my kids getting this today?”
I’m talking about a certain way of teaching. I’m talking about getting it into their nervous sys-
tems. I’m talking about it becoming enjoyable.
I don’t stand in one place when lecturing. Unfortunately Irving Lee’s lectures were filmed with
him standing in one place.
Dr. Lee and I were driving in downtown Chicago, and he said, “You know, they want me to
make some films for Indiana University, and I don’t know if I should [because he was very busy].”
And I said, “Yes, you know this is very time-binding to make those films.” And we’re all very for-
tunate that he did.
But while we have the films of Irving Lee lecturing to a camera, we don’t have Irving Lee filmed
with his students. This was when he was at his best. He’d have little games and quizzes and would
invite them to participate, and this is how you teach general semantics, not one-way communica-
tion.
And so Lee would go to the blackboard, and he’d say, “Give me a directive that I cannot pos-
sibly misunderstand.” One person would say, “Well, write your name on the blackboard.” And then
Lee would write on the board with his finger; or he would write “your name on the blackboard.”
It’s the easiest thing in the world to misunderstand.
My students only got me one time.
I was teaching at the University of Chicago’s Management-Development Seminar, and I’d lec-
ture from 4:30 to 6:00, and we’d take a dinner break from 6:00 to 7:00, and come back at 7:00 and
lecture until 8:30. And I said, “You’ve got one hour during dinner to see if you can think of a direc-
tive that I cannot misunderstand.”
After dinner we returned. One guy was sitting in the corner and he stood up, and I said, “OK,
what is the directive?”
He had an eraser in his hand; he threw it at my head and said “Duck.”
I did not misunderstand! [laughter]
So to those of you who teach—we all have different personalities, but you’ve got to be more
dynamic, and meaningful, and practical and pragmatic if you want to get to the introductory stu-
dent.
I’m not that bright. I like to teach on the introductory level, even for top executives in industry.
We had many professors at the University of Chicago who couldn’t teach these executives—the
professors were too theoretical. They were way up here [raises arm]. The students wanted to know
how you lessen misunderstandings. How do you stop jumping to conclusions? How do you stop
individuals from thinking that they know it all?
I had one executive from the Omaha Gas Company, used to come in from Omaha to Chicago,
took the seminar, and said “You know, we have trouble with some of our individuals. The psycho-
logical tests say they have ‘poor judgment’. We don’t know what that means.”
So I said, “Well, during the course I’ll give you much more of an example in terms of poor judg-
ment.”
So I explained a little bit, poor judgment is defined by, number one, having signal reactions.
Number two, jumping to conclusions; number three, having an allness orientation; not looking for
enough facts, etc.
And the whole course, my entire course, Dr. Lee’s entire introductory course, called “Language
and Thought”—contrasted the intensional orientation on one side, the extensional orientation on
the other. The extensional orientation being the scientific method; the intensional method, of course,
is the verbal orientation.
I defined it a little differently in the speech that I wrote for the AKML. Irving Lee said, “How do
you solve problems?” There are two different ways.
The intensional way, through logic, through reasoning, through debate, through argumentation,
goes back to Aristotle and Plato. This is the verbal method.
The extensional way of solving problems is the scientific method of experimentation. This is
the factual method.
So two principles are the two main ones that I looked for in all the history of science, the exten-
sional and the intensional orientation, and elementalism and non-elementalism.
And where you have scientific progress, you have non-elementalism come into play. They used
to assume that electricity and magnetism were separate. Now we have electro-magnetism. And there
are many, many other examples that I abstracted.
I also have here—some of you who took the seminar—the “speech for all occasions.” You can
give it anywhere. These are high-order abstractions that are not specific and concrete. What do we
mean, “specific and concrete”? It is very simple to explain.
Here we have Milton’s [Dawes] chair. The word “chair” stands for this nonverbal object. But it
also stands not only for this chair, but for all chairs. And then we have the word “furniture,” which
includes this chair and other kinds of furniture. See—higher order abstractions. Then we have “busi-
ness,” “industry,” “commerce”; you see, the different orders of abstraction.
And the important thing is to teach people how to be specific and concrete, because, as I will
point out very quickly, this is where you have misunderstandings—in the levels of higher-order
abstractions.
And it is ignorance—we’re all ignorant in many areas—but stupidity is something else again.
If you don’t understand someone else, ask them, “What do you mean?”
As we will see, the burden for effective communication is upon whom, the speaker or the listener?
Both! Oh, the speakers assume, “I gave you, I handed you a handful of meaning”—as you handed
me water in the glass (I’m assuming it’s water)—not in Bob Pula’s glass [audience laughter].
So I can hand you meaning, say something to you. You’re afflicted with ‘allness’ if you don’t
ask me “What do you mean” and you misunderstand me.
The most important thing about the allness orientation, is that it is extremely subtle. This prin-
ciple was especially meaningful to top executives in business and industry. General semantics is
especially important in effective communication, human relations and management generally.
Those of you teaching general semantics, emphasize that word “subtle.” The allness orienta-
tion does not necessarily manifest itself in the extreme form of dogmatic behavior, the know-it-all,
the closed mind; it manifests itself in extremely subtle ways, the refusal to listen, the refusal to learn,
the refusal to change or keep up to date, etc.
Oh boy, I used to teach at Northwestern’s Traffic Institute. I loved teaching those army offic-
ers—police chiefs, Navy officers. When they came to class with their uniform on, they’d shove a
shoulder at you as if to say, “OK boy, I dare you to teach me. Show me something I don’t already
know!”
They’d come to class in a T-shirt, and their behavior would be different.
I had one colonel—this was interesting—he sent me a letter. He said, “I want you to know that
during the class I didn’t believe one damn word you said.” He said, “I now find myself practicing
these principles. Would you please send me your quiz? I want to teach this way.”
So what I do, the first principle that I want to talk about, very quickly, is the signal reaction.
Most misevaluations start from the signal reaction, automatic, impulsive behavior.
Here we have something—an event or happening which has a nervous impact— followed by
an evaluation, a way of thinking, then talk. After the word “talk,” add the word act, because we are
concerned with behavior, especially stupid behavior not based on facts.
In fact, Irving Lee called his introductory class, “Language and Thought.” And I said, “Why
don’t you call it Language, Thought and Behavior?” And he said, “The psychology boys think that
behavior is within their province.”
The book that I’m going to finish [writing] is called, How to Think, Communicate and Behave
Intelligently. Note behave intelligently—we are concerned with behavior.
George Santayana said, “The aim of education is the condition of suspended judgment on ev-
erything.” I don’t know, let’s see. How can we train people in saying, “I don’t know?”
Where do you think that’s from—general semantics! It’s the non-allness orientation.
When I gave these chairs to the different universities, one of the universities didn’t want to call
it “general semantics.” They wanted to call it “language,” and I said “OK” just to get it into the
university. But I made sure that general semantics was an important part.
You see, Irving Lee used to say, “You’ve got to realize that general semantics did not come from
within the university”—Korzybski was not a PhD, Korzybski was not a professor.” Although
Hayakawa, and Lee, and Wendell Johnson and others did work from within universities.
So the most important thing, the reason I gave this money, was to get it within the university.
Now I’m looking for dynamic young teachers—and Steve, I will finance public speaking con-
tests, because when I was in ninth grade, I began entering oratorical contests—the greatest training
I’ve ever had.
And in my show-business career—who do you think I modeled myself after—it was a great
showman, Irving J. Lee!
Now we have neuro-linguistic programming. You see, I was the first teacher as far as I know, to
use hypnosis and self-hypnosis in education. I won’t talk about that—but very important, hypnosis
is a powerful tool to internalize the principles of general semantics.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to jump to conclusions. It takes no gray-matter at all. We must
teach the difference between our inferences and statements of fact. For example:
A well-filled bus was proceeding down a Boston thoroughfare, when a truck cut sharply into its
path, and only the bus driver’s quick wits and action prevented disaster. Pale and shaken, he voiced
his estimate of the vanishing truck driver’s character, origin, and mode of life, in words appallingly
stark. Then remembering the audience at his back, he turned to face them.
A little white-haired woman forestalled his apology. “My congratulations,” she said, “upon an
admirable presentation of what we may reasonably assume to be the facts.”
This one is kind of subtle, very subtle, and it afflicts all of us:
A man, accompanied by a small boy, entered a barber shop, and he asked for a haircut. When
the barber had finished with him, the man said, “I’m going next door for a beer while you cut the
kid’s hair.” The barber gave the boy a haircut and waited for the man to return. Finally, he turned to
the kid and asked, “Where in Pete’s sake did your father go?”
“Oh,” said the boy, “That ain’t my father, he’s a man who stopped me in the street and asked me
if I’d like to get a free haircut.”
The third barrier to effective communication is the allness orientation. And the Kodishes, plus
many people, give an excellent description of the process of abstracting, how our nervous system
abstracts.
And in my classes I ask the question, “Can we know all about anything?” And finally the stu-
dents come to the conclusion, after awhile, that you cannot know all about anything.
Then I ask them, “Have you ever met individuals who act as if they know all about everything
or something?” Oh yeah. It’s always the other person.
So that’s the allness orientation. The other half of abstracting is that if you are not conscious of
abstracting, you fall victim to the allness orientation. And the important thing is that it is so ex-
tremely subtle. It manifests itself in the refusal to listen; and usually I fall victim to some of the
illustrations myself.
All of you are listening to a different lecture right now. All of your are sitting on your assump-
tions! And I’m standing on mine.
How do we know that the roof won’t cave in? Life is a series of assumptions. But wisdom be-
gins when we check our assumptions, when we don’t pass off our inferences and assumptions as if
they were factual.
So the allness orientation manifests itself in the refusal to listen, the refusal to learn, the refusal
to look or look again, the refusal to change or keep up-to-date, assuming knowledge that one does
not have, the refusal to ask questions. Both the speaker and the listener must ask the other person,
“Do you know what I mean,”or “Is this what you mean?”
So we have many examples here. Here’s one that I like, of abstracting:
We were seated in the lobby of the hotel as she walked swiftly by us. She turned a corner sharply
and was gone. “That’s an uncommonly good-looking girl,” I said to my wife, who was deep in a
cross-word puzzle.
“Do you mean the one in that imitation blue-taffeta dress with the green and red flower design?”
“The girl that just walked by,” I said. “Yes,” said my wife, “with that dowdy rayon dress on. It’s
a copy of the one that I saw at Hattie Carnegie’s, and a poor copy at that. You’d think though that
she’d have better taste than to wear a chartreuse hat with it, especially with her bleached hair.”
“Bleached? I didn’t notice her hair was bleached.”
“Good heavens, you could almost smell the peroxide. I don’t mind a bit of make-up, provided
it looks fairly natural, but you could scrape that rouge off with a knife. They ought to add a course
in make-up to the curriculum at Smith.”
“Smith? Why Smith?”
“From her class pin, of course. You must have noticed it from her charm bracelet.”
“I wasn’t looking at her wrist.”
“I bet you weren’t, nor at those fat legs of hers either. A woman with legs like that shouldn’t
wear high-heels, patent leather shoes.”
“I thought she was a very pretty girl,” I said, apologetically.

“Well you may be right,” said my wife. “I was busy with my crossword puzzle, and I didn’t
notice her, particularly.” [audience laughter]
And you know what an atheist is, don’t you? An atheist is a person who goes to a Notre Dame,
Southern Methodist football game, and doesn’t care who wins.
I watch a lot of sports—I happen to have four television sets that I watch every night at the
same time, including my favorite, a 61-inch one, where I watch sports. Right now, I’m video-taping
the fight.
I hypnotized Ken Norton for two and a half years—Bob Eddy was at the fight where Norton
was knocked out by José Garcia, 1970.
I was having my success seminars at Ken Norton’s manager’s hotel at La Jolla, at the Holiday
Inn. I saw this gray-haired guy back there being hypnotized. He came up to me and said, “You know,
my boxer Ken Norton just got knocked out by José Garcia. I believe in what you are teaching—
success motivation—and would you hypnotize him?”
I hypnotized Ken for two and a half years, right through the time when he broke Mohammed
Ali’s jaw.
Then I was supposed to be on Johnny Carson’s show with Ken, but the manager went on Johnny
Carson’s show with Ken Norton himself. They froze me out completely, and I wouldn’t hypnotize
him after that.
Now basically what I am saying is that what I teach in success motivation is that nobody cares
about you except you yourself. You’ve got to learn to be inner directed, to quote David Reisman in
his book, The Lonely Crowd. There are known ‘laws’ of success.
Steve, tomorrow, if I could have five minutes, I’ve got many other cassettes that I’ve written
and recorded. Charles Peirce’s Philosophy of Science, A. J. Ayer’s book, I’ve got my whole success
seminar, 13 cassettes, where I brought together general semantics, communication, and the ‘laws’
of success.
Now heretofore we didn’t want to bring success motivation into general semantics. That’s why
we don’t have so many people here at the conference. You’ve got to get to the average person. They’re
the ones who need it. And I can talk to you more about that. OK?
Here’s the one I like on abstracting. Some of you may recall this. [See “The Role of Language
in the Perceptual Processes, in Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, pp. 170-171.]
“In a railroad compartment an American grandmother with her young and attractive granddaugh-
ter, a Romanian officer, and a Nazi officer, were the only occupants. The train was passing through
a dark tunnel, and all that was heard was a loud kiss and a vigorous slap. After the train emerged
from the tunnel, nobody spoke, but the grandmother was saying to herself, ‘What a fine girl I have
raised; she will take care of herself. I’m proud of her.’ The granddaughter was saying to herself,
‘Well, grandmother is old enough not to mind a little kiss; besides, the fellows are nice. I’m sur-
prised what a hard wallop grandmother has.’ The Nazi officer was meditating, ‘How clever those
Romanians are—they steal a kiss and have the other fellow slapped.’ The Romanian officer was chuck-
ling to himself, ‘How smart I am! I kissed my own hand and slapped the Nazi!’ [audience laughter]
I like this next example because it’s so subtle, the allness orientation. Notice this.
A friend of mine, who is a father of 12, volunteered to baby-sit one evening so that his wife
could have an evening’s relaxation at the movies. “Don’t let a single one of them come downstairs,”
his wife instructed him as she went out.
He promised to carry out her instructions to the letter, and had just settled down with a book
when he heard steps up the stairway. “Get back upstairs and stay there,” he commanded sternly.
He read in peace for a few minutes and again heard soft footsteps. This time he added the threat
of a spanking.
Soon he again detected stealthy sounds, and dashed out in time to see a small lad disappear up
the top steps.
He had hardly returned to his book when a neighbor came in distractedly. “Oh Fred,” she wailed,
“I can’t find my Willy anywhere. Have you seen him?”
“Here I am, Ma,” said a tearful voice from the top of the stairs. “He won’t let me go home!”
[audience laughter]
So this allness orientation is so extremely subtle! And if we are trained in general semantics, we
shouldn’t behave like the “average” person. We will check our assumptions. We will look and see.
Thomas Edison said, “Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure.” Charles
Kettering said, “Some minds are like concrete, all mixed up and permanently set.”
And again to show you the subtlety, here is another example:
The young man said in a faint voice, “You don’t want to buy any life-insurance do you?”
“I certainly do not,” the sales manager replied.
“I thought you didn’t,” the embarrassed solicitor said, and he headed for the door.
Then the sales manager called him back and addressed the confused and frightened young man.
“My job is to hire and train salesmen, and you’re about the worst salesman I’ve ever seen. You’ll
never sell by asking people if they don’t want to buy. But because you’re just starting out, I’m go-
ing to take out $10,000 worth of insurance with you right now. Get out an application blank.”
Fumblingly the salesman did so, and the deal was closed. Then the sales manager said, “An-
other word of advice young man. Learn a few standard organized sales talks!”
“Oh, I’ve already done that,” the salesman replied. “I’ve got a standard talk for every type of
prospect. This is my organized approach to sales managers.” [audience laughter]
One final example deals with projection and misunderstanding. I ask my students, “Where do
you find meaning?” And invariably they say, “Meanings are in words.”
When I was at Teacher’s College, Columbia, I had a discussion with one of the English teach-
ers, and she said, “What’s the difference if you say, “Meanings are in words,” or “Meanings are in
people”? I didn’t have the answer then.
Well, I learned later on from Irving Lee: Here we have the speaker; here we have the listener.
The speaker speaks with his meaning and the listener listens with her meaning. This is mode A
[speaker], and this is mode B [listener]. And the question is, how can we get the speaker and the
listener on the same channel of communication, mode C?
So I asked them, “The burden for effective communication is upon whom, the speaker or the
listener?” Some people say the speaker, some people say the listener. Obviously, it’s upon both.
If your concentration is on the speaker’s words, if you start with the assumption that words contain
meaning, then you fall victim to the problem of misunderstanding. Irving Lee called it, “the con-
tainer myth,” the mythical assumption that words contain meaning as that glass there contains wa-
ter.
As Charles Sanders Peirce said—and I pronounce it “Purse” in my recordings because this was
the pronunciation when he was in England. Charles Sanders Peirce said, “You do not get meaning,
you respond with meaning.” And so there are two ways of evaluating.
One is, let’s say, mode A. If you assume that meanings are in words, you’ll stop or short-circuit
the process of communication too quickly. The logic runs, “I know what the word means, therefore
I know what you mean.” You stop right here, and you misunderstand.
But in mode B, if you are trained in general semantics to realize that meanings are not in words,
they’re in people, your attention will be on the speaker.
I don’t want to know what the word means. I can look up 50 definitions in a dictionary, and it
might very well be the wrong one—compared to how you are using it. I want to know what you
mean.
And so the burden for effective communication is both upon the speaker (to be specific and
concrete, and as extensional as possible) and the listener (to get on the speaker’s channel of com-
munication).
In business and industry, before an executive or a worker goes off and misunderstands the directive
and costs the company hundreds or thousands of dollars, ask some simple questions: “What do you mean?
How are you using the word? What do you want me to do?”
And this stuff is so simple, but so important in business and industry. In other words, words are am-
biguous. We must be trained in the ambiguity of language.
Other points, and I will cover these very quickly, we learn the ‘meanings’ of words from our past
experience. Therefore, meanings are personal; all of you are listening to a different lecture. Also, mean-
ings are arbitrary. There is no inherent relationship between the word and what it represents. And finally,
words don’t mean anything, people mean. Meanings are in people, they are not in words.
Well, we talked about the tests that we can give. Here is one I used to give to my students at the
Illinois Institute of Technology. We have an ambiguous picture, hard to see (of a worker coming into his
boss’s office), about a couple of guys. There’s a girl looking disheveled. And the question, “What will
they talk about, who are these people, how will it come out?” And on the bottom, “Write down the name,
age, and sex.”
And so you send five or six people outside, but keep one person there, and you pick a picture and let
him or her look at a picture for a couple of minutes; then you bring the next person in, and the first person
describes the picture to that person, and you bring in another person, and he/she describes it to that per-
son, and so on.
And at the Illinois Institute of Technology, it turned out that the last person described the picture as
showing a guy and a girl having sex in an alley. It was the funniest thing in the world as you saw the
progression.
So in communication, you see two things happening, you have lost information, and you also will
have adding-in, what was not there in the first place.
Here is another test that you can give your students, that I give to my students a lot.
There’s a card on which four sentences are written, headed by “Bet you a drink that you can’t read
this card aloud correctly.” The students see, “Paris in the spring, Slow men at work, Once in a lifetime,
Bird in the hand”—I’ve gone all the way around the class, every one of them reading out loud the same
thing. In reality, it says, “Paris in the the Spring, Bird in the the hand, Slow men at at work, Once in a a
lifetime, Bird in the the hand.” All the way around the room; people normally, naturally project their own
meanings, or what they expect to see.
And so in human communication, number one, as we have said, “You learn the ‘meanings of
words’ not from a dictionary, but from your past experience.” Here’s a good example:
The Lord’s Prayer has had to withstand considerable abuse, especially from children trying to
learn it from poor enunciators or from mumbling congregations. One little boy was heard to pray,
“Harold be Thy name.” Another begged, “Give us this day our jelly bread.” A New York child pe-
titioned, “Lead us not into Penn Station.” [audience laughter] You can never be certain what the
response will be.
The wife was talking with the maid. “You know, I suspect my husband is having an affair with
his secretary.” To which the maid replied, “I don’t believe it—you’re only saying it to make me
jealous.”
I like this one here. Notice the subtlety of the allness orientation. It was lunchtime. The elderly
clerk opened his sandwiches, looked at them, exclaimed bitterly, “Cheese sandwiches, always cheese
sandwiches!”
“Why don’t you ask your wife to fix you another kind of sandwich,” a colleague asked. “Who
is married,” said the man, indignantly. “I make these sandwiches myself.”
I get a lot of these emails, and I love this one. I break up laughing; I hope I won’t be crying in
front of all of you. But let me share this with you. A lawyer is questioning a doctor on the stand.
“Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check the pulse?” Answer: “No.”
Question: “Did you check for blood pressure?” Answer: “No.”
Question: “Did you check for breathing?” Answer: “No.”
Question: “So then, is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the
autopsy.” Answer: “No.”
Question: “How can you be so sure doctor?” Answer: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk
in a jar.”
Question: “But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?” Answer: “Yes, it is pos-
sible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.” [audience laughter]
Here’s another one.
Question: “All your responses must be oral, OK?” Answer: “OK.”
Question: “What school did you go to?” Answer: “Oral.”
You do not get meaning. Your respond with meaning.
[Other stories]
Question: “Did you blow your horn or anything?” Answer: “After the accident?”
Question: “Before the accident?” Answer: “Sure, I played for ten years, I even went to school
for it.”
Judge: “Well, sir, I’ve reviewed this case, and I’ve decided to give your wife $775 a week.
Husband: “That’s fair your honor. I’ll try to send her a few bucks myself.”
Question: “What is your date of birth?” Answer: “July 15th.” Question: “What year.” Answer:
“Every year.”
“It was announced today that Canada is now prepared to help the United States in its war against
terrorism. They have promised to commit two of their largest battleships, six thousand armed troops,
and 50 fighter jets. However, after the exchange rate, that comes down to a canoe, two Mounties,
and a flying squirrel.”
Well, we have a lot of these kinds of examples and illustrations to illustrate the humorous as-
pects of why we have misunderstandings, the ambiguity of language; and if you use jokes and illus-
trations, and entertainment in your lectures you are likely to have a better result. As Irving Lee said,
“Humor is the most disarming means of persuasion.”
I once lectured at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for a management group. And I followed
Elliot Janeway—I don’t know if any of you ever heard of him—he was a famous economist. The
boringest, driest guy you ever met in your life.
And he was standing, reading his speech—guys were going to sleep—talked a long time...
You see, I’m a speech teacher. I’ve heard some speech teachers at speech conventions speak in
a monotone [Here Dr. Berman speaks very softly in a monotone with no audience contact to illus-
trate poor speech]: “Today I want to lecture on public speaking students who are very bad speakers.
They have no audience contact, they have no vocal projection, they have no vocal variety...” These
are speech teachers!
So what I am saying here—use examples and illustrations and jokes, and above all, bodily
movement. You’ll make a tough target.
Well, one of the important things we general semanticists learn—that as we go through life, we
know some of these principles, but it’s still difficult to get them into our nervous systems.
I’ve handed out some things in answer to Jeff’s question, “How do you train people in general
semantics?”
I’ve written a couple of pages on that. Number one, Wendell Johnson talked about the semantic
diary. I’ve had my students use that at the universities. I’ve written some other things of what you
might do. Cut out a picture of some fruit from a page, cut out any kind of food, and give it to your
students—and tell them to eat it. That’s pretty extensional (factual). The word is not the thing! You’ve
got to get off of the verbal level in training your students.
And so although we realize that we should change our ways of thinking, communicating, and
behaving, it’s still very difficult for many of us to do so, as indicated by this final example:
There was once a man who went around saying, “You know I think I’m dead.” His friends fi-
nally persuaded him to consult a psychiatrist. When the patient told the psychiatrist that he thought
he was dead, the psychiatrist told him to clench his fists, stand before a mirror and say, “Dead men
don’t bleed.” He told the man to repeat this motion six times a day for a month, each time saying,
“Dead men don’t bleed.”
He told the man to go home and carry out his instructions, and return at the end of the month.
The patient carried out the psychiatrist’s instructions and at the end of the month he returned.
The psychiatrist told him once again to go through the motions. The reason he had him tighten his
fists was so the veins would come to the surface of the man’s wrists. The man tightened his fists—
and just as he said, “Dead men don’t bleed,” the psychiatrist jabbed a scalpel into the man’s wrist.
The blood gushed out, and the man hollered, “By God, dead men do bleed!” [audience laughter]
Let me leave you with one bit of advice, and I mean this very, very sincerely:
Don’t believe one word I’ve said. Go out and try it.
Thank you all very much.
GENERAL SEMANTICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE:
FROM PRE-ARISTOTELIAN TO POST-EINSTEINIAN
BY SANFORD I. BERMAN
Ever since Science and Sanity was first published in 1933, Alfred Korzybski has had his share
of both critics and supporters in the academic community. The eminent logician, Alfred Tarski, for
one, was highly critical.1 On the other hand, Cassius J. Keyser, the eminent mathematical philoso-
pher, was highly complimentary.2
How could eminent scholars in many different fields perceive the “same” book in such diverse
ways?
The Philosophies of Science

For several years I have been studying the philosophies of science as related to general seman-
tics. Notice that I say the philosophies of science, as there are as many philosophies of science as
there are philosophers of science.
What are the relationships between general semantics and the philosophy of science? Was
Korzybski on the right track? Is there a relationship between general semantics and the history of
science? What are some of the important similarities between general semantics and the history of
man’s thought from pre-scientific thinking to modern scientific thinking?
In my research I have chosen two important principles of general semantics that relate to the
history of science. There are, of course, many other principles, which will be presented in a larger
study.
The two most important principles that I was looking for were 1) the extensional and intensional
orientations, and 2) the principles of elementalism and non-elementalism.
Irving J. Lee, in his book Language Habits in Human Affairs, differentiated between the inten-
sional orientation and the extensional orientation in the following way: “Intensional orientations are
based on verbal definitions, associations, etc., largely disregarding observations as if they would involve
a ‘principle’ of ‘talk first and never mind life facts.’ Extensional orientations are based on ordering obser-
vations, investigations, etc., first, and the verbalization next in importance.” (p. 123)
Wendell Johnson in People In Quandaries said:
In its more general sense, extensionalization refers to what we have otherwise described as the sci-
entific method, and as the process of abstracting, carried on consciously and adequately. To behave
in accordance with the principle of extensionalization is to behave scientifically, keeping the levels
of abstraction distinct and coordinated, maintaining adequate word-fact relationships, abstracting
in the proper order from lower to higher levels and back again to lower, maintaining effective
relationship[s] between inferences and facts. . . In its more specific sense, extensionalization refers to
orientation on the non-verbal levels of abstraction.” (pp. 199-200)
Robert Pula in A General-Semantics Glossary said:
By intension Korzybski indicated a human over-commitment to or over-dependence on definitions,
verbalizations (‘If I can define it, I know it.’), while disdaining or simply being unaware of a need
for observation, for generating and checking data, and for being willing to engage in self-challeng-
ing formulations, such as ‘How do I know that? Why do I say that? What evidence might I discover
which might disconfirm what I am claiming, what I have just said?’
A person who consistently does not or refuses to ask such questions is said to operate on the basis
of an intensional orientation.” (p. 25)
Perhaps the definitions of the intensional and extensional orientation that I followed more closely
were the definitions given by Irving Lee in his introductory class in general semantics: Language
and Thought. Dr. Lee said that there are two general approaches to the solution of problems. There
is the verbal or intensional approach and the non-verbal or extensional approach. In the face of a
problem we can either theorize, verbalize, reason, argue, discuss and talk or we can stop talking and
experiment or do.
The extensional approach of solving a problem goes by the slogan, “I don’t know. Let’s see.”
You can talk until doomsday about a problem but you can never solve it until you stop talking and
experiment or DO what you are talking about. He said that whenever you find progress you will
find it when “theory talking” stopped and pilot studies or experiments were set up. And, as we will
see, this is why the empirical method, experimentation and the non-verbal testing of hypotheses or
theories was so important in the history of scientific progress.
The other general-semantics principle that was so important in the history of science was non-
elementalism. In writing about elementalism and non-elementalism in his Glossary, Robert Pula said:
Korzybski formulated time-binding as the defining human act; the behavior by which humans dem-
onstrate their humanity. Having identified language as the tool of time-binding, Korzybski exerted
himself to tease out, via linguistic analysis, those aspects of language(s) that, from a structural point
of view, constitute flaws and, therefore, impediments to time-binding. One deeply pervasive
neurolinguistic flaw he spotted he called elementalism. By elementalism Korzybski meant the ten-
dency to verbally split what can’t be found (observed, abstracted) split in the non-verbal (silent)
domain. With words, primarily nouns, we are able to refer to ‘things’ (presumed phenomena, ac-
tivities) as if they exist in an encapsulated form, cut off from the surround of which they constitute
an interactive ingredient. The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) credits
Korzybski with this coinage-formulation thusly: “The verbal separation into separate concepts or
entities or things which cannot be separated empirically or physically, e.g., space and time, body
and mind’. …”
Korzybski maintained (formulated) that these erroneous linguistic splits violate the structures of
the non-verbal world as inferred by up-to-date science and that their use has profound extensional-
operational implications.…The classical ‘cure’ for elementalism is found in Korzybski’s prescrip-
tion of the hyphen: not space and time, but space-time [some of the modern books write it as one
word, “spacetime”—SIB] not mind and body, but mind-body; not observer and observed, but ob-
server-observed, the observer-observed continuum.” (pp. 12-14)
I will point out many examples of elementalism and non-elementalism where elementalistic
assumptions, dichotomies or separations of phenomena, were replaced by inter-relatedness and rela-
tivity. In fact, non-elementalism is at the heart of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.
In the history of man we see the tendency to study man and “things” out of their context, away
from the totality. The process of conveniently subdividing the world was a fruitful way of getting at
particular things, but it subdivided us away from the larger, more important relational wholes. In
psychology, more recently, we have come to talk about man as an organism-as-a-whole. But
Korzybski says that we must talk about man-as-a-whole-in-an-environment (ecological thinking) -
at-a-date. But too often we tend to separate man from his environment, which empirically we can-
not do. Man, as well as the world at large, is an inherent part of his or her outer, as well as inner
(neuro-semantic), environment. “Things” in this world are related, so we must discard primitive
elementalistic terms which imply structurally a non-existent isolation.
GENERAL SEMANTICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 25
Wendell Johnson, in his book, People in Quandaries, gives a very good summary of some of
the differences between pre-scientific and scientific thinking. He says that in pre-scientific thinking
or orientation there is the fundamental notion of the static character of reality. The main attention is
given to similarities and identities which lead to generalized identification: identifying words with
things; identifying what is inside of us with what is outside; the failure to see differences in people,
situations, and things.
A fundamental notion in scientific thinking or the scientific orientation is the process character
of reality. He says that a process reality gives rise to a never-ending series of differences. More at-
tention is paid to differences than similarities only, or identities, in people, situations and things. An
important consequence is that we observe the world of reality in terms of uniqueness, differences as
well as similarities, instead of acting as if “They are all the same.”
Another example of prescientific thinking or orientation is rigidity, the closed mind, the ten-
dency to maintain established beliefs and habits regardless of changing conditions. Experimenta-
tion is discouraged, which perpetuates the intensional or verbal orientation. With the scientific ori-
entation, adaptability, which is readiness to change as changing conditions require, is fostered by
these basic notions of process differences. Thus there is a tendency to challenge authority system-
atically, to experiment, to test traditional beliefs against actual observation and experience. This is
the extensional orientation.
Language plays a very important role both in the prescientific and scientific orientation. In the
language of a prescientific orientation, if the language is not clear, a properly appointed authority
will interpret it, and his interpretation is to be believed. The validity of authoritarian pronounce-
ments is not to be questioned. Statements of assumption and statements of fact tend to be regarded
as the same. The language in a scientific orientation, however, is designed to be factually meaning-
ful, directly or indirectly, and clear and valid. It is intended to satisfy two important tests: “What do
you mean?” and “How do you know?” Moreover, assumptions are sharply differentiated from state-
ments of fact. As we will see there are many examples of meaningless words or statements taken to
be meaningful until exposed by an Einstein or others.
Language has played an important role in the asking of questions. Prescientific language, said
Johnson, tends to make for questions that are frequently vague and quite often meaningless factu-
ally. Attempts to answer such questions give rise to misunderstandings and disagreements, to mis-
information and misleading theories, with the result that predictability is achieved slowly or not at
all. Scientific language is oriented around factually clear, answerable questions. Vague or meaning-
less questions are abandoned because they misdirect human energy. Einstein was concerned with a
different form of energy and he, along with Niels Bohr, was concerned with meaninglessness and
the important role that language plays in science and the philosophy of science.
In the prescientific orientation, the natural process of projection is carried out unconsciously,
which Johnson calls a relative lack of “to-me-ness.” It is realized only vaguely, or not at all, as ev-
ery statement conveys information about the speaker as well as information about whatever the
speaker may seem to be talking about; and, said Johnson, the degree of self-reference is largely ig-
nored in evaluating the statement’s factual significance. In the scientific orientation, on the other
hand, the natural process of projection is carried out with a high degree of awareness, conscious-
ness of projection or “to-me-ness.” It is realized that every statement conveys information about
the speaker as well as information about whatever the speaker may seem to be talking about.
In prescientific thinking accurate prediction is not a particularly well-recognized objective. In a

prescientific orientation there are, rather, beliefs regarding the “supernatural.” These tend not to be
changed, because they are considered not as theories but as statements of fact. Faith in these be-
liefs, and obedience to the authority which represents them—obedience expressed by participation
in prescribed rituals, for example—are prized as the means of control over natural and human events.
This faith in beliefs (higher-order faith in faith) is accompanied by the failure to realize that the
word “faith” is a multiordinal term whose meaning is determined by the context of the sentence, the
order of abstraction, or how the person is using the term.
Now, let us consider some examples of prescientific thought or prescientific orientations.
Prescientific Thought
Prescientific thought was characterized by unconscious projections and lack of consciousness of
abstracting. In the beginning there was fear, and fear was in the heart of man. Fear controlled man. At
every turn it overwhelmed him. With the wild wind it swept over him. With the crashing of the thunder
and the growling of the beasts all of the days and nights were fraught with fear. He could not give himself
the thought that much of the evil was accidental. He could not conceive of the accidental. To him all
things that occurred were full of meaning, were intentional. His projections occurred all around him. To
him, the boulder that fell and crushed his shoulder had wanted to fall and crush it.
To the savage there was nothing absurd in the idea that everything around him bore him malice, for
he had not yet discovered that some things were inanimate. In the world he saw about him, all objects
were animate; sticks, stones, storms, and all else. Animism is common in its crudest form in certain sav-
age superstitions, that every natural object possesses an inherent spiritual being or soul. And projection
is the basis of animism. The boulder that fell and crushed his shoulder had wanted to fall and crush it.
Projection was a common feature of primitive and prescientific thought. Not merely were all
things animate to the savage, but they were seething with emotions too. Things could be angry, or
they could be pleased. They could destroy him if they willed, or they could let him alone.
And so, man was forced to resort to more subtle methods of attack. Since blows could not sub-
due the hostile rocks, streams, lightening or thunder, our ancestor tried to subdue them with magic.
He thought words might avail: strange syllables uttered in groans, or meaningless shouts accompa-
nied by beating tom-toms. Or he tried wild dances. Or luck charms. If these spells failed, then he
invented others. If those, in turn, failed, he invented still others. He projected countless words, sym-
bols, dances and thoughts into the world of reality. Of one thing he seemed most stubbornly con-
vinced: that some spell would work. Somehow the hostile things around him could be appeased or
controlled, he believed; somehow death could be averted. Man had to have faith in himself, or die—
and he would not die. So he had faith—and developed religion.
Long before man thought of religion, he tried to control the “powers” of the universe with magic.
If he speculated about the storms, lightening, swift wind, falling rocks and other hazards he prob-
ably decided the very objects he saw had an animus against him. Only later, much later, did he ad-
vance, sufficiently to be able to think of those “powers” not as the objects themselves, but as invis-
ible spirits inhabiting them. Primitive man was unable to draw fine distinctions between soul and
body, between spirit and matter. Historians nowadays call that stage in the development of magic
the “animistic,” from the Latin anima meaning “spirit.” There are millions of people in the world to-
day who still remain bogged in that animistic stage of magic, belief, and the intensional orientation.
Primitive Magic
As we journey through the history of man’s thought we will have occasion to marvel at the lure
of magic and magical thinking, the power of mysticism in all stages of human thought. “Primitiv-
ism” is not extirpated from our cultural heritage. Magical thinking is a lingering survival, a cultural
relic, of the age of ignorance and superstition.
Philosophers of science say that there is no question that the first real advances toward the for-
mulation of a “scientific methodology” and corpus of scientific knowledge were made by the cre-
ators of Western culture, the ancient Greeks. They taught us that the origin of philosophy lies in
“wonder,” the sense of curiosity. Who made the universe? How did man himself come into being?
All primitive peoples have their theories which, for them, provide the answers to these questions.
Their speculations about the origins of man, the earth, and the heavens, were invariably anthropo-
morphic in nature, always in terms of some creative power in the universe similar to man.
In all the mythologies of primitive peoples man himself occupies a central position. Anthropo-
morphism, ascribing human characteristics to non-human things, and anthropocentrism, regarding
man as the central fact of the universe, seem to constitute necessary steps in the forward progress of
human thinking. This appears natural because man’s theories must be woven out of his experiences,
and experience begins with the human individual, who is therefore the first center of early thought.
It was because of man’s innate tendency toward anthropocentrism that man thought of himself
and the earth on which he lives as the center of the universe. This is what the geocentric theory of
the universe presupposes. There were a number of factors which would lead man to regard himself
and the earth itself as the central object and focal point of cosmic events.
It was a slow process which gradually brought about the decline and death of the geocentric and
anthropocentric theories which primitive peoples believed and which prescientific thought had
universally adopted.
Science, and physics in particular, is the application of non-elementalism in many areas. Lloyd
Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver, in their book The Story of Physics said, “But the physicist goes
beyond the mere knowledge of facts because his ultimate concern is deducing from these facts ba-
sic laws that enable him to correlate what appear to be disparate phenomena and to predict future
events.” (p.vii) In the history of science disparate phenomena, elementalistic phenomena which
had been assumed to be separate, were shown to have important relationships which lead to new
and important phenomena. Motz and Weaver go on to show the vast difference between the ancient
Greeks’ intensionally-oriented speculations and the exensionally-oriented achievements of Nicolaus
Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Johannes Kepler.
Socrates and Plato

One of the Greek philosophers was Socrates. He developed what has become known as the
“Socratic Method.” Like the modern day general semanticist, he went around uncovering assump-
tions and questioning certainties. If men discoursed too readily on justice, he asked them, quietly,
to define it. What is it? What do you mean by these abstract words with which you so easily settle
the problems of life and death? What do you mean by honor, virtue, morality, patriotism? Some
who used this “Socratic Method,” this demand for accurate definitions, clear thinking and exact
analysis, left men’s minds more confused than before. But Socrates pointed out what scholars have
recognized for many centuries, the importance of unconscious assumptions in communication or
debate and the ambiguity of language, as well as many other hidden factors in the use of language.
Plato was a student of Socrates. He found a new joy in the “dialectic’ game of Socrates. To Plato,
it was a delight to observe the master deflating dogmas and puncturing presumptions with the sharp
point of his questions. But to Plato’s credit he passed from mere debate to careful analysis and fruit-
ful discussion. He became a very passionate lover of wisdom. He was known to have said, “I thank
God that I was born in the age of Socrates.”
To Plato, philosophy means to think clearly, which is metaphysics. For that purpose, said Plato,
the young elite should study the doctrine of Ideas. The Idea of a thing might be the “general idea”
of the class to which it belongs. Behind the surface phenomena and particulars which greet our senses,
are generalizations, regularities, laws which are unperceived by sensation or our senses but con-
ceived by reason and thought. These Ideas, laws and ideals, says Plato, are more permanent and
therefore more real than the sense-perceived particular things through which we conceive and de-
duce them.
Aristotle and Aristotelianism

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. Some philosophers have said that he was prepared from the be-
ginning to become the founder of science. He went to Athens to study philosophy under Plato and
he has been described as the most synthetic thinker in the history of thought. He coordinated a wealth
of knowledge as probably never before had passed through the mind of one man. And while Alfred
Korzybski called his discipline of general semantics a non-aristotelian system, as we shall see, this
was not in any way anti-Aristotle. Non-aristotelianism merely recognizes the tremendous limita-
tions of knowledge circa 384 to 322 B.C. As Zeller, in his book Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatet-
ics, says;
He was compelled to fix time without a watch, to compare degrees of heat without a thermometer,
to observe the heavens without a telescope, and the weather without a barometer ... Of all our math-
ematical, optical and physical instruments he possessed only the rule and compass, together with
the most imperfect substitutes for some few others. Chemical analysis, correct measurements and
weights, and a thorough application of mathematics to physics, were unknown. The attractive force
of matter, the law of gravitation, electrical phenomena, the conditions of chemical combination,
pressure of air and its effects, the nature of light, heat, combustion, etc., in short, all the facts on
which the physical theories of modern science are based were wholly, or almost wholly, undiscov-
ered.”
Although Aristotle was much more factually or extensionally oriented than Plato, he seldom
appealed to experiment. The mechanisms of experimenting had not yet been made. The best he could
do was to achieve an almost universal and continuous observation. Yet, the vast body of data gath-
ered by him and his assistants became the groundwork of the progress of science, the textbook of
knowledge for two thousand years. This is one of the wonders of the work of one man!
Aristotle was much more extensional than Plato—and the great battlefield centered around the
question of “universals.” The battle would continue until this day between the “realists” and the
“nominalists.” A universal, to Aristotle, is any common noun, any name capable of universal appli-
cation to the members of a class. So, animal, man, book, tree, are universals. But these universals
are subjective notions, not objective realities. They are names not things. All that exists outside us,
said Aristotle, is a world of individual and specific objects, not of generic and universal things. Men
exist, and trees, and animals, but man-in-general, or the universal man, does not exist, except in
thought. Universals are a ‘mental’ abstraction, not an external presence.
The difference between the extensional and the intensional is illustrated in the differences be-
tween Aristotle and Plato. Plato held that universals have objective existence and that the universal
is incomparably more lasting, important and substantial than the individual. Men come and go, but
Man goes on forever. Aristotle concerned himself with the objective present, while Plato is con-
cerned with a subjective future. There is a general-semantic ring to this dialogue. There was, in the
socratic-platonic demand for definitions, a tendency away from things and facts to theories and ideas,
from particulars to generalities, from science to scholasticism. Plato became so devoted to gener-
alities that they began to determine his particulars, so devoted to ideas that they began to define or
select his facts.
Intensional Orientation and the Birth of Science

The first serious scientific questioning began in the civilization of ancient Greece. The Greeks
thought of themselves as natural philosophers, seeking to penetrate the secrets of nature by means
of reason and logic. Many notions that could have been proved wrong by the simplest experiments
were accepted as true without question. Debate and logical dialogue were the accepted methods of
investigation. Historians of science have said that philosophers would argue for months about some
point of “natural philosophy” which a modern scholar could have resolved in one minute flat with
a good slide rule. The intensional orientation was the rule of the day!
Even so, ancient Greece and her philosophers built a critical groundwork for the organized body
of scientific knowledge. It was upon their ideas, discoveries, and errors that the whole structure of
modern scientific exploration first arose.
The Greeks recognized philosophically that there was order in the universe. There was, the Greeks
concluded, a definite cause-and-effect relationship between things that occurred in nature. But we
see the intensional orientation among the early Greek philosophers. They believed that certain truths
about nature could be accepted as obviously true without proof, and then be used as basic axioms
from which other truths could be deduced by means of logic and reason. These so-called intuitive
truths were very fundamental things, so clearly and self-evidently true that they were considered
proofs unto themselves—things that “any fool could plainly see.”
The conclusions of the early Greeks did not come from careful experiment or measurement but
from somewhat casual common-sense observations. The ancient Greeks began to collect a volume
of basic scientific data and then built upon those data by means of logic and deduction. For example,
the basic axioms which form the basis of Euclid’s system of geometry, a system regarded as the
only possible system of geometry for almost two thousand years, were never considered subject to
proof. They were accepted as self-evidently true.
In the second century A. D., an Alexandrian Greek astronomer named Ptolemy created a mis-
conception that took a thousand years to clear up. Ptolemy assumed as self-evident that the earth
itself stood still in the heavens while the planets and the sun revolved around it. He also assumed
that all the heavenly bodies moved in perfect circles, since the circle was obviously the most per-
fect form of motion for a heavenly body. Fitting his common sense observations of the planetary
movements into these axioms, he developed a theory to explain the motion of the sun, the moon,
and the other planets around the earth. Finally, fifteen centuries later, somebody proved that both of
Ptolemy’s “self-evident” axioms were wrong, but so great was the stature and authority of those
early Greek philosophers that it took centuries to replace some of the false theories they propounded.
But by proving that nature behaved in an orderly manner, and that the truths about nature could be
uncovered by human intellect, the Greeks opened the door to a two-thousand-year-long assault upon
the riddles of nature. But they did not have a workable concept of a scientific method of investiga-
tion as we think of it today. They disdained experimentation, and considered their speculations and
hypotheses “proven” if they were logically and philosophically pleasing. The intensional orienta-
tion reigned supreme.
In the late 1400s some giants in science began to appear. The names of these men are well-known
today: Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Isaac Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and others. Theirs
was the world of classical physics. At long last they overthrew the ancient Greek, aristotelian tradi-
tion of investigation by debate and philosophy, and established a new tradition of investigation by
experiment—an extensional orientation—a tradition that has persisted to this day.
Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer born in 1473, was one of the first non-aristotelians.
He made the first and probably most revolutionary break with the ancient Greek tradition. No one
had dared to question Ptolemy’s basic assumptions—that one could use only the earth as the center
of the universe and that heavenly bodies had to move in circles. Drawing from a lifetime of his own
careful observations, Copernicus concluded that the sun had to be the center of our solar system,
not the earth, and that the earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. It was such a revo-
lutionary concept that Copernicus himself withheld its publication until the very end of his life.
And then, a century later, other astronomers began finding some new discrepancies between
theory and observation. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe spent the decades between 1570 and
1600 in a patient study of planetary motions, using better instruments and more astute observations
than Copernicus. But it remained for a young assistant of Tycho Brahe, a German astronomer named
Johannes Kepler, to study Brahe’s data and discover the truth: that the planets traveled in elliptical
orbits. He also found a relationship between the speed with which a planet moved and the distance
it lay from the sun. As a planet moved closer to the sun in its elliptical orbit, Kepler found, its veloc-
ity increased; when it swung away from the sun its velocity decreased. Kepler also noted that plan-
ets that lay close to the sun sped around it faster than those far distant, and these differences in the
periods of revolution of the various planets could be described in a fixed mathematical ratio to their
mean distances from the sun. A relatively new language was being used. And a new technique of
investigation. Supplanting philosophy, reason and speculation about casual observations, Copernicus,
Tycho Brahe, and Johannes Kepler for the first time demonstrated that careful observation and
measurement were the real keys to scientific discovery. They are the basis of the extensional orien-
tation.
Aristotelian and Non-Aristotelian Orientations

In the introduction to the second edition of Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski presented a
summary of some of the differences between the old aristotelian orientations and new general-se-
mantic, non-aristotelian orientations. He said that the old aristotelian orientations are characterized
by the subject-predicate methods, where the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication are paramount,
whereas the non-aristotelian orientation is characterized by relational methods. As we will see, the
whole history of science and scientific progress is characterized by relational methods, especially
Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.
Korzybski said that aristotelian orientations are characterized by static, ‘objective’, ‘permanent’,
‘substance’, ‘solid matter’, etc., orientations while the non-aristotelian orientations are dynamic,
ever-changing, etc., electronic process orientations. Electromagnetism and quantum mechanics are
characterized by this non-aristotelian orientation. The old aristotelian orientations considered ‘prop-
erties’ of ‘substance’, ‘attributes’, ‘qualities’ of matter, whereas the new general-semantic, non-
aristotelian orientation is concerned with non-static, dynamic structure of ‘particles’ and ‘waves’
rather than ‘substances’. The old aristotelian orientation is characterized by a one and two-valued,
‘either or’, inflexible, dogmatic orientation (the ‘allness’ orientation) whereas the non-aristotelian
orientation manifests infinite-valued flexibility and degree orientations (non-allness).
The old aristotelian orientation is characterized by identity or by definition, “absolute sameness
in ‘all’ respects,” whereas the non-aristotelian orientation displays empirical non-identity, a natural
law as universal as gravitation. The one and two-valued ‘certainty’ of the aristotelian orientation
was replaced with the infinite-valued maximum probability of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
and Quantum Mechanics. The old aristotelian and newtonian absolutes were replaced by the
einsteinian dynamic relativism. By definition ‘absolute emptiness’, and ‘absolute space’, were re-
garded as meaningless and were replaced by empirical fullness of electromagnetic, gravitational
‘fields’. By definition ‘absolute time’ and ‘absolute simultaneity’ were replaced by empirical space-
time and relative simultaneity. The additive, linear relationships of the aristotelian orientation were
replaced with the functional, mathematical, non-linear and non-additive relationships of the non-
aristotelian orientations. These will be indicated to show the importance of non-additivity in the
history of scientific discovery.
The old aristotelian orientation was concerned with the euclidean system of flat space, whereas
the non-aristotelian orientation is concerned with the non-euclidean systems of Reimann and
einsteinian curved space. The aristotelian orientation was one of “common sense” or sense data,
the macroscopic and microscopic levels, whereas in the non-aristotelian orientation, the sub-micro-
scopic levels are predominant, such as in quantum mechanics.
The old aristotelian orientations disregarded important environmental factors (elementalism) whereas
the non-aristotelian orientation emphasized organism-as-a-whole-in-environments, introducing new and
important unavoidable factors, such as the ‘field’ theories and ecological ‘thinking’, that any phenom-
enon must be analyzed relative to its environment, which may be an important component of its
behavior. The aristotelian orientation is characterized by one and two-valued causality, and so con-
sequent ‘final causation’ and certainty, whereas the non-aristotelian orientation is characterized by
infinite-valued causality, probability theories, statistics and statistical mechanics, where the ‘final
causation’ hypothesis is not needed. Korzybski also emphasized the aristotelian orientation as ad-
justing empirical facts to verbal patterns, whereas the non-aristotelian orientation is adjusting ver-
bal patterns to empirical facts.
Korzybski also included in his new general-semantic, non-aristotelian orientation several other
principles that were not considered in the old aristotelian orientations. They were, as he wrote, dis-
regarded. But they are important considerations in the philosophy of science and general semantics.
Korzybski said that we must consider undefined terms in our analysis of language and science.
In other words, underlying all use of language, the participants have certain unconscious assump-
tions which cannot be avoided. Korzybski emphasized the importance of our presuppositions, un-
conscious assumptions in communication and in any scientific endeavor. The undefined terms and
unconscious meanings in any communication process are always there and of paramount importance.
Korzybski also said that the self-reflexiveness of language was disregarded in the old aristotelian
orientations. He considered language as a kind of map, and he presented his famous map-territory
relationship. He said that two important characteristics of maps should be noticed. A map is not the
territory it represents. The word is not the thing, a map and a territory are on two different orders of
abstraction. But maps and languages, to be useful, must have a similar structure to the territory. If
a map could be ideally correct, it would include, in a reduced scale, the map of the map; the map of
the map, of the map; and so on, endlessly, a fact first noticed by philosopher Josiah Royce.
So language, said Korzybski, must be considered only as a map. A word is not the object it rep-
resents and language exhibits this peculiar self-reflexiveness. He recognized that self-reflexiveness
of language introduces serious complexities, which can only be solved by the theory of
multiordinality. He said that the disregard of these complexities is tragically disastrous in daily life
and science. While multiordinal mechanisms and terms are recognized in the new non-aristotelian
orientation, they are disregarded in the old aristotelian orientations.
The main characteristic of multiordinal terms consists of the fact that on different levels or or-
ders of abstraction they may have different meanings, with the result that they have no general
meaning, for their meanings are determined solely by the given context, which establishes the dif-
ferent orders of abstraction. The recognition of the multiordinality of the most important terms leads
to a conscious use of these terms in the multiordinal, extremely flexible, fully conditional sense.
Terms like ‘fact’, ‘reality’, ‘cause’, ‘effect’, ‘proposition’, ‘number’, ‘relation’, ‘order’, ‘structure’,
are multiordinal terms with different meanings for different users. Psychologically, says Korzyb-
ski, in the realization of the multiordinality of the most important terms, we have paved the way for
the specifically human, full conditionality of our semantic responses. The history of science has
presented many examples of the problems created by the lack of awareness of the multiordinality of
the most important terms.
Another important principle that was disregarded by the aristotelian orientation was the over/
under-defined character of terms, over-defined by verbal definition and under-defined by facts or
extensional orientation. One of the best examples of this is the consideration of the ‘ether’. `Ether’
had been postulated and used for many years until Michelson and Morley, and then Einstein, real-
ized that this intensional term could not be verified scientifically and it was finally rejected by Einstein
as a superfluous and factually meaningless concept. It had no physical referent. As Korzybski would
say, it was “noise” or as Hans Vaihinger in The Philosophy of ‘As If’ would say, it was a verbal
fiction.
It was assumed for many centuries that “ether” was a “thing,” something through which light
was transmitted. “Ether” or “aether” was a verbal fiction, as Einstein showed. In physics it is de-
fined as a hypothetical medium assumed to fill all space, and to form the means by which electrical
and magnetic disturbances and waves, including those of light, are transmitted. Commenting upon
this kind of fallacy of misplaced reification, John Stuart Mill said,
The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or
being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could
be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something
peculiarly abstruse and mysterious.
In fact, the dispute between the “realists,” who believe that behind a name there must be a “real”
essence, and the “nominalists,” who believe that names refer only to particular things, has had a
long history in philosophy.
Alfred Korzybski, in Science and Sanity, has called this misplaced reification objectification:
Let me recall the mechanism of objectification. If we do not reject explicitly and implicitly the ‘is’
of identity, we automatically identify different orders of abstractions and ascribe objective charac-
teristics to terms. Thus the term ‘time’ which represents a label for a feeling inside our skin, is given
an objective evaluation. If ‘objective’ it must have a ‘property’ of ‘simultaneity’, a semantic pro-

cess taken over from comparing two objective sticks when the two ends are made to coincide. On
the objective external level, we never deal with ‘time’ but we simply compare processes. When we
select an arbitrary unit process on the objective level, whatever we may say that it ‘is’, well, it is
not, and the difficulty is found exclusively in the use of the ‘is’ of identity.
If we abandon entirely the ‘is’ of identity, we stop objectification, we do not ascribe existence and
values outside our skin, to terms and semantic reactions inside our skin. But then of course we have
to change the structure of our language; as otherwise the old s.r [semantic reactions] will continue
to play tricks on us. An actional, operational, functional language of order is the structural solution
of our semantic difficulty.” (p. 675)
These are only a few of the differentiating characteristics of the old aristotelian orientations and
the newer non-aristotelian orientations.
Galileo and the Extensional Orientation

It was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) who forced scientists from all over Europe to throw out the
accepted conclusions of centuries, and the voices of authority. Galileo was the father of experiment,
repeatable experiment, which anyone else could duplicate. He was the father of the orderly state-
ment of principles or conclusions derived from experiments, which could then be subjected to fur-
ther experiment either to support or disprove them. Galileo, along with Francis Bacon, were the
two “fathers” of the extensional orientation.
Galileo established once and for all that experiment, measurement, and observation were more
valid ways of discovering the truth about nature than logic, reasoning, intuition and speculation. He
also firmly established the notion that the workings of nature throughout the universe were uni-
form. When something happened in one situation it could be counted upon always to happen the
same way in the same situation at another time or anywhere else in the universe. In other words,
Galileo proposed that any valid laws of nature were indeed laws. With Galileo’s extensional orien-
tation he had stumbled upon a powerful tool for the investigation of natural occurrences, the tool of
the scientific method. The scientific method involves four critical steps, each taken in turn and each
equally important in reaching a solution. Those steps are observation, hypothesis, experiment, and
finally, conclusion-drawing.
Common Sense and “Reality”

One night in northern Italy Galileo was intent upon measuring the speed of light with which a
beam would travel from one point to another. He had observed that other kinds of signals traveled
a given distance at a given, measurable speed. His goal was to measure this time interval and then,
knowing the distance between hilltops, to calculate the velocity of the light beam.
With his assistant watching from a distant hilltop, Galileo would unmask his lantern. The in-
stant his assistant saw the light, he would unmask his lantern in turn. The difference in time be-
tween opening the first lantern and observing the answering light from the second should then be
equivalent to the time required for a light beam to travel to the distant hilltop and back again.
Galileo was the leading early exponent of experimentation and the scientific method. He was
one of the most acute scientific observers in all history. Despite that, the experiment ended up as a
spectacular failure. The answering light from the distant hill was seen to appear at the very same
instant that Galileo opened his lantern. There was no time lag observed. No matter how many times
the experiment was repeated the result was the same.
To Galileo his hilltop experiment that night could mean only one thing: that light had no mea-
surable velocity, but rather, spread instantaneously to all parts of the universe at the same time. Today,
of course, we know that that conclusion is wrong. Light does have a measurable velocity. It requires
a definite interval of time to travel from one point to any other point in the universe. Galileo had no
way to guess that the distance between the hilltops that he had chosen was so small compared to the
enormously swift speed of light that the time lag he was trying to measure was simply not percep-
tible to the human eye. His instruments were too crude to measure the time lag. If anyone would
have told him that light actually traveled 186,000 miles in a single second he would not have be-
lieved him. Common sense was the primary dictator of all thinking and common sense said that
nothing could travel that fast!
Four centuries later Albert Michelson and Edward Morley performed another famous experi-
ment designed to measure the velocity of light.
They were also determined to find out to what degree a beam of light would be slowed down as
it traveled head-on through that mysterious, weightless, invisible substance known as the “univer-
sal ether,” which scientists of the day believed permeated all the space surrounding the earth and all
the space between the stars. Physicists argued that light had to travel through some medium.
Michelson and Morley were certain that they had devised a way to prove beyond question that
an “ether wind” existed on earth. But to their disappointment, not the slightest evidence of any in-
terference pattern appeared no matter what direction they rotated the mirrors. For centuries phi-
losophers had been talking about a “universal,” a verbal fiction which did not exist. “Common sense”
and projection had created something that was never there. It took Albert Einstein to point out that
the reason they had failed to detect an ether was because there never was an ether wind.
It was Galileo, more than any other person in history, who single-handedly opened the door to
the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion—in short, the exten-
sional orientation. Slowly the men of science who followed after Galileo began to reject mere philo-
sophical guesswork about what things were and why things happened, and began piecing together
a group of rules—the laws of physics or laws of nature—that seemed to describe how things worked
in the universe. Solely depending on common sense was on its way out!
Most of us still picture the universe in terms of what is revealed to us by our senses. When we
try to understand the laws governing the behavior of the universe—the laws of physics—we are
trying to understand those laws solely in terms of the normal world of our senses. This was charac-
teristic of the aristotelian world and this, unfortunately, cannot be done for the simple reason that
the universe extends far beyond the limits of human sensory experience.
We can speak about four different worlds of modern physics. The first is the macroscopic world,
the universe that we see around us every day. This is the universe that our senses can explore di-
rectly. It is important to realize that throughout centuries, and until very recently, this was the only
view of the universe that there was! It was with this world of physics that the classical physicists
grappled. This world had fixed masses and behaved according to simple laws of mechanics. Ob-
jects moved with finite, measurable speeds along paths that could be predicted. Space was three-
dimensional in this universe, described to perfection by the geometry of Euclid.
Gravity was a downward pull. Light was a phenomenon that could be observed, studied, mea-
sured and manipulated with lenses. In short, this was a universe in which the classical laws of me-
chanics, heat, light, sound, gravitation, electricity and magnetism all applied. Following Aristotle,
a long succession of brilliant scientists had labored to discover those classical laws: Galileo,
Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and others presented the classical laws, and they
worked as far as human senses could detect. Some physicists went so far as to say that the work of
physics, toward the end of the nineteenth century, was almost done.
It was soon discovered that this view of the universe was not the whole picture. It just did not
cover enough ground. The aristotelian and newtonian world would soon be replaced by a microcos-
mic view, in which all matter in existence is regarded as being composed of incredibly small bits
and pieces, elementary particles and waves too tiny to observe or even imagine. It was soon discov-
ered that in this microcosmic universe, few if any of the classical laws of physics that apply to the
“normal” universe seem to apply.
In the microcosmic universe, other forces unheard of in the everyday world seem to prevail: the
nuclear binding forces that hold atoms together and various interactions discovered to occur be-
tween elementary particles. The position and momentum of such particles cannot accurately be
measured—at least, not at the same time. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle or principle of indeter-
minacy, replaced the certainties with degrees of probability.
The general semanticists are very interested in abstractions and the microcosmic view, a view
which once seemed to others more of an “intellectual abstraction” until the development of such
things as atomic and hydrogen bombs, nuclear power and reactors, transistors, and laser beams made
it more and more obvious that the microcosmic universe was “real” enough to change our lives
profoundly.
The third view of the universe, another strange and different view, also affects our lives. This is
the macrocosmic view, in which our earth and our solar system are themselves mere ‘tiny’ particles
in an incomprehensibly large universe. In this non-aristotelian and non-newtonian world, this
macrocosmic universe, laws of nature have also been discovered which cannot be a part of our sen-
sory experience nor understandable in terms of our “normal” universe.
In this macrocosmic universe as well, the classical laws of physics and geometry do not seem to
apply. The euclidean geometry scientists have used for centuries to describe our “normal” universe
is unable to describe some basic aspects of the macrocosm, for example, the curvature of space.
Finally, physicists have come to realize that there is still another view of the universe that must
be taken into account, apparently unrelated to the normal, the microcosmic, or the macrocosmic,
yet which applies to all three. This is the strange relativistic view of the universe that was outlined
and then validated by Albert Einstein and other giants of twentieth-century physics. Here non-
elementalism plays an important role, for in this view the universe is not merely a certain volume of
space containing chunks of matter, but rather, a vast continuum of space-time. Again, non-
elementalism plays an important role; matter and energy must be regarded as two different mani-
festations of the same thing, totally interchangeable from one into the other, rather than as separate
entities.
Korzybski called for a multi-valued approach to problems, a multi-valued orientation. And just
as scientists realized, some hundred years ago, that the ordinary human senses presented an incom-
plete picture of the universe, so physicists today recognize that no single one of these differing views
of the universe is sufficient. All four views—the “normal” or macroscopic, the microcosmic, the
macrocosmic, and the relativistic all must be taken into account if we hope to understand how our
universe works.
Isaac Newton: Non-Aristotelian, Newtonian Physics

Many of us have been brought up with the legend that the law of gravitation was discovered by
Isaac Newton when an apple fell from a tree and hit him on the head. Modern scientists do not be-
lieve that this actually happened. Not only that—Newton did not “discover” gravitation. It had been
obvious for centuries that some orderly principle lay behind the behavior of moving objects near
the surface of the earth. Galileo had long before made accurate measurements of how fast objects
fell to the ground when released, and how their speed kept increasing steadily as they fell. Copernicus
had already observed that the moon revolved around the earth at a certain velocity without flying
off into space. What Newton did achieve was to demonstrate that the same natural law that de-
scribed the movement of falling bodies on earth, also described the movement of the moon around
the earth, or of the planets around the sun. Newton showed that these objects all moved as they did
because of a simple, universal relationship between every object in the universe and every other
object, that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, that the force of
attraction between any two given objects is always dependent upon the masses of the objects and
the distance between them. This was an extension of Aristotle’s physics; this was non-aristotelian.
Newton also said that this attracting force between any two objects in the universe could be
calculated according to a precise mathematical equation. He introduced a new language, mathemati-
cal equations, which was an important addition to his non-aristotelian or newtonian physics.
A hundred years after Galileo, Isaac Newton summarized his observations of the behavior of
bodies in motion and at rest in the form of two simple laws of motion which he believed applied to
all objects, whether they were moving or at rest, anywhere in the universe. The two laws of inertia
were:
1. Any object in motion will continue in motion in the same direction and at a constant velocity
unless acted upon by some outside force.
2. Any object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by some outside force.
Taken together, these laws were first investigated by Galileo and finally formalized by Newton.
They have come to be known as the “laws of inertia.” They were among the first of a very few laws
of nature which became the foundation for all of the modern work in physics. They were believed
to be accurate and universal descriptions of the relationships that occurred in nature. They were
believed to be general and apply to an object—no matter how large or small—with no exceptions,
and universal. They were at the heart of newtonian mechanics.
There is much more to Newton’s laws of motion and newtonianism but let us go to Einstein’s theories
of relativity—the special and the general theories—and see how they are related to general semantics.
Albert Einstein: General Semantics and Special Relativity

For me, two important principles in general semantics predominate about Albert Einstein. The
first is that he was very extensionally orientated and, second, the principles of non-elementalism
and ecological thinking permeated his special and general theories of relativity. In Einstein’s rela-
tivistic physics, non-elementalism, as we have seen, indicates that we cannot separate ‘space’ and
‘time’, observer from observed, and so on. Ecological thinking is related to the scientific study of
ecology wherein you cannot separate an organism from its environment or any phenomenon from
its “field.” The important point is that relativity, ecology and non-elementalism are inherently re-
lated, and this was one of the things that Einstein showed in the special and general theories.
Einstein certainly sounded like Alfred Korzybski when he said,

Base your thinking only upon those things which can be observed in real experiments. Forget ques-
tions about things which cannot be observed. Ignore them—they are not only unanswerable, they
have no place whatever in scientific thinking. Thus, if you are convinced by multitudes of experi-
ments that there is no way to observe something such as ‘the ether’ nor to measure earth’s motion
through it, then forget it. Simply throw it out, bag and baggage, and assume for scientific purposes
that there is no such thing as ‘the ether’.
This was the the philosophy of Bridgman’s “operational approach” to scientific investigations
and became the doorway to virtually all of the revolutionary concepts of modern physics. Einstein
proposed another hypothesis, contrary to Newton’s instantaneous speed of light. He said, “Let us
take as a basic assumption that the measured speed of light (or of any electromagnetic waves) will
always be the same anywhere in the universe, no matter what the motion of the observer who is
making the measurement, and no matter what the motion of the light source.”
Einstein was extremely extensional. He believed in intuition but it had to be tested with experi-
ments. The behavior of light relative to a moving observer—behavior that seemed to violate com-
mon sense—had been observed in real experiments such as the Michelson-Morley experiment. Every
single experiment in which measurement of the velocity of light was involved, under all circum-
stances, had always suggested the same basic fact: that light always traveled at the same velocity no
matter what the motion of the individual doing the measuring, and no matter what the motion of the
light source.
The principle of non-elementalism came into play when Einstein took a new look at ‘matter’
and ‘energy’. It had earlier been discovered that electricity and magnetism were one and the same
thing, another non-elementalistic principle, which is now called electromagnetism. It was neces-
sary for Einstein to assume that electromagnetic fields, or light waves, or radio waves, or other elec-
tromagnetic waves were themselves real physical entities. It was necessary to think of them as defi-
nite physical “things” which had just as much physical reality as any other material “things” in the
universe, from atoms to galaxies. Einstein reasoned that if a magnetic field in itself was as much a
real physical entity as, say, a rubber ball, then it followed that that magnetic field itself had to have
a certain amount of mass. He was forced to conclude that any form of energy must have a certain
amount of mass associated with it, and that, conversely, any solid massive object or particle has to
have a certain amount of energy associated with it. Physicists for generations had fallen victim to
their elementalistic assumptions. They had long regarded solid ‘matter’ on the one hand, and any
other form of ‘energy’ on the other hand, as two totally different entities, quite separate and distinct
from each other.
Einstein demonstrated how one could calculate precisely how much energy was associated with
a given quantity of matter and how much, mass was possessed by a given quantity of energy.
This idea of the relationship between mass and energy is vitally important to our understanding
of modern physics. Einstein understood the principle of elementalism and non-elementalism. He
was not saying that matter and energy are two separate things. What he was saying was that matter
and energy are two different manifestations—two completely interchangeable forms—of the same
physical entity, an entity which we call mass-energy. Neils Bohr would call it complementary in his
principle of complementarity.
There are two more general-semantics principles related to this non-elementalism. These are
non-identity and non-additivity. For example, we might visualize solid matter as a highly concen-
trated and compact form of this mass-energy entity; while heat energy, electrical energy, or radiant
energy are precisely the same mass-energy entity in an extremely diffuse and insubstantial form.
Chemistry is a good example of this. A certain chemical will change under certain conditions (non-iden-
tity); or, mix two different chemicals together and you get a dynamic new emergent (non-additivity).
For example, take the different forms a common chemical compound, carbon dioxide, takes un-
der different temperature conditions. At very low temperatures carbon dioxide assumes the solid
compact form of dry ice (solid matter). When the temperature rises, the solid dry ice evaporates
into the insubstantial form of carbon dioxide gas (comparable to energy). Regardless of which of
the two physical forms may exist at a given time under given conditions, both consist of one chemi-
cal compound—carbon dioxide (mass-energy), whether in the concentrated form of dry ice or in
the diffuse form of dioxide gas. The important general-semantics principle of non-elementalism is
involved when we regard matter and energy in this fashion, as two dissimilar manifestations of the
same entity rather than as two separate entities; matter and energy must be equivalent to each other.
Einstein’s formula describing just how much mass in the form of matter was equivalent to how
much energy was stated as a simple equation: mass (m) equals energy (E) divided by the square of
the velocity of light (186,000 miles per second) or E=mc2. This simply states that an exceedingly
tiny amount of matter is equivalent to an enormous amount of energy, or inversely, that a huge amount
of energy is equivalent to only a very small amount of matter. The best example is the atomic bomb.
Einstein’s special theory of relativity was an example of non-elementalism. His theory of rela-
tivity, and the new view of space-time, arose through his generalization of the physical, mathemati-
cal, and philosophical sciences.
His special theory of relativity was also an example of non-aristotelianism, an extension of
Aristotle. He said that the thinking of physicists had been conditioned to a high degree by Newton’s
fundamental conceptions. He also gave credit to Galileo who first formulated the principle of rela-
tivity, according to which the laws of mechanics are formed identically in all systems of co-ordi-
nates moving uniformly in a straight line. Development of that principle led to the theory of relativ-
ity. Einstein noted the importance of the epistemological ideas developed by the founders of classi-
cal mechanics; he also recognized the importance of replacing euclidean geometry with non-eu-
clidean geometry. Flat space was replaced by the curvature of space-time, and this necessitated a
new style of thinking.
Einstein was the first to realize that he did not develop the special theory of relativity alone.
There were many who preceded him. Einstein’s immediate predecessors Hendrik Lorentz and Henri
Poincaré made the most notable contributions to the development of relativistic physics. Einstein
believed that the theory of relativity was the result of the study of the properties of the objective
reality newly discovered by physical science, namely field matter. The “field” would play an im-
portant part in the theory of relativity.
There was a great debate whether matter or light were characteristic of waves or particles. Such
manifestations of light as interference and diffraction pointed to its wave character. Physicists sug-
gested that light was the result of mechanical vibration of a certain hypothetical medium, ether. An
important milestone in the essence of light was the work of Faraday and Maxwell, which indicated
its electromagnetic nature. Maxwell interpreted light as an electromagnetic and not mechanical
manifestation of ether. Also, in developing his theory Lorentz introduced the concept of local time,
which was another step toward the creation of the theory of relativity. He also discovered formulas
for the transformation of time and co-ordinates in various moving systems. These constituted the
mathematical basis of the special theory of relativity.
Einstein highly valued Lorentz’s discoveries. In Ideas and Opinions he said that, “Upon this
simplified foundation Lorentz based a complete theory of all electromagnetic phenomena known at
the time, including those of the electrodynamics of moving bodies.” (p. 75)
Non-elementalism and the extensional orientation played another important role. All the experi-
mental data led Poincaré to the idea that it was necessary to extend Galileo’s principle of relativity
based on the generalization of mechanical phenomena, to the electromagnetic field as well. A fur-
ther non-elementalistic relationship was created when Poincaré drew attention to Lorentz’s idea in
trying to extend the sphere of action of the principle of relativity. He said that this principle should
hold with the existence not only of electromagnetic forces, but of all other natural forces as well.
Lorentz and he thus attempted to study the changes that Lorentz’s hypothesis could introduce into
the laws of gravitation. This led to Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
A new non-newtonian mechanics was called for by Poincaré which resulted from the researches
of the scientists of that era. There were many new facts which indicated the need to alter several of
the concepts and principles of classical physics. This led Poincaré to conclude that it was necessary
to create a new mechanics different from Newton’s.
Many of the ideas of the theory of relativity had been worked out by Poincaré, but it was Einstein
who saw the relationship and developed general theories. Einstein had a tremendous non-
elementalistic orientation, he was able to see relationships and generalizations where others only
saw particulars.
Einstein’s non-elementalistic, empirical, extensional orientation was characteristic of his inter-
pretation of scientific concepts, principles and theories. He believed that knowledge cannot arise
from sense data alone, without resort to ‘mental’ activity, just as theorizing divorced from ‘reality’
could not lead to knowledge. He recognized the different orders of abstraction when he said that
concepts were not identical with the aggregate of sensations and perceptions. He seemed to indi-
cate the map-territory relationship of general semantics and the importance of change when he sug-
gested that principles and theories are approximate reflections of reality, and that they were con-
stantly being enriched with new content. He drew scientists’ attention to the point that it was neces-
sary to re-examine theories from time to time and replace them with new ones, so changing the
foundations of physical science. He had no doubt that physical propositions were closely linked
with experience and that they reflected an external world. He saw no sense in science without re-
flection of objective reality. The first demand on a theory was that it should not contradict experi-
ence. In general-semantics terminology the map should fit the territory.
Einstein’s scientific and philosophical outlook was that of an extensional orientation. His philo-
sophical analysis of the theory of relativity indicates that he interpreted it materialistically, factu-
ally or non-verbally.
In contrast to Einstein, Poincaré had an intensional orientation. He did not agree with material-
ists who affirmed that geometry had an experimental origin. “Is geometry derived from experience?”
he asked. “Deeper discussion will show us that it is not.” Experience, he said, could not resolve the
problem of choosing between the geometries of Euclid and Lobachevsky. This is difficult to be-
lieve today.
Einstein looked upon these matters quite differently and it is one of the reasons why he rather
than Poincaré developed the special and general theories of relativity. Mathematical propositions,
said Einstein, reflected real processes observable by us in nature. Poincaré and others were guilty
of elementalism, separating geometrical propositions from reality.
According to Einstein, a geometry could be true or false according to how faithfully it reflected
the reality it studied. He said that one of the reasons why Poincaré could not arrive at the discovery
of the theory of relativity was the fact that he had not found the connection between euclidean ge-
ometry and reality. As a result Poincaré had considered it necessary to reject physical laws because
he clung to the propositions of euclidean geometry. Elementalism, in Einstein’s view, constituted
Poincaré’s greatest error.
Louis de Broglie expressed the same idea concerning the reasons why Poincaré had been pre-
vented from completing the creation of a theory of relativity. He said that although Einstein’s math-
ematical knowledge might not have been comparable to Poincaré’s profound understanding, Einstein
preceded Poincaré in finding the synthesis for all the separate views of the universe, and at one stroke
removing most of the difficulties found in physics. Einstein and de Broglie both, without naming
Poincaré’s philosophical views, came to the conclusion that he held, in the language of science,
subjectivist positions when considering physical and mathematical propositions. The subjectivist
position is that of an intensional orientation.
The principle of non-elementalism and the extensional orientation played another important role
in Einstein’s theory of relativity. It followed from Einstein’s principle of relativity that there were
no phenomena in the objective world that would indicate the existence of absolute motion, that is,
motion relative to absolute space. There were only relative movements, motions of some material
objects relative to others. The principle of the constancy of the velocity of light and the principle of
relativity thus underlay the special theory of relativity. Einstein’s reference to these propositions of
physics was due to the fact that they reflected real processes of nature (extensional) and that they
were the most fundamental properties connecting the two material spheres of the world, field and
substance (non-elementalism). It was this principle that linked the two physics together.
Einstein had to ask himself some questions. “Is the standpoint of classical mechanics absolute,
or do its statements have a relative and thus revisable character? If that is so, to what extent are its
statements true?”
He rejected the view of Newton and his followers about the universal status of classical me-
chanics, he demonstrated the illegitimacy of reducing all of physics to mechanical laws, and he
established the limits of the latter’s validity.
Einstein critically analyzed the conceptual apparatus of classical mechanics. His analysis of the
essence of Newton’s mechanics led him to the conclusion that not all of its concepts had been ex-
perimentally substantiated; it was intensionally arrived at. In Ideas and Opinions Einstein said:
We can indeed see from Newton’s formulation of it that the concept of absolute space, which com-
prised that of absolute rest, made him feel uncomfortable; he realized that there seemed to be noth-
ing in experience corresponding to this last concept. He was also not quite comfortable about the
introduction of forces operating at a distance. But the tremendous practical success of his doctrines
may well have prevented him and the physicists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from
recognizing the fictitious character of the foundations of his system.” (p. 273)
Einstein’s concluded that considering‘time’ and ‘space’ as absolute, and the other fictitious defi-
nitions derived from them, sprang from the fact that the extensional, practical and experimental side
of physical science had been at a comparatively low level of development.
Non-elementalism plays the key role, not only in linking together space and time, but in linking
together ‘space’, ‘time’, and ‘motion’. With the newtonian absolute time, time is not linked with
space, matter, or motion, and passes identically throughout the universe in any frame of reference.
Einstein extended the principle of relativity to electromagnetic phenomena. These equations are
called the Lorentz transformation equations, in honor of their author, though Lorentz himself, be-
ing trapped by the newtonian notion of absolute time and space, did not understand their true physi-
cal sense. He considered the form of the transformation for time fictitious, since it did not accord
with the newtonian doctrine of absolute time and space.
The Lorentz transformation equations non-elementalistically showed a profound link between
the dimensions of ‘time’ and ‘space’. It also followed from the Lorentz equations that ‘space’ and
‘time’ were linked with motion. According to the theory of relativity, each system of coordinates
has its own time, which depends on the system’s velocity of motion. The length of a moving body
can be expressed by Einstein’s equation. It follows from Einstein’s equation that a body’s spatial
dimensions are not an absolute quantity, as Newton had assumed, but are altered in accordance
with its velocity in relation to its frame of reference. Its dimensions will contract as its velocity rises.
The same thing occurs in the passage of time. When scientists employ the transformation equa-
tions of the theory of relativity to compare intervals of time in stationary and moving systems you
get similar changes. The time interval proves to be a variable quantity changing in accordance with
the body’s velocity. The temporal rhythm slows with the increase in the body’s velocity and it passes
most rapidly in a stationary system. The special theory of relativity thus undermined the newtonian
metaphysical notion of absolute time and absolute space. The theory of relativity demonstrated that
a change in the velocity of a thing led to a change in its space-time.
The special theory of relativity made it possible consistently to interpret the theory of electro-
magnetic processes in terms of non-elementalism. As Einstein wrote, “It has led to a formal clarifi-
cation of Maxwell’s equations of the electromagnetic field; in particular it has led to an understand-
ing of the essential oneness of the electric and the magnetic field.”
Scientists have said that the natural connection of mass and energy, E=mc2, following from the
special theory of relativity, is of enormous significance for science. According to this theory the
mass of a body increases with an increase in its velocity. Einstein expressed the proposition that “if
the accretion to the mass of a moving body was due to its kinetic energy, the mass proper of a sta-
tionary body was connected with an energy which, however, though hidden from us, was the inter-
nal energy of the body.” Einstein’s theory thus indicated the inseparable connection of matter and
motion.
In Out of My Later Years, Einstein “has shown generally the role which the universal constant
c (velocity of light) plays in the laws of nature and has demonstrated that there exists a close con-
nection between the form in which time on the one hand and the spatial co-ordinates on the other
hand enter into the laws of nature.” (p. 45)
Non-elementalism enters into the picture once again in describing Einstein’s special theory of
relativity. It linked the two material spheres of the objective world—substance and field—physi-
cally, and through that link expressed previously unknown space-time properties of matter.
General Semantics and the General Theory of Relativity

The General Theory of Relativity was developed by Einstein as a generalization of the special
theory. It was a logical development of the special theory of relativity in which the work of
Minkowski, Einstein’s teacher, played an important role. Non-elementalism also came into play when
Minkowski recognized the relationship between the spatial and time co-ordinates. Einstein said,
“The generalizing of the theory of relativity was greatly facilitated by the form that the special theory
of relativity was given by Minkowski, the mathematician who first clearly recognized the formal
equivalence of the spatial co-ordinates and the time co-ordinates and utilized it for the construction
of the theory.”
The general theory of relativity arose, said Einstein, through the extension of the principle of
relativity to the gravitational field. Einstein understood that gravitation, like electromagnetism, was
a field area of the material world. Its properties, like those of electromagnetism were not some sub-
jective phenomenon, but were manifestations of matter that he had to take into account when study-
ing the structure of the material world. The development of the general theory of relativity was a
consequence of the generalization of experimental facts already known about inertial mass (a body’s
resistance to acceleration) and gravitational mass (the gravitational force the body produces).
The theoretical generalization of those observations led Einstein to establish the principle of
equivalence. While the special theory of relativity arose from the study of the properties of the elec-
tromagnetic field, which followed from the constancy of the velocity of the propagation of light,
the creation of the general theory of relativity was stimulated by the discovery of the fact of the
equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass. The inertial mass of a body increased in proportion
to the increase in its velocity. Its gravitational mass, he reasoned, should also increase by virtue of
the equivalence, of inertial and gravitational mass.
This last conclusion could not be explained within the framework of the special theory of rela-
tivity. He had to extend his theories, a new theory was needed. As Einstein explained in Albert
Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, “That the special theory of relativity is only the first step of a nec-
essary development became completely clear to me only in my efforts to represent gravitation in
the framework of this theory.” (p. 63)
Einstein recognized the limited character of the principle of relativity developed by him in the
special theory of relativity in connection with the description of electromagnetic processes. This
principle affirmed that there was no preferred system among those moving uniformly in a straight
line. But, in fact, other systems did not just move in straight lines with the same, non-accelerated veloc-
ity. There were many other forms of motion. In actual fact other systems also existed that were in accel-
erated, slow or fast speed, circular, diagonal and rotational motion. Einstein asked himself, was the prin-
ciple valid for systems of that kind, motions that did not travel at a constant speed and in a straight line?
In non-inertial systems, systems that are not at rest, we perceive phenomena of the acceleration
or slowing down of the moving body. Later the idea came to him that these perceptions were not
necessarily connected with the changes in the velocity of the system. They could be the consequence
of the action of gravitational forces. Einstein set about to study another field force, similar to the
electromagnetic field, and this was the gravitational field. He had to include the gravitational forces
in a new theory of relativity, the general theory of relativity. His new concern was how the gravita-
tional field influences the process studied. This involves non-elementalism and ecology, how an
environment influences a process or how you cannot separate any “thing” from its environment.
The influence of the gravitational field on the motion of bodies had previously been known but
the new result connected with the general theory of relativity was that gravitation acted on electro-
magnetic radiation. To quote Einstein, “In general, rays of light are propagated curvilinearly in
gravitational fields.” In other words, rays of light were not straight lines, they were characterized
by curved lines.
Einstein’s theoretical conclusions could be tested experimentally. According to his calculations

the bending of rays of light in the Sun’s gravitational field would be 1.7 seconds of arc. The effect
that Einstein predicted was confirmed by British scientists with a high degree of accuracy during the
eclipse of the Sun in 1919. This proof changed the minds of many scientists and many other skeptics.
The fact of the bending of the trajectory of a ray of light in a gravitational field was evidence
that the theory had a relative character. It also had a non-elementalistic and ecological character.
You cannot separate anything from its environment.
Thus Einstein came to discover such an important property of gravitation as its influence on the
course of electromagnetic as well as of mechanical processes. This was only the first step in a study
of this form of field matter, that processes are related to a field.
The general theory of relativity made a substantial contribution to the physical theory of space-
time. As Einstein said in The Meaning of Relativity, “The gravitational field influences and even
determines the metrical law of the space-time continuum.” (p. 59)
He further said that according to the general theory of relativity the geometrical properties of
space are not independent, but they are determined by matter. In opposition to Newton’s view, space
proved to be non-uniform. It was deformed by the influence of gravitation. The denser material objects
are the greater is the distortion of the space around the bodies. This non-elementalistic assertion
holds true for time, for the gravitational field also determines the rhythm of time. Einstein has shown
that the more massive cosmic bodies exert a stronger effect on slowing its rhythm, and vice versa.
Relativistic physics implies non-elementalism and ecology. The discovery of the fact that the
mass of bodies determines the geometric structure of space-time indicated the existence of an or-
ganic link between time, space and matter. While this link was determined in the special theory of
relativity solely by external material factors (it depended on the relative position and movement of
material bodies), in the general theory inner connections were discovered and it was shown that the
space-time continuum depended on the distribution of matter in the universe.
There are further non-elementalistic applications of the general theory of relativity and they are
applied in cosmology. The recognition of the existence of material cosmic objects and the forces
operating between them suggested the study of problems like the finiteness and infinity of the Uni-
verse and the density of its matter. In fact, Einstein wrote in Relativity: The Special and General
Theory, “The theory supplies us with a simple connection between the space expanse of the uni-
verse and the average density of matter in it.” (p. 137)
Einstein spent the rest of his life trying to find a Unified Theory that would bring together, in
one formula, electromagnetism and gravitation. This brings non-elementalism to the extreme. Sci-
ence is coming to a conclusion today about the relativity of the concepts of a macrocosmos and
microcosmos—the ultimate of Korzybski’s prediction.
What we have seen is that relativistic physics more and more strongly stresses the genetic link
of physical science as a whole. The content and methods of physics point to the material unity of
nature. Einstein understood that every new scientific theory was a step toward fuller knowledge. It
was not by chance that he denied the absolutism of Newton’s doctrine, criticizing its elementalistic
and separate propositions.
Whereas Newton’s doctrine was taken as ultimate truth for decades, Einstein showed that it was
a relative truth. He also indicated the road that physics would have to go if it wanted to answer the
problems posed by modern science and the theories of relativity.
The theory of relativity has brought out the law-governed character of the universe more pro-
foundly than classical physics ever did. Through the influence of Einstein’s theories a picture of the
world has grown up in which matter, motion, time, and space, previously considered disconnected
and separate, are united. This theory was an immense step forward in the interpretation of the struc-
ture of the universe.
An extensional orientation played an important role in Einstein’s theories of relativity. He con-
stantly called for empirical and experimental verification. His and others’ discoveries were prepared
by the revolution in experimental techniques. Analysis of the fundamentals of Einstein’s theories
indicates that they arose from the study of ‘objective’ properties of nature. Its empirical origin is
obvious. Underlying the theories are the principles of relativity which were the result of generaliza-
tions of much experimental material. The extensional nature of the theories of relativity is also es-
tablished by the agreement of its theoretical conclusions in practice. Relativistic effects are not a
mathematical device and not a ‘subjective’ view based on the whims of an observer. The interpre-
tation of space-time properties of matter makes it possible to explain many natural phenomena.
Some philosophers and scientists have said that the theory of relativity has removed the ques-
tion of absolutes from physical science. More careful study shows that this is not so. It does not
follow from the theory that it disregards absolute quantities and reduces all quantities to relativity.
Max Plank, and even earlier Minkowski, said that this theory did not deny absolute quantities at all.
Plank wrote that “the absolute is not uprooted in the much misunderstood theory of relativity; on
the contrary it has attained even sharper expression in it since physics is based everywhere in that
respect on an absolute underlying the external world.”
In fact a whole number of absolute quantities have been disclosed in the theory of relativity that
were previously not known to science. These theories reduced separate concepts, that used to be
considered absolutes, to the relative; and recognized other concepts, that had been considered sepa-
rate, as unitary. The theory of relativity deepened knowledge about space-time. The special theory
deprived ‘time’ and ‘space’ of their absolute meaning and ended their isolation from one another.
The general theory showed that ‘space’ and ‘time’ are not only connected with one another but also
with matter. Taken separately they have a relative status, and the idea of time-space-matter alone
has an absolute character.
Niels Bohr’s Parallel Path With General Semantics

Of all the physicists I know of, no one got closer to the formulations of general semantics than
Niels Bohr. Bohr realized the importance of language in physics, as well as in life, a topic he often
wrote and lectured upon. He also appeared conscious of many other principles related to
general semantics.
Niels Bohr displayed a non-allness orientation. After Paul Dirac’s great paper on the theory of
the electron, some physicists had the impression that all of the fundamental features of atomic physics
had been neatly incorporated into a new and final conceptual structure. One prominent physicist
declared, “In a couple of years we shall have cleared up electrodynamics; another couple of years
for the nuclei, and physics will be finished.”
To Bohr, with his continual non-allness orientation about physics and other aspects of life, it
would never occur that physics might soon be “finished.” On the contrary, he saw so many points
still in need of elucidation in quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics initiated by
Heisenberg and Pauli.
Bohr realized that the kinds of questions that physicists ask themselves indicate the kinds of
answers they will receive or the kinds of research that they will undertake. Bohr had first of all to
find which were the proper questions to ask, and then to develop methods of approach to these prob-
lems and an appropriate terminology in which the answers could be formulated. This new approach
indicated to Bohr that physicists were confronted with problems in epistemology of a much deeper
nature than those they had encountered before.
Bohr clearly saw that the fundamental issue was the unambiguous communication of experi-
ence. It is only because Bohr faced his problems with a non-allness orientation and a multi-valued
orientation, rather than an allness orientation or one and two-valued orientation, that he was able to
develop his principle of complementarity. Like Korzybski, he was able to point to situations in psy-
chology, biology and other areas of life that also present complementary aspects. The one and two-
valued orientation are not adequate in a multi-valued situation, and Bohr saw the necessity of ap-
plying the principle of complementarity outside of physics as well. The principle of complementarity
or the multi-valued orientation threw light on unfamiliar problems.
Bohrr realized the idea of complementarity when we have to choose between two standpoints
which, although apparently conflicting, have their justifications. There are often two approaches to
the same object which are equally essential parts of a full understanding of its nature, but seem mu-
tually exclusive, like the wave-particle duality. Often the two complementary aspects are so inti-
mately associated that we deliberately refer to both of them by the same word. Bohr recognized that
this is a very fundamental ambiguity of our language.
Since his early youth, Bohr had been preoccupied by this problem of the ambiguity of language,
and had with sure intuition grasped its essential dialectical character. Very early he had occasion to
realize the relevance of his views on the ambiguity of language even in the realm of physics. He
recognized that the concept of light presented such an ambiguity, inasmuch as it referred to aspects
of the phenomena—light waves and light quanta—which were in that relationship of mutual exclu-
siveness he later call complementarity. He was therefore well prepared to analyze from the same
point of view the duality of aspects under which the electrons (and in fact all fundamental constitu-
ents of matter) had to be considered.
Bohr also saw the relationship between complementarity and Heisenberg’s principle of indeter-
minacy. This is related to Korzybski’s multi-valued orientation—this is the content of Heisenberg’s
indeterminacy relations, the meaning of the complementarity between different ways of looking at
the process.
Non-elementalism also comes into play. You cannot separate the observer from the observed.
As a direct consequence of Heisenberg’s indeterminacy relations, it is highly necessary, in the defi-
nition of any phenomenon, to specify the conditions of its observation, the kind of apparatus deter-
mining the particular aspect of the phenomenon scientists wish to observe, and many other indeter-
minacy relations of the Heisenberg type. In such situations scientists speak of complementary as-
pects of an atomic system or of complementary phenomena. The concept of “phenomenon” now
includes the specification of “all” (many) circumstances under which the system is observed.
Such a multi-valued orientation is in broad outline a new theory of knowledge which gradually
emerged from Bohr’s analysis of the implications of quantum mechanics. Like Korzybski, he knew
that he was dealing with general features of human knowledge, to counteract the determinism of
classical physics and its one and two-valued orientations.
Aage Peterson, a physicist who worked closely with Bohr in Copenhagen, said:
To Bohr, philosophical problems were neither about existence or reality, nor about the structure and
limitations of human reason. They were communication problems. They dealt with the general con-
ditions for conceptual communication.
When asked what he meant by that, Bohr would say, ‘What is it that we human beings ultimately
depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate
experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description,
but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character.”
(French & Kennedy, p. 301)
In a Rutherford Memorial Lecture in 1958 Bohr indicated the limitations of language when he
said,
“Indeed, mathematics is not to be regarded as a special branch of knowledge based on the accumu-
lation of experience, but rather as a refinement of general language, supplementing it with appro-
priate tools to represent relations for which ordinary verbal communication is imprecise or too cum-
bersome.” (Ibid. p. 301)
Peterson commented:
Traditional philosophy has accustomed us to regard language as something secondary, and reality
as something primary. Bohr considered this attitude toward the relation between language and real-
ity inappropriate. When one said to him that it cannot be language which is fundamental, but that it
must be reality which, so to speak, lies beneath language, and of which language is a picture, he
would reply, ‘We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what
is down. The word “reality” is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.” (Ibid. p.
302)
Describing Bohr’s consideration of the importance of language, Peterson wrote:
The chief characteristic of the sort of description we seek both in science and in practical life is
objectivity. In Bohr’s usage, an objective message was an unambiguous message, one that could
not be misunderstood. If our communications are to be understood, their content must be clearly
delineated. There must be, so to speak, a structural relationship between the subject which commu-
nicates and the object which is the content of communication. This relationship is indispensible in
every objective description, and Bohr saw in it the core of the problem of knowledge.” (Ibid. p.
302)
Students of general semantics are familiar with Wendell Johnson’s often-repeated statement that
when we talk we are often talking more about ourselves than what we are presumably talking about.
This non-elementalism, not separating the subject from the object of discussion, is characteristic of
Bohr’s orientation. As Peterson noted:
Thus our situation is characterized by the fact that, on the one hand, we separate subject and object,
while, on the other hand, we ourselves belong to that about which we are talking. In Bohr’s opin-
ion, the problems in epistemology originate primarily because we do not master the dialectics of
the movable subject-object partition or relationship. The difficulty of delineating clearly the con-
tent of our messages is the chief source of ambiguity and paradox in conceptual communication.”
(Ibid. p. 303)
Another form of non-elementalism was presented by Bohr in a 1913 paper in which he intro-
duced the correspondence principle, in its early form, in order to connect quantum physics with
classical physics in the limit of large orbits. Dealing with science in a coherent and non-elementalistic
way also led him to think about scientific fields far beyond physics. Like Korzybski, he saw the
correspondence principle and the principle of complementarity as applicable in many areas. He
struggled constantly with what he called,
…the epistemological lesson which the modern development of atomic physics has given us, and
its relevance for the other fields of human knowledge. One chief lesson of quantum mechanics was
that atomic processes did not have to be described in fragmentary ways, with different theories for
different effects, but that through quantum mechanics we could see the wholeness of the processes
in and among them.”
Bohr thought that this process could be applied to other fields. He often talked and wrote about
biological and anthropological problems, stressing the features of wholeness. He often used the phrase
“the unity of all sciences.” Bohr and Korzybski anticipated the non-elementalistic pursuits of sci-
entists, that science is one organic, interlocking picture of the world. As Gerald Holton wrote in
Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought:
A modern paper on cosmology is really a jigsaw puzzle of which the pieces might well carry indi-
vidually such labels as ‘elementary particle physics,’ ‘general relativity,’ ‘applied mathematics,’ and
‘observational astronomy.’ An experiment in neurophysiology brings together physics, chemistry,
biology, computer technology, mathematics, and engineering, all at once. Such examples are be-
coming the rule. As Brownowski wrote, ‘Science is not a set of facts, but a way of giving order and
therefore giving unity and intelligibility to the facts of nature.”
Bohr was not only interested in biology and anthropology but, as suggested by Max Jammer, he
was especially inspired by this passage from William James’, The Principles of Psychology: “In
certain persons the total consciousness may be split into two parts which coexist but mutually ig-
nore each other, and share the objects of knowledge between them. More remarkable still, they are
complementary.” (Jammer, p. 102)
D. S. Kothari, in The Complementarity Principle in Eastern Philosophy, has written that:
The principle of complementarity, which we owe principally to Niels Bohr, is perhaps the most sig-
nificant and revolutionary concept of modern physics. The complementarity approach can enable
people to see that seemingly irreconcilable points of view need not be contradictory. These, on deeper
understanding, may be found to be complementary and mutually illuminating—the two opposing
contradictory aspects being parts of a ‘totality,’ seen from different perspectives. It allows the pos-
sibility of accommodating widely divergent human experiences into an underlying harmony, and
bringing to light new social and ethical vistas for exploration and for alleviation of human suffer-
ing. Bohr fervently hoped that one day complementarity would be an integral part of everyone’s
education and would provide guidance in the problems and challenges of life.
Hideki Yukawa was once asked whether young physicists in Japan, like most young physicists in
the West, found it difficult to comprehend the idea of complementarity. He replied that Bohr’s
complementarity always appeared to them as quite evident: `You see, we in Japan have not been
corrupted by Aristotle’.” (p. 325)
[For a more complete analysis of the differences between the Eastern and Western theories of
knowledge, and aristotelian and non-aristotelian logics, see Logic and General Semantics: Writ-
ings of Oliver L. Reiser and others, edited by Sanford I. Berman, International Society for General
Semantics (now Institute of General Semantics), P. O. Box 1565, Fort Worth, Texas 76101-1565.
See, especially, “A Chinese Philosopher’s Theory of Knowledge” by Chang Tung-Sun.]
Notes
1. Alfred Tarski, in a 1944 paper, “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Se-
mantics,” wrote the following:
It is perhaps worth while saying that semantics as conceived in this paper (and in former papers of
the author) is a sober and modest discipline which has no pretentions to being a universal patent
medicine for all the ills and diseases of mankind, whether imaginary or real. You will not find in
semantics any remedy for decayed teeth or illusions of grandeur or class conflicts. Nor is semantics
a device for establishing that everyone except the speaker and his friends is speaking nonsense.
As Adam Schaff noted in his book Introduction to Semantics, Tarski’s reference to Korzybski was
clear:
It is not difficult to guess who is the addressee of that piquant remark. It is necessary only to read,
for instance, the following passage from a book by Alfred Korzybski, much quoted in literature
abroad, but practically unknown in Poland. (p. 90)
From a book of over 800 pages that is what Tarski—and Schaff—got out of Science and Sanity!
To show you how little Adam Schaff knew about general semantics, he went on to say:
In fairness, it must be said that Alfred Korzybski also emphasized the difference between former
semantics and what he himself called semantics. A. Korzybski’s book is quite useless as a source of
information about general semantics. (p. 91)
2. Cassius J. Keyser, wrote the following in “The Foundations of a Science of Man”:

Korzybski’s Science and Sanity arouses a deep and increasing interest. Its content, explicit and
implicit, is so immense and manifold, so far-reaching in its diversified ramifications, that I will
confine myself to submitting a general estimate of its importance and to sketching briefly some of
the considerations that have served me as a basis for judgment. Despite all the reservations that I
am constrained to make, I feel bound to say that this work, taken as a whole, is undoubtedly and
beyond all comparison the most momentous single contribution that has ever been made to our
knowledge and understanding of what is essential and distinctive in the nature of man. One readily
understands why it has been heartily acclaimed by so many distinguished scholars representing many
widely separated fields of research—anthropology, biology, physiology, psychiatry, education,
physics, semantics, and mathematics. There can be no doubt of its being a work that every serious
student, no matter what the field of his special interest, ought to have as an indispensable part of his
equipment; with its finding, all capable men desiring to be in touch with the thought of their time
will be obliged to reckon.” (p. 325)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Einstein, Albert. 1982. Ideas and Opinions. New York: Crown.
———. 1971. Relativity: The Special and General Theory New York: Crown.
———. 1950. Out of My Later Years. New York: Philosophical Library.
———. 1957. The Meaning of Relativity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
French, A. P. & Kennedy, P. J. (Eds.). 1985. Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Holton, Gerald. 1988. Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Jammer, Max. 1974. The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Johnson, Wendell. 1946. People in Quandaries. New York: Harper & Bros.
Keyser, Cassius J. 1934. “The Foundations of a Science of Man.” The New Humanist, Vol. VII, No.
2, January-February.
Korzybski, Alfred. 1994 (1933). Science and Sanity, Fifth Edition. Englewood, NJ: Institute of Gen-
eral Semantics.
Kothari, D. S. 1985. “The Complementarity Principle and Eastern Philosophy” in French, A. P. &
Kennedy, P. J. (Eds.) Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lee, Irving J. 1941. Language Habits in Human Affairs. New York: Harper & Bros.
Motz, Lloyd & Weaver, Jefferson Hane. 1985. The Story of Physics. New York: Avon Books.
Pula, Robert P. 2000. A General Semantics Glossary: Pula’s Guide to the Perplexed. Concord, CA:
International Society for General Semantics.
Schaff, Adam. 1962. Introduction to Semantics. New York: Pergamon Press.
Schilpp, Paul. ed. 1957. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. New York: Tudor Publishing.
Vaihinger, Hans.1965. The Philosophy of ‘As If’. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, LTD..
IN THE NAME OF SKEPTICISM:
MARTIN GARDNER’S MISREPRESENTATIONS OF GENERAL SEMANTICS
BY BRUCE I. KODISH
All too often, in diverse forums, principles and formulations originating from general semantics
(GS) remain unacknowledged as general semantics or get watered down in various ways. This seems
due not only to ignorance of their source or through misinterpretations of it, but also from fear of
being associated with either GS or Alfred Korzybski, the originator of the discipline.
For instance, the editor of an anthology of GS-related articles once informed a close associate
of mine that one of the potential contributors, a behavioral scientist, had withdrawn his article. The
man had ‘second thoughts’ about coming out openly in print with his GS-inspired formulations.
This, he worried, might damage his academic career.
Given the potential importance of Korzybski’s work, why has it not become better known among
those whose fields it affects? And more importantly, how did it become marginalized by some phi-
losophers and skeptics? And why, in the year 2004, do some people fear being associated with it?
In this article, I examine the influential critique of general semantics made by Martin Gardner,
one of its main opponents. In my view, a close look at Gardner’s writings on GS will provide in-
sight into some of the current confusion about and neglect of GS by the educated public and various
academic communities.
The King of Korzybski Bashers

In the March 2002 edition of Scientific American, Michael Shermer, a well-known science writer
and skeptic, devoted his monthly column, “Skeptic,” to the work of Martin Gardner. Gardner launched
the modern skeptic movement in 1952 with his book, In the Name of Science, renamed Fads and
Fallacies in the Name of Science, in 1957. Shermer listed Korzybski among a motley group of now
forgotten and irrelevant ‘pseudoscientists’ and ‘pseudosciences’ that Gardner wrote about in his early
book. The book is “still in print,” Shermer wrote, and is “arguably the skeptic classic of the past
half a century.” 1
Arguably, indeed!
In this book, Gardner served as a ‘hitman’, devoting most of Chapter 23—“General Semantics,
Etc.”—to a critique which lambasted Korzybski and labeled GS a ‘cult’. As a philosophy student
at the time he first encountered Korzybski, Gardner’s antipathy may well have been triggered in
part by A.K.’s occasional disparaging remarks about certain philosophers in his lectures and in his
book: “‘Pure’ extension is humanly impossible; ‘pure’ intension is possible, and is often found in
hospitals for ‘mentally’ ill, and in some chairs of ‘philosophy’.” 2
In any case, sniping at Korzybski and GS has remained a persistent albeit minor theme through-
out Gardner’s career. Something about Korzybski’s work got under Gardner’s skin, and he inter-
mittently scratched away at the irritant for more than forty years, with inaccuracy and invective.
Gardner’s misrepresentations and their not inconsiderable influence constitute, I think, a sig-
nificant source of the transmission of false knowledge about GS in the scientific, philosophical,
academic communities. Admiring skeptics like Shermer have continued the chain of error.
Shermer, an energetic psychologist/social scientist and historian/philosopher of science, founded
The Skeptic Society and Skeptic magazine, writes books, appears on radio and television, has a regular
IN THE NAME OF SKEPTICISM 51
column in Scientific American devoted to skeptic issues, and seems to be taking up Gardner’s mantle
as a leader of the skeptic movement.
The Trouble with Looking for ‘Cranks’

The following excerpt from Shermer’s March 2002 Scientific American column, “Hermits and
Cranks,” provides a basis for looking at Gardner’s attempts to turn Korzybski into a pseudoscientific
‘crank’:
What I find especially valuable about Gardner’s views are his insights into the differences between
science and pseudoscience…How can we tell if someone is a scientific crank? Gardner offers this
advice: (1) “First and most important of these traits is that cranks work in almost total isolation
from their colleagues.” Cranks typically do not understand how the scientific process operates[,]
that they need to try out their ideas on colleagues, attend conferences and publish their hypotheses
in peer-reviewed journals before announcing to the world their startling discovery. Of course, when
you explain this to them they say that their ideas are too radical for the conservative scientific es-
tablishment to accept. (2) “A second characteristic of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strength-
ens his isolation, is a tendency toward paranoia …”
Shermer quotes from Gardner the following criteria of crank paranoia:
(1) He considers himself a genius. (2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant
blockheads.... (3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recog-
nized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or
assign them to “enemies” for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank
that this opposition may be due to error in his work.... (4) He has strong compulsions to focus his
attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstand-
ing name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein
the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein.... (5) He often
has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he
himself has coined. 3
A careful analysis of Gardner’s writings about GS indicates the folly of honoring Gardner’s
‘founding command’ to guard the ‘borderland’ of science by applying his particular criteria of
crankdom to unorthodox but potentially promising systems like general semantics.
The main problem with depending on the criteria of crankdom to determine the value of a set of
formulations was noted by philosopher Morris R. Cohen: “If the premises are sufficient, they are so
no matter by whom stated.” 4 Gardner’s criteria not only do not rule out the scientific value of a set
of formulations, quite the contrary, they can encourage the premature rejection of potentially useful
viewpoints.
A skeptic who presumes to defend science has the duty to adopt an ‘impartial’ scientific attitude
and carefully examine controversial viewpoints on their own merits. Overzealous ‘fringe watchers’
defining and guarding the borderlands of science, may make some very serious misevaluations—
particularly when they become overly dependent upon, and uncritically apply, these criteria, based
on presumed character traits, for detecting ‘cranks’ and ‘pseudoscientists’.
Gardner’s criteria can easily become excuses for ad hominem attacks, as we see in his appar-
ently shameless attack on Korzybski. A self-anointed fringe-watcher can very easily slip into an
attitude in which he trys to confirm his beliefs in someone else’s ‘crankdom’. Unless he applies the
criteria very carefully with an attitude based on fairness, they can provide an excuse for an inquisi-
tion—a distortion of ‘facts’ about a person and his views which can block the way of inquiry.
Name-Calling and the Art of the Fascinating Irrelevancy

Gardner referred to GS as a “cult,” starting with his first sentence in Chapter 23 of Fads and
Fallacies and continuing throughout the chapter. In this example of the petitio principii fallacy or
“begging the question,” Gardner prompted readers to assume a controversial point before he of-
fered any proof. This fallacy has an interesting neuro-linguistic aspect—keep calling GS a ‘cult’
long enough and maybe the label will stick. For some it has. Such name-calling has a ‘thought-
stopping’, inquiry-blocking quality. It does not belong in the ‘toolbox’ of any fair-minded skeptic.
The level of Gardner’s argument remained surprisingly puerile but, since his work continues to
get uncritically referred to, perhaps Gardner knew a thing or two about getting his point across,
even to those whom, I would have hoped, would know better. Martin Maloney noted Gardner’s use
of “the technique of the fascinating irrelevancy.” 5 Consider this melange of fact and inference:
The Count’s institute [sic] of General Semantics, near the University of Chicago, was established
in 1938 with funds provided by a wealthy Chicago manufacturer of bathroom equipment, Cornelius
Crane. Its street number, formerly 1232, was changed to 1234 so that when it was followed by “East
Fifty-Sixth Street” there would be six numbers in serial order. 6
The facts about Crane’s business and the Institute street number would be considered irrelevant
in themselves to a critic playing by the rules of an adult skepticism. Gardner’s implied suggestion
that Korzybski indulged in numerology has no basis in reality. In fact, Korzybski found numerology
objectionable, a position that a thorough reader of his work would understand. He did not choose
the building for any reason other than location, space and cost, nor did he change the street number.
He simply found it curious.7 To suggest otherwise (“Its street number…was changed…”) shows
the level that Gardner often descended to throughout his intermittent career of denouncing
general semantics.8
Korzybski and his Colleagues

Throughout the chapter on GS (as he did in his other writings on the subject), Gardner worked
to make a case that Korzybski operated as a ‘hermit’, an isolated loner utterly outside the stream of
the scientific activity of his lifetime. “Cranks work in almost total isolation from their colleagues…in
the sense of having no fruitful contacts with fellow researchers.” 9
If Korzybski ‘was’ a crank, by definition he must have worked in total isolation. Gardner’s ‘in-
vestigations’ confirmed this for him: “Modern works of scientific philosophy and psychiatry con-
tain almost no references to the Count’s theories.” 10 Gardner must not have looked very hard.
While Korzybski did not find much of value in the works of many philosophers of his day, he
did acknowledge the work (and impact on his formulations) of Mach, Poincaré, Cassirer, Royce,
Russell, Whitehead, Oliver Reiser, and F. S. C. Northrop, et al. Philosophers like Reiser and Northrop,
and French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, among others, had an interest in and wrote about GS.
Korzybski did not, as Gardner claimed, cast “sly aspersions on almost every contemporary major
philosopher except Bertrand Russell.” 11
Lexicographer and GS-scholar Allen Walker Read pointed out:
Korzybski discriminated carefully between sound philosophers, such as Russell and Whitehead, and
unsound philosophers; but he made his way hard for himself by excoriating philosophers as a body
in no uncertain terms. They in turn have ever since given him their cold shoulder. It is my own
observation that a line divides philosophers into two groups—those who are aware of the neuro-
logical basis of human reaction, and those who ignore neuro-linguistic issues…To some people,
‘thinking’ seems to take place in a vacuum. I remember a discussion many years ago with a profes-
sor who assured me that he was talking about “pure mentation,” and not about the nervous system
at all. Sometimes it is called “ratiocination.” Such people assume that they can live and think in a
realm outside physical constraints.12
Gardner’s anti-GS jihad involved one unwarranted claim after another about Korzybski’s sup-
posed paranoid inability to acknowledge important predecessors and colleagues or supposed para-
noid tendency to attack them. For example, Gardner wrote “One finds in Science and Sanity almost
no recognition of the fact that the battle against bad linguistic habits of thought had been waged for
centuries by philosophers of many schools.” 13
What nonsense!
In Science and Sanity you will find a huge set of bibliographic references, as well as a dedica-
tion, acknowledgements, and extensive notes which demonstrate Korzybski’s recognition of his time-
binding debt to other formulators, including some philosophers. The book also contains, in Kor-
zybski’s words, a “large number of important quotations” at the beginnings of its parts and chap-
ters. He wanted
…to make the reader aware that, on the one hand, there is already afloat in the ‘universe of dis-
course’ a great deal of genuine knowledge and wisdom, and that, on the other hand, this wisdom is
not generally applied and, to a large extent, cannot be applied as long as we fail to build a simple
system based on the complete elimination of the pathological factors.14
Korzybski’s failure to take much note of the work of John Dewey was presented by Gardner as
an example of how Korzybski ignored modern philosophers. As indicated in the bibliography of
Science and Sanity, Korzybski was familiar with Dewey’s work. However, his not discussing it in
at any length hardly proves ‘crankdom’ on Korzybski’s part. Although pointed in a similar direc-
tion, Korzybski and Dewey simply moved along different tracks.
Interestingly enough, Korzybski for a period had an intensive correspondence with Arthur F.
Bentley, a social scientist and philosopher who collaborated with Dewey in a 1949 foray into scien-
tific epistemology—Knowing and the Known. Gardner might have found it salutary to consider what
Dewey and Bentley said about Korzybski at one point in their book, after they had traced a trail of
confused formulating regarding symbols, words, entities, etc., in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell
(whom, in spite of his faults, Korzybski admired greatly):
Fusion of “symbol” and “entity” is what Russell demands, and confusion is what he gets. With an
exhibit as prominent as this in the world, it is no wonder that Korzybski has felt it necessary to devote
so much of his writings to the insistent declaration that the word is not the thing. His continual in-
sistence upon this point will remain a useful public service until, at length, the day comes when a
thorough theory of the organization of behavioral word and cosmic fact has been constructed.15
Korzybski collaborated and corresponded with some of the most important scientists, math-
ematicians, and psychiatrists of his day. He received acknowledgement from many of them. These
included mathematician/philosopher Cassius J. Keyser, William Alanson White, M.D. (one of the
leading American psychiatrists in the early twentieth century), and the geneticist C. B. Bridges (who
helped him edit the first draft of Science and Sanity), among many others.
Gardner neglected to mention that Korzybski had studied ‘mental’ illness for two years under
White’s supervision at St. Elisabeths Hospital in Washington D.C. in the 1920s. While there,
Korzybski conferred regularly with the psychiatrists at the hospital, interviewed patients, attended
meetings, reviewed cases, etc. Korzybski certainly did not work in isolation, contradicting Gardner’s
“first and most important” criteria for identifying pseudo-scientists. It seems highly unlikely that
White would have let Korzybski anywhere near St. Elisabeths if he thought Korzybski was a crank.
Both Keyser and White wrote about and used Korzybski’s formulations quite explicitly in their
work. Before his untimely death, Bridges had worked on using GS to create a non-aristotelian for-
mulation of theoretical biology.16 Hervey Cleckley, M.D., a psychiatrist whose work on psychop-
athy, The Mask of Sanity, is considered a classic, reformulated the second edition of his book to take
into account his studies in GS.17 And the list goes on.
Although people like Gardner and philosopher Ernest Nagel seemed to take an intense dislike
to Korzybski and his work, there were many others like mathematician Edward Kasner, who said:
…I got to know Korzybski and under the influence of Keyser I started reading and admiring
him…Korzybski is the only one that I ever met who united and had equal interest in mathematics
and psychiatry. To me they seemed to dominate his career. He had a very sane view of
mathematics….The more I read the more I have admired Korzybski...18
Korzybski delivered many of his papers at scientific, mathematical, and psychiatric meetings
and had articles in such publications as Science and The American Journal of Psychiatry, among
others.
Soon after Korzybski’s death, an obituary comment in the May, 1950 edition of The American
Journal of Psychiatry stated: “The death of this great teacher…deepens appreciation of his essen-
tial contribution to human understanding, on an individual, widely social, or international scale.” 19
Constructing a ‘Crank’
“A second tendency of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strengthens his isolation is a tendency
toward paranoia.” 20 I have already dealt with some suggestions of this by Gardner in relation to
Korzybski and his colleagues, suggestions without substance. As part of further efforts to prove
‘paranoiac tendencies,’ Gardner asserted that Korzybski “believed himself one of the world’s greatest
living thinkers.” 21
How did Gardner know this? For someone who made part of a career out of debunking so-called
psychics, Gardner didn’t feel at all shy about demonstrating his own ‘psychic’ abilities, declaring
‘what Korzybski believed about himself’ without documentation from any source. How else could
Gardner know unless he was dipping into ‘the cosmic well of knowing’ that ‘psychics’ are supposed
to dip into? Seriously—Gardner provided no evidence that Korzybski ever said or believed this.
Gardner’s assertion remains another of his uncritical inferences masquerading as a statement of fact—
‘proof’ that Korzybski was a crank.
However, there does remain the question of whether Korzybski overestimated the significance
of his work. Again, Allen Walker Read:
Korzybski has been accused, in speaking of his own work, of overstating its value and importance.
Martin Gardner has called it too strong an ‘ego drive’. But our Robert Pula has a good riposte to
that. Drawing from a Polish source [Stanislaw J. Lec—Ed.], he quoted: “A man who is a genius and
doesn’t know it, probably isn’t.”
In the academic world it is expected that a scholar should build up a reputation in some specialty,
and from that base go on to synthesize other fields into his own. Korzybski did not do this, but was
a ‘system builder’ from a base as an engineer, if anything. He drew from a wider range of fields,
some people thought, then he had competence in. The professors at the University of Chicago kept
asking, “What right does he have to pontificate as he does?” 22
Gardner—a former Christian fundamentalist who took up philosophy at the University of Chi-
cago and lost, at least, the Christian part—was possibly influenced by these professors’ attitudes.23
He attended some lectures that Korzybski gave while the Institute was in Chicago.24 Allen Walker
Read, then working in Chicago, knew Gardner:
Among the budding philosophers on the…campus was a graduate student named Martin Gardner,
whom I knew and respected, but who picked up a contemptuous attitude from the department there.
He later, in 1951, pilloried general semantics in his influential book Fads and Fallacies in the Name
of Science. This was not completely honest of him, since he admitted that Korzybski’s work was
“controversial, borderline,” and that it “may or may not have considerable [scientific] merit.” I
conferred with Gardner as he was writing the book and found that he was unduly influenced by a
published report from Los Angeles that a group of Korzybski’s followers were founding a “General
Semantics Church” and were about to go underground to preserve the purity of the faith from the
impending destruction of the world. It turned out that within a few weeks this group lost its interest
in general semantics and embraced scientology. But in this land of free speech, Korzybski could
not prevent a few ‘loonies’, as I regard them, from proclaiming an alleged association with him.25
If Read advised Gardner not to ‘go there’, Gardner chose not to listen and linked GS to this
‘Church’ and to Scientology—then called “Dianetics”—which Gardner seemed to consider similar
to the GS ‘cult’ but “more exciting.” 26 This appears especially ironic since two of the first serious
critiques of Dianetics—L. Ron Hubbard’s famous entry into ‘fiction science’—had been published
nearly simultaneously in two GS publications in 1951, the year before Gardner’s book appeared.
One was written by the korzybskian psychiatrist Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, in General Semantics
Bulletin, and the other, written by S. I. Hayakawa, appeared in ETC.27
The terminology that Korzybski developed for general semantics appeared to Gardner as fur-
ther proof of Korzybski’s paranoid ‘crankdom’. Gardner’s jeering attitude toward Korzybski’s lin-
guistic innovations was expressed in his description of them as “neologisms,” a term sometimes
used to describe the ‘word salad’ of schizophrenics. “Many of the classics of crackpot science ex-
hibit a neologistic tendency.” 28 For example, according to Gardner, “Most contemporary philoso-
phers who use the word “semantics,” restrict it to the study of the meaning of words and other sym-
bols. In contrast, the Count used the word so broadly that it became almost meaningless.” 29
On the contrary, Korzybski carefully distinguished between semantics and general semantics,
and consistently used the word “semantics” to refer to the linguistic/philosophical study of word
‘meanings’. What was Gardner talking about?
He seems to have confused the noun “semantics” with the adjective “semantic.” Clearly, Gardner
was bothered by Korzybski’s use of the adjective “semantic,” as in “semantic reaction,” but despite
Mr. Gardner’s irritability, there seems to be nothing particularly crackpot about that terminology.
Koryzbski developed the term “semantic reaction(s)” to describe our nervous-system reactions
to verbal and/or nonverbal events. The ‘meanings’ in such reactions consist mainly of non-verbal,
organism-as-a-whole responses which underly any verbal response we may have. For example, a
menacing dog confronts you and you react with a neuro-semantic reaction, i.e., you react with a
primarily nonverbal ‘meaning’ for that situation, i.e. you evaluate it. (Hence “evaluational” is some-
times substituted for “semantic,” e.g., “evaluational [semantic] reaction.”)
By comparison, in the field of semantics, the term “semantic” refers to limited, verbal, defini-
tional ‘meanings’ considered in isolation from an evaluating organism. General Semantics is a dif-
ferent field. To understand the use of the term “semantic,” you have to know the context and what
field you are in.
It is true that even some prominent general semanticists confused general semantics with se-
mantics in their writings, but Korzybski surely didn’t. As Read said, “Perhaps the closest synonym
to Korzybski’s use of semantic is evaluative. When the reference is specifically to the system he has
developed, he is careful to use the term general semantic(s).” 30
In fact, Korzybski was so insistent on keeping the two fields separate, that his opposition to the
tendency to refer to general semantics as “semantics” (and Hayakawa’s apparent refusal to stop
referring to it as “semantics”) played a major role in splitting the general-semantics ‘world’ into
two camps. We have only now begun to close this rift.
Gardner seriously misrepresented his friend Allen Walker Read’s scholarly work when he wrote
that, “As Read points out, Korzybski considered a plant tropism, such as growing up instead of down,
a ‘semantic reaction’.” 31
Korzybski never made such a claim and Read was much too careful a scholar of GS to have
pointed out what Gardner said he did. Korzybski, inspired by Jacques Loeb, had an interest in plant
tropisms because he sought to understand the organic basis of human evaluative reactions and their
continuity with the ‘irritability’ and ‘reactivity’ of simpler organisms.
In contrast to Gardner’s misreading, another critic of Korzybski, philosopher Max Black, came
much closer to the actual “operational,” “physiological” character of Korzybski’s formulation of
evaluational[semantic] reactions. As Black stated:
The important decision is now made to use physiological criteria of meaning, i.e., to test statements about
meanings by observations of what is known or assumed to be happening in the nervous system of a bio-
logical organism. This choice of procedure gives a distinctive slant to Korzybski’s investigations, for he
is, in his own words, mainly interested in “the neurological attitude toward ‘meaning’.” 32
In other ways, Black misread Science and Sanity as much as Gardner did. However, to his credit,
Black also found something of value in Korzybski’s use of language. Black wrote “Any reader of
Korzybski’s major work, Science and Sanity, must be impressed by the liveliness, vigor, and fresh-
ness of the exposition.” 33
Gardner, however, found very little of value:
[Science and Sanity] is a poorly organized, verbose, philosophically naïve, repetitious mish-mash of sound
ideas borrowed from abler scientists and philosophers, mixed with neologisms, confused ideas, uncon-
scious metaphysics, and highly dubious speculations about neurology and psychiatric therapy. 34
Observe how confidently ‘skeptic’ Gardner speaks about “highly dubious speculations” in neu-
rology and psychiatric therapy. Yet Gardner did not know enough about those areas to properly as-
sess Korzybski’s work.
In contrast to Gardner’s personal opinion, we have the reports of well-known scholars in those fields
who praised Korzybski’s work. (I’ve already mentioned the psychiatrist, William Alanson White.) The
noted neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Meyers, MD, FSC, had this to say in a 1971 letter to M. Kendig:
...I have just re-read Science and Sanity (my 8th run) and am so deeply impressed with it as to now
say, without reservation, that, disregarding its rhetoric (in the main, its repetitious statements), it is
far and away the most profound, insightful and globally significant book I have ever read.
With some knowledge of the interim developments of science and the socio-political events that
have materialized since 1933, I can say in retrospect that any modifications that might now have to
be made in the original text would be trivial, mainly technological supplements; none in principle
(‘structure’-as-function). A.K. [Alfred Korzybski] has proved far more a prophet than he would ever
have allowed himself to fancy. What a tremendous breadth and depth of insight, analytic and syn-
thetic achievement! 35
Dr. Meyers was Chief of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Williamson Appalachian Regional Hos-
pital, 1963-1974; and Chairman, Division of Neurosurgery, and Professor of Surgery, University of
Iowa, 1946-1963. He produced hundreds of scholarly papers in a wide variety of scientific fields,
many of the same fields about which Korzybski wrote so well. And he was not the only prominent
neurologist who praised Korzybski, e.g., the late C. Judson Herrick, Professor of Neurology, Uni-
versity of Chicago.36
With a Little Help From Korzybski’s ‘Friends’

Gardner appreciated much more the work of Korzybski’s student S. I. Hayakawa, whose wa-
tered-down version of GS, which Hayakawa often called “semantics,” seemed more palatable to
Gardner.37 In a review of a book by Hayakawa’s long-time colleague Anatol Rapoport, Ralph C.
Hamilton (a former staff member of the Institute of General Semantics who had studied and worked
with Korzybski) touched on a point central not only to Rapoport’s but also to Hayakawa’s versions
of ‘semantics,’ throughout much of both men’s careers:
As an exposition of non-aristotelian outlook and method this book [Science and the Goals of Man]
offers little to a newcomer to the field. It would not take him to the core of non-aristotelianism or,
specifically, general semantics and probably would mislead him in this way: the structure of lan-
guage Rapoport uses implies and reinstates the very aristotelian premises which his professed non-
aristotelian orientation would supersede. He talks about the new orientations but seldom uses them
here. To explain them to the man in the street he reverts to that man’s habitual frame of reference,
and finds himself in the position of a modern physicist trying to explain relativity in terms of the
‘ether’, ‘gravitation’, euclidean ‘straight line’ geometry, ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘matter’, and so on. 38
Hayakawa’s and, to a lesser extent, Rapoport’s writing skills, longevity, popularity and influ-
ence are not in doubt. Their writings and those of popularizers like Stuart Chase introduced many
people to Korzybski’s work—good, from my point of view, however unfortunate such promotion
may have seemed to Gardner. Nonetheless, I don’t consider their work a completely unmixed blessing.
In Allen Walker Read’s words, “From reading Hayakawa one would never get the impression of
richness and depth that Korzybski actually provides.39 Read quoted from Yale philosopher F. S. C.
Northrop’s 1954 Korzybski Memorial Lecture in which Northrop said:
The problem, therefore, of understanding Count Korzybski’s semantics [sic] is much more com-
plex than many of his simple-minded expositors have supposed. It requires a clarification of the
type of conceptual meaning which appears in mathematical physics as well as of the type of con-
ceptual meaning which is present in the more purely inductive, natural history sciences and in so
much of common sense experience.40
I’d like to note the importance—here as elsewhere—of indexing, in this case indexing ‘general
semanticists’. Despite their simplifications and oversimplifications, Hayakawa and Chase probably
had much positive effect in getting Korzybski’s work into greater public view. For years, Hayakawa,
an English professor, edited ETC.: A Review of General Semantics with a consistently high stan-
dard of scholarship, readability, and interest. His excellent books, with their focus on language, led
at least some people to explore Korzybski’s broader realm. And he consistently gave credit to
Korzybski without, as far as I know, denigrating his teacher. (See my article “Getting Off Hayakawa’s
Ladder” for my detailed assessment of Hayakawa’s presentation of GS in his book, Language in
Thought and Action.)41
On the other hand, despite his training as a mathematical physicist, Rapoport reports that he
found no value in Korzybski’s work without the help of his mentor, English professor Hayakawa
(see the first chapter of Rapoport’s memoir Certainty and Doubt). Although he served Hayakawa
as an assistant editor of ETC. for about 20 years, Rapoport, who made a name for himself in sys-
tems theory and mathematical approaches to the social sciences, had an especially uneasy relation-
ship with Korzybski and his work. Rapoport waxed hot and cold on GS throughout his long career
and at times seemed similar to Gardner in the level of inaccurate portrayal, misinterpretation and
nasty invective against Korzybski, both in print and to colleagues.
Ed MacNeal, a creative general-semantics writer, who knew Rapoport at the University of Chi-
cago during the 1940s, described what seems to me a typical outburst by Rapoport, one which does
not appear to contain even one statement of fact:
… Anatol Rapoport, of “prisoner’s dilemma” and other fame, asked about Korzybski, “If he was
not a crackpot…why was he so repetitive, verbose, pugnacious, redundant and self-congratulatory,
manifesting all the symptoms of crackpot delusions?’ A campus joke from the 1940s went, “Do you
know the difference between ceramics and semantics? Semantics is crackpottery.” 42
Remembering the importance of temporal indexing or dating, I looked at Rapoport’s memoir of
2001, to see if any significant change had occurred in these views. Unfortunately, the ‘bad-mouth-
ing’ has continued. Korzybski bashers like Gardner couldn’t have done much better than what ‘se-
mantics’ ‘friends’ like Rapoport did at times.
Did Gardner Reform?

Gardner and Rapoport clearly did not see the richness and complexity that Northrop and others
found in Korzybski’s work. After the first edition of Gardner’s ‘skeptic’ classic, came out in 1952,
Korzybski’s co-worker M. [Marjorie] Kendig, who became Director of the Institute of General
Semantics after his death, decided that she would not waste the Institute staff’s and her own time
dealing in depth with what some saw as an attempt at character assassination:
…Mr. Gardner appears to be a gifted writer. He reports with gusto opinions about opinions and gossips
about gossip (some have called them ‘malicious distortions’). His biases and sources are easily spotted
if one ‘knows the field’. Correcting errors of fact is a simple business. Disentangling this potpourri
of fact, fable, and fallacy would take some weeks. Analysis would fill a volume. And to what pur-
pose? We are up against ‘the perpetuation of error’ in print. When, if ever, has the tortoise of facts
overtaken that hare? I, for one, doubt that we need to defend Korzybski at this late date. [Obviously,
I disagree with Kendig on this last point.—BIK]
I content myself with the statement that Gardner’s interpretations and most of his data about
Korzybksi are as far from accurate as his obvious error in citing page 800 of Science and Sanity for
a quote which is not within 500 pages thereof…43
This error, not surprisingly, was not corrected in the second edition. Up to and including 1993,
when he published an article on E-Prime in Skeptical Inquirer, Gardner continued his mudslinging
with generous dollops from Fads and Fallacies. Several people knowledgeable in GS (including
myself) responded to the 1993 article with letters to the editor which were published with Gardner’s
response to them, wherein he wrote:
Readers are urged to check the final chapter of Max Black’s Language and Philosophy...
[Korzybski’s] misunderstanding of Aristotelian logic, Black writes, led him into countless absurdi-
ties. “Very little remains of Korzybski’s theory of abstractions except some hypothetical neurology
fortified with dogmatic metaphysics.” Ernest Nagel, reviewing Black’s book, said: “Black’s restrained
but nonetheless devastating critique of the basic ideas on which Korzybski rests his pretentious claim
is alone worth the price of the book. 44
(To his credit, Gardner republished these letters with his article in his 1996 book, Weird Water
and Fuzzy Logic.)
To find out if there were indeed anything to Gardner’s and Nagel’s claims about Black’s cri-
tique, which I had not read before, I undertook a serious in-depth examination of Black’s chapter.
The results of my research were published in an article in General Semantics Bulletin in 1997. In
my article, “Contra Max Black,” I showed that although Black raised a few valid points, his argu-
ments appear far from “devastating” and result mainly from a misreading of Korzybski’s work.
A copy was sent to Gardner but was never acknowledged so I have no idea whether he ever
received or read it. I like to think that he did and that it might have had some effect, since I have not
heard any further anti-korzybskian sounds from his direction. Perhaps this silence about GS indi-
cates he has learned something. I don’t know.
At any rate, although he still writes, Gardner seems near the end of his career and whatever
damage he has personally done to Korzybski’s reputation and to GS has been done. Or perhaps not,
as others like Shermer have taken up his mantle, uncritically referring to his old work on Korzybski
(which he himself may have second thoughts about by now) and seem intent on repeating his at-
times mistaken approach to skepticism.
For all the ‘good’ Gardner may have done in criticizing deserving nonsense, the failure of lead-
ing skeptics and skeptics organizations to acknowledge Gardner’s unskeptical abuse of a great sci-
entific-philosophical formulator like Korzybski indicates some problems within the ‘skeptic’ move-
ment and within some parts of the related scientific, humanist and academic communities as well.
(Note well—I am not excoriating all skeptics, scientists, humanists, or academics here!)
For me, Gardner’s writings on GS and Korzybski remain a low point of a particular style of
scientific skepticism, which I dub “the horselaugh school.” Gardner, hailed as one of “the ten out-
standing skeptics of the twentieth century,” took as his motto a witty saying from H. L. Mencken,
“One horselaugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.” 45 In his work on (or, perhaps more aptly stated,
his ‘working over’) of Korzybski and GS, Gardner exposed the limitations of this motto. Although
there remains a place for satire and humor in skeptical writing, derision does not work well as a
general strategy for legitimate skepticism. Gardner’s picking at GS actually constitutes an ‘Achil-
les heel’ for Gardner and a continuing source of embarrassment for the skeptic movement.
I consider this an occasion for genuine sadness. For Gardner has also done significant legiti-
mate work as a skeptic and as a writer/critic about science and mathematics. Serious students of
general semantics share in a general skeptical outlook. Gardner’s vituperations—as well as those of
other eminent anti-korzybskians who should have known better, like Sydney Hook, W. V. Quine,
Ernest Nagel, and Max Black—drove a wedge between “skeptics” and their korzybskian allies.
It also put other debunking efforts by Gardner into question—at least in the eyes of some
people—as well it should have. If Gardner could so misrepresent Korzybski’s work, one wonders
what else he might have misrepresented during his long career. How much trust can one give to a
‘fringe watcher’—which Gardner has called himself—who does not seem to be able to adequately
distinguish between a flat-earth enthusiast and a Korzybski?
How unfortunate that Gardner couldn’t sufficiently delay his anti-korzybskian logorrhea long
enough to consider general semantics more fairly. Instead, this description by Lichtenberg seems
to fit Gardner’s published sniping at Korzybski and general semantics from 1952 to 1996: “He can’t
hold his ink; and when he feels a desire to befoul someone, he usually befouls himself most.” 46
“Misread, unread, and superficially treated” has been the lot of Benjamin Lee Whorf’s work,
writes Whorf scholar Penny Lee.47 Korzybski’s related work has shared a similar lot. However, the
transmission of errors about Korzybski, general semantics and the non-aristotelian orientation, based
on hostile and/or oversimplifying opponents—and followers—will no longer do.
We have now reached a time when philosophers, scientists , as well as laypeople—who are seek-
ing to create a broadened understanding of ‘science’ and its relation to humanity—should reexam-
ine previously accepted ‘skeptical’ accounts of general semantics.
There is important work to be done in taking general semantics as a whole and applying it to
problems, integrating it with related theories and approaches, developing it, and reassessing it in
the light of new understandings and data in science, philosophy, etc.
General Semantics deserves to be taken seriously as a—not the—foundation for the further de-
velopment of human knowledge and well-being.
Notes
1. Shermer
2. Korzybski, 1994 (1933), pp. xxxii
3. Gardner 1957 (1952), pp. 12-13. You can find Shermer’s article on the Scientific American
website (See Bibliography for full web reference).
4. Qtd. in Chase, p. 60
5. Maloney, p. 217
6. Gardner, 1957 (1952), p. 283
7. Korzybski 1947, p. 325. Gardner’s continuing reference to Korzybski as “The Count” may qualify as another
fascinating irrelevancy intended for disparagement. Regarding Korzybski’s title, Allen Walker Read noted:
Being a ‘foreigner’ (I use quotation marks) also was a disadvantage to him, especially when he had
the suspicious title of ‘Count’. Lecturers from abroad, like the flamboyant Count Herman Keyserling,
had imposed themselves by self-promotion on American gullibility. Too many German Freiherren
had paraded themselves as ‘Counts’. (I may say parenthetically that Korzybski did not seek out the
title ‘Count’, in spite of the standing of his family in the Polish aristocracy, but it was fostered by
his wife, a talented American portrait painter, who believed it was useful to her to be called ‘Count-
ess Korzybska’. (Read 1984, p. 16)
8. In his book, Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus, Gardner used the Crane ‘bathroom’ connection in
a juvenile critique of GS, a satirical “Manifesto of The Institute of General Eclectics” where he
makes fun of “Science and Sanitation, by the late Count Aulayore Beeyemski.” (pp. 59-61)
9. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 8
10. Ibid, p. 286
11. Ibid, p. 283
12. Read 1984, p. 14
13. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 283

14. Korzybski 1994 (1933), p. xci
15. Dewey and Bentley, p. 220. Despite this nod to Korzybski, Dewey and Bentley did not see that
general semantics constituted the very “thorough theory of the organization of behavioral word and
cosmic fact” that they anticipated.
16. Korzybski 1994 (1933), p. 784
17. Kendig 1950/1951
18. Kasner
19. Comment: Alfred Korzybski
20. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 11
21. Ibid, p. 283
22. Read 1984, pp. 16-17
23. Frazier, p. 35
24. Gardner 1993, p. 262
25. Read 1984, p. 14
26. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 287
27. Kelley, Hayakawa
28. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 14. Gardner’s friend and supporter, humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz,
has coined a number of new words he saw as necessary to represent new views. This hardly makes
Kurtz a ‘crank’.
29. Ibid, p. 282
30. Read, 1948
31. Gardner, 1957 (1952), 282
32. Black, p. 227
33 Ibid, p. 223
34.Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 281
35. Meyers qtd. in Kendig, 1972
36. Korzybski, 1994 (1933), p. 803
37. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 287
38. Hamilton, p. 74
39. Read 1984, p. 15
40. Northrop, p. 2
41. Kodish, 1993
42. Macneal, pp. 46-47
43. Kendig 1952/1953, p. 96
44. Gardner 1993 b, pp. 106-107

45. “The Ten Outstanding Skeptics…,” p. 24
46. Lichtenberg, p. 85
47. Lee, p. 14
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Black, Max. 1949. Language and philosophy: Studies in method. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Bohm, David and F. David Peat. 2000 (1987). Science, order, and creativity. Second Edition. Lon-
don: Routledge.
Chase, Stuart. 1956. Guides to straight thinking: With 13 common fallacies. New York: Harper &
Brothers.
Comment: Alfred Korzybski. 1950. The American Journal of Psychiatry 106 (11). Reproduced in
General Semantics Bulletin 3: 32.
Dewey, John and Arthur F. Bentley. 1949. Knowing and the known. Boston: The Beacon Press.
Frazier, Kendrick. 1998. A mind at play: An interview with Martin Gardner. Skeptical Inquirer 22
(2): 34-39.
Gardner, Martin. 1996. Weird water and fuzzy logic: More notes of a fringe watcher. Buffalo, NY:
Prometheus Books.
———. 1995. Fuzzy logic. Skeptical Inquirer 19 (5): 9-11, 56.
———. 1993 a. E-Prime: Getting rid of isness. Skeptical Inquirer 17 (3): 261-266.
———. 1993 b. Letters to the Editor-Martin Gardner responds. Skeptical Inquirer18 (Fall): 106-107.
———. 1981. Science: Good, bad, and bogus. New York: Avon Books.
———. 1952, 1957. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. 2nd edition. New York: Dover.
Hamilton, Ralph C. 1950/1951. Comments on Science and the goals of man by Anatol Rapoport.
General Semantics Bulletin 4 & 5: 74.
Hayakawa, S. I., Dianetics (“Hayakawa Traces the Evolution of Science-Fiction into Fiction-Sci-
ence”), in ETC., A Review of General Semantics, Volume VIII, Number 4. Summer, 1951.
Kasner, Edward. 1950/1951. Kasner on Korzybski and mathematics. General Semantics Bulletin 4-5: 50.
Kelley, Douglas M. 1951. Book Comments –Dianetics: The modern science of mental health, by L.
Ron Hubbard. New York: Hermitage House, 1950. General Semantics Bulletin 6 &7: 94-95.
Kendig, M. 1972. About Books – Comments. General Semantics Bulletin 37: 83.
———. [Marjorie Mercer]. 1952 /1953. Caveat emptor, or watch your blood pressure! General
Semantics Bulletin 10 & 11: 96.
———. 1950/1951. Comments on The Mask of Sanity, Second Edition by Hervey Cleckley. Gen-
eral Semantics Bulletin 4 & 5: 71.
Kodish, Bruce I. 1997. Contra Max Black: An examination of critiques of general semantics.
General Semantics Bulletin 64: 24-44. Available at this Wed address: http://www.
driveyourselfsane.com/gsarticles/maxblack.html
——. 1993. Getting off Hayakawa’s ladder. General Semantics Bulletin 57: 65-76.
Korzybski, Alfred. 1994 (1933). Science & sanity: An Introduction to Non-aristotelian Systems
and General Smantics. Fifth Edition. Brooklyn, NY: Institute of General Semantics.
——. 1990. Alfred Korzybski Collected writings: 1920-1950. (Collected and arranged by M. Kendig.
Final Editing and preparation for printing by Charlotte Schuchardt Read with the assistance of
Robert P. Pula.) Englewood, NJ: Institute of General Semantics.
———. 1947. Biographical material. Recorded by Kenneth Keyes, July 1947. Transcribed by
Roberta Rymer Keyes. Indexed by Robert P. Pula. Unpublished.
Lee, Penny. 1996. The Whorf theory complex: A critical reconstruction. Amsterdam /Philadelphia:
John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph. (trans. and ed. Franz H. Mautner and Henry Hatfield). 1959. The
Lichtenberg reader: Selected writings of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Boston: Beacon Press.
Macneal, Edward. 1994. Mathsemantics: Making Numbers Talk Sense. New York: Viking Penguin.
Maloney, Martin. 1956. How To Avoid An Idea. Etc.: A Review of General Semantics. XII (3): 214-224.
Northrop, F. S. C. 1955. Mathematical physics and Korzybski’s semantics. General Semantics
Bulletin 16 & 17: 7-14.
Rapoport, Anatol. 2000. Certainties and doubts: A philosophy of life. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
———. 1950. Science and the goals of man: A study in semantic orientation. New York: Harper
and Brothers.
Read, Allen Walker. 1986. General Semantics. In Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, ed. Tho-
mas A. Sebeok, 280-282. Amsterdam: Mouton de Gruyter.
———. 1984. Changing attitudes toward Korzybski’s general semantics. General Semantics Bul-
letin 51: 11-25.
———. 1948, An Account of the Word ‘Semantics’, Word, Vol 4., No. 2, August
Shermer, Michael. 2002. Skeptic: Hermits and Cranks. Scientific American, March. Available at
h t t p : / / w w w. s c i a m . c o m / a r t i c l e . c f m ? a r t i c l e I D = 0 0 0 5 4 7 F 6 - C 5 0 D - 1 C C 6 -
B4A8809EC588EEDF&ref=sciam
The ten outstanding skeptics. Skeptical Inquirer 24 (1): 22–28.
MEMORIAL TIME-BINDING
Perhaps you're like me: I enjoy reading obituaries. For me, the main appeal lies in reading about the
magnificently varied ways that people get through life—their family histories, accomplishments, difficul-
ties, career changes over a life-time, hobbies, etc. Each of us has a span of time—length unknown—in which
to do what we do, not do what we don't do, with varying degrees of uniqueness, strength in overcoming
difficulties, joy and sorrow, innovation and routine.So I learn in ways that help me to help myself and oth-
ers, including those with whom I work as a psychologist. So many ways to cope with so many happen-
ings—to me, amazing.
I'm inspired to contemplate this issue because we in the general-semantics community have recently
lost so many dear friends and colleagues. In this section of GSB 71, we commemorate the lives of Chris
Sheldon, Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga, Greg Sawin, and Robert Blake. Varied lives with a common thread of
general semantics making different patterns. Following this section, are separate sections on three individu-
als—Tom Nelson, Ken Johnson, and Bob Pula—who made significant contributions to IGS teaching and
scholarship. These sections on Tom, Ken and Bob include more extensive articles on their writing and/or
teaching work.
Some may consider it morbid, a "downer," to confront lives ended. Yet consider, in reading about them,
that we are time-binding in a most important way. Charlotte Read wanted her life to be celebrated, not
mourned, when she died. We honored her wish. And we can honor those we include in this issue by learning
from, and celebrating, the ways in which they got through life.
— Susan Presby Kodish
CHRISTOPHER BARROWS SHELDON (1926–2002)

Chris Sheldon (as he was known to us) was a long-time participant in the workings of the IGS.
As M. Kendig wrote, “ Mr. Sheldon's interest in general semantics and his interest in ‘communica-
tion between peoples of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and the type of work done by
B. L. Whorf ’, have been mutually reinforcing since a luncheon conversation we had here [Lakeville,
CT] in early 1950.” (GSB Numbers 18 & 19, 1956, p. 103) His mother, who died in 1990 (age 96)
was a life-long devoted friend of Kendig.
For many years an IGS Trustee, Chris
served as IGS Director from 1969 to 1970, and
served as our Treasurer for many years, to the
time of his death, of pancreatic cancer. As Trea-
surer, he was known for issuing "red flag" warn-
ings when he thought we were spending too
much, as well as helping to choose investments.
Born in New York City, he was educated at
the University of San Marcos, Lima, Peru, S.A.
and Princeton University Theological Se-
minary, earning his Doctorate of Philosophy at
the University of Madrid, Spain.
Following an around-the-world voyage as
First Mate and photographer for the National
Geographic Magazine on Irving Johnson’s brig-
antine, Yankee in May of 1959, Chris married
Alice N. Strahan, M.D., who had served as the
Chris Sailing in Maine, 1956 medical officer of the Yankee. During a stop at
MEMORIAL TIME-BINDING 65
Pitcairn Island, he had located and recovered the anchor of the ship, HMS Bounty, a discovery re-
ported in National Geographic.
Together, the couple owned, and Chris captained, the brigantine, Albatross. They founded Ocean
Academy, an at-sea school designed to help selected students continue their high school studies
(taught by Alice, who also served as medical officer, Chris and others) and learn to sail while trav-
eling around the world. Their Academy experiences, and the tragic deaths of Alice and some stu-
dents, at the time of the ship's sinking in May of 1961, during what is now called a microburst, were
the subject of the 1996 motion picture, White Squall. This critically-acclaimed movie, made with
Chris’s cooperation, was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Jeff Bridges, who played Chris.
Upon the recommendation of Mary Bunting, former Radcliffe College president, he was cho-
sen to be Director of Operations of the Peace Corps in Colombia, S.A., serving under Sargent Shriver.
Chris developed programs that are active and still ongoing.
Missionary work took him to the base of the Grand Canyon to work with the Havasupi community
on the Colorado River in Arizona. He was also on the Board of the Institute of General Semantics for
many years. Sheldon harbored an abiding love of the sea and of all marine life from an early age.
Chris is survived by his brother, John Sheldon and his nieces, Dr. Leonie Stone, Priscilla Sheldon,
M.D., and Jennie Gilmore, a grandnephew and two grandnieces. He is greatly missed.
MITSUKO SAITO-FUKUNAGA
We learned in September 2004 that Professor Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga died on February 27,
2004. A long-time friend of the Institute and the former International Society for General Seman-
tics (ISGS), she influenced others in her native Japan to become involved with general semantics.
Mitsuko was one of the students who came through Northwestern University—she received her
PhD in 1957—as Irving J. Lee proteges. This impressive group included Sandy Berman, Elton Carter,
Bill Haney, and Catherine Minteer, all of whom went on to careers which highlighted general semantics.
Professor Emeritus at Toyko's International Christian University, Mitsuko had served as Chair
of the Language Division and Coordinator for the International Communication Department. She
lectured on conference interpreting at Tokyo University of Foreign Languages and helped establish
the Department of Conference Interpreting at the University of Hawaii. She published and lectured
frequently on communication, often focusing on intercultural communication and was a Fellow of
the World Futures Studies Federation. She served on the Editorial Board of General Semantics Bul-
letin from 1967 to 1997, the ISGS Board of Directors from 1983 to 2002, and spoke at general-
semantics conferences. The following letter, writtern shortly before her death, expresses Mitsuko’s friend-
ship and lifelong committment to the general-semantics community:
Dear Friends,
Congratulations!
I am delighted to hear that the Institute of General Semantics and the International Society for
General Semantics will be merging. This has been a dream I had cherished over many years.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my continued support for the new organization.
I have not been in such good health lately, having been hospitalized for a while and receiving
continued medical treatment. Though my efforts may be limited, please feel free to let me know
if I could be of any assistance to the new Institute of General Semantics.
Lastly, I would like to send special greetings to my friend, Paul Johnston, and I hope he wtll let
me know when he will be in Japan next time.
Sincerely,
Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga
Read Mitsuko’s articles in GS publications to get a sense of her contributions:

Etc.:
# 39, Vol. 3, p. 205, 1982: Nemawashi: A Japanese Form of Interpersonal Communication
# 46, Vol. 4, p. 295, 1989: GS and Intercultural Communication
General Semantics Bulletin:
# 18, 1955, p. 10: Irving J. Lee as Remembered by Mitsuko Saito
# 20, 1975, p. 32: Zen Comics: A Translation
# 37, 1970, p. 14: Learning to Communicate
She will be missed.
GREGORY SAWIN IN HIS TIME (1950–2004)

BY JAMES D. FRENCH
Greg Sawin was my friend. I would say of him now as Tim O'Reilly once said of George Simon:
“I loved him and thought him wonderful.” Greg and I first met years ago, at a meeting of the San
Francisco Chapter of the International Society for General Semantics. Immediately I was struck by
his enthusiasm for life, his interest in things.
Sometimes I would visit him in his small one-bedroom apartment in Menlo Park California, and we
would spend hours together discussing many things. Greg was interested in Star Trek, general seman-
tics, table tennis, chess, photography, and current events. He was an avid fan of movies and video tapes.
I remember once he gave me a spontaneous, five-minute lecture on why table tennis should not
be called “Ping-Pong.” The next time we met, he happened to mention table tennis in the conversa-
tion, and I said, “What is table…? Oh! You mean Ping-Pong.” We loved to kid each other like that,
gently. It was a beautiful friendship, punctuated with long telephone conversations.
Greg had a fondness for Japanese culture. He could usually read commercial signs in the Japa-
nese language, and even decipher some sentences in Japanese books, as he had learned the meaning
of many Japanese language symbols. He practiced writing them. Greg coached Japanese girls in
tournament table tennis, and had their personal, signed pictures on his wall.
Greg Sawin had one of the marks of genius— the capacity for taking infinite pains. I was struck by
the intensity with which he approached his interests in writing, editing, pencil drawing, guitar playing,
etc. He applied himself with knowledge and skill to whatever task was at hand.
Greg had serious physical problems, surgeries, and illnesses, e.g., severe arthritis, caused by the
blood disease hemophilia (which he had had since childhood), and later hepatitis, a disease he got
from frequent blood transfusions. He was a little guy who hobbled around as best he could.
MEMORIAL TIME-BINDING 67
Though married for a time, he never found the woman who would be his life's companion. Often no one
gave him a break and he asked for none. Greg had a sign by his front door, “No Religious Solicitors.” His moral
straightness did not come from religion, but he had it in spades. He truly cared about others, and went out of his
way to help them in small and large matters. He took the initiative when bothersome tasks needed to be done, a
rare and admirable character trait, remarkable really, considering his limited mobility and physical problems.
Sometimes we would meet at the Japan Center, a kind of oasis of Japanese culture in San Francisco. Many
times Jerry Klein, who was the editor of ETC, would come too. Whether Greg was coming to my house, or
meeting us at the Japan Center, he would
often arrive with a briefcase stuffed with
notes and handouts on general semantics. Fisherman’s Net (Abstraction) 6-27-87
Greg Sawin continually sought to A fisherman made a fishing net, which he deployed in the
ocean. Later, he pulled the net in and found some fish in it.
improve his understanding and use of
general semantics, and kept notebooks for
But he didn’t catch all the fish in the ocean; most fish in the
that purpose. He worked hard at it, con- ocean were not even near the net, others were so small that they
tinually reassessing. He made his own slipped through the net.
models of the structural differential, etc.
Of all his many interests, general seman- The fisherman decided he wanted to catch smaller fish along
tics came first. At right is an excerpt I with the larger fish he usually caught.
gleaned at random from his handwritten
notebooks of evaluations and ‘ideas’. The Fisherman’s net is an analogy to human abstraction-for-
Greg was a director of the mulation, projection, feedback, revision of formulation, new
International Society for General Seman- projection, etc. To some extent we can alter our semantic nets—
we may learn to be more observant or look for different things.
tics for many years, right up until it merged
with the Institute of General Semantics.
He became a trustee of the Institute shortly
before his death, which was on Friday,
March 12, 2004. He was a very hard-working director of the Society, contributing lots of time and money at
some considerable sacrifice (on a very limited budget). He wrote over 20 essays for ETC, and had a regular
column in that journal, performing many tasks as Assistant Editor. He was the editor of Thinking and Living
Skills: General Semantics for Critical Thinking (1995), his first and only book.
Greg Sawin
ROBERT R. BLAKE (1918–2004)

Dr. Robert R. Blake, who was born January 21, 1918 in
Brookline, MA, died, In Austin, TX, on June 20, 2004, at the age
of 86. He brought a breadth and depth of experiences which con-
tributed to the many roles he played within the general-semantics
community.
Blake, who received his PhD from the University of Texas in
1947, joined the faculty immediately afterward and taught in the
Psychology Department there until 1964. It was at that University
that he and his colleague, Glenn N. Ramsey, organized the sym-
posium in 1950 on Perception to which Korzybski contributed his
last paper (printed as "The Role of Language in the Perceptual
Processes," in Perception: An Approach to Personality, Blake and
Ramsey (eds.), Ronald Press, 1951; reprinted in GSB No. 36 and
in Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings).
Blake attended the 2nd Advanced Seminar given by J. Samuel
Bois in February 1954 at Lime Rock, CT. He continued his gen-
eral-semantics activities by delivering his first Alfred Korzybski
Memorial Lecture, "From Industrial Warfare to Collaboration: A Behavioral Science Approach," in
1961 (printed in GSB Numbers 28 and 29, pp. 49-60). Blake was elected to the Institute's Board of
Trustees in 1958 and served in that capacity until 1983. In that year he was appointed an Honorary
Trustee of the Institute.
From its inception, Blake was associated with the National Training Laboratories (NTL) in Bethel,
Maine, as a faculty and board member. In 1995 he detailed crucial experiences at Bethel in an ar-
ticle in Training and Development Journal entitled, “Memories of HRD.” He wrote that the future
would look back on the field of Human Resources Development (HRD), “as crossing a great fron-
tier, with the goal of bringing behavioral science applications into everyday use to better human
activity in all their shapes and forms.” Shades of general semantics here. [Note: Those of you who
attended IGS seminar-workshops in the 70s and 80s may remember the "T groups," later called "Pro-
cess Groups." These, designed for participants to study their own behavior as it related to their ap-
plications of GS, were based on NTL methods. —SPK]
Blake founded, and became President of, Scientific Methods, Inc, in Austin, Texas, in 1961.
He, along with his partner Jane Srygley Mouton, Vice-President, were widely known for their suc-
cessful applications of behavioral science research to leadership problems in organizations.
In 1982, Drs. Blake and Mouton presented the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, "Founda-
tions for Strengthening Leadership" (printed in GSB Number 50, pp. 93-138).
Drs . Blake and Mouton co-authored many management books, the first of which, The Manage-
rial Grid, has become a standard work in its field.
Dr. Blake loved traveling with his family and spanned the globe numerous times, always ex-
ploring landmarks and cultures with enthusiasm. His passion for research never waned, even after
retiring in 1997. Every conversation was an opportunity to study behavior, every book, political
event, or movie an opportunity for a new perspective for exploring Grid Theory. He left an indel-
ible mark by constantly exploring how human effectiveness emerges and how it might be enhanced.
IN MEMORIUM: THOMAS E. NELSON (1921–2004)
We bid a loving farewell to our colleague and friend of many years, Thomas E. Nelson who
died unexpectedly on August 2, 2004 in Waterbury, CT. Tom left a son, a daughter, and two grand-
sons. His wife, Margaret, a former board member and Treasurer of the IGS, died in 1980.
Tom served the IGS for many years as a member of its Board of Trustees and as a teacher at the
IGS seminar-workshops. Although he published little, he surely qualifies as one of the more sig-
nificant developers of Korzybski’s teachings.
Starting in the early 1950s and continuing over a number of decades, IGS seminar-workshop
participants experienced the evidence of this in Tom’s original visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and other
‘sensory’ demonstrations. Although they might easily get dismissed as ‘illusions’, Tom created and
understood his experiments and devices as means of helping his students internalize the possibilities and
limitations of the human abstracting process. Over the decades, many students who Tom taught at the
IGS and elsewhere learned through direct experience not only that “the word is not the object” but also
that the non-verbal object each of us experiences is not the presumed scientific ‘reality’ either.
A list of just a few of Tom’s original demonstration/inventions include: Nelson’s “Muchness
Juice” Can Demonstration, the Bumps and Hollows, Overlay Cards Demonstration (Evaluating
Motion), the Balloon Demonstration (Evaluating Whereness), the Jig-Saw Puzzle Demonstration
(Evaluating Structure), et cetera.
For those interested in bringing general semantics into schools—Tom did it. Tom worked in
the ‘trenches’ —teaching junior high school students—for most of his career in education. He gave
these young people an exceptional opportunity to experience and internalize the scientific attitude
and consciousness of the abstracting process in ways not ordinarily available to students anywhere.
May the memories of his brilliant teaching and the legacy of his remaining demonstration models
and extensive notes inspire a new generation of general-semantics researchers and educators. Thank
you, dear friend.
In the following pages, you can learn more about

Tom’s extraordinary career in a biography written
by his daughter, Molly Nelson-Haber. We also in-
clude an excerpt from Tom’s spoken presentation
at the 1979 Korzybski Centennial Celebration.
THOMAS E. NELSON: A
BIOGRAPHY
BY MOLLY NELSON-HABER
Thomas E. Nelson was a long-time IGS Trustee and popular seminar-workshop leader who
devoted much of his life to integrating general semantics and education. An innovative science
teacher, Tom used mind-boggling, eye-rubbing, heart-stopping—sometimes infuriating—non-ver-
bal demonstrations to induce his students to experience the mechanisms of their own mis-evaluating.
The key to the success of Tom’s demonstrations was the element of surprise. The unexpected
semantic reaction forced people to become conscious of abstracting. The inspiration for the early
ones was of course the pioneering perception work of Adelbert Ames, Jr., who mentored Tom in the
early 1950s. Contrary to assertions in some of the GS literature, however, Ames never quite grasped
the obvious connections between his visual research and Korzybski’s general semantics. Tom spent
the rest of his life bringing the work of both men closer together.
Tom was born in St. Louis on December 29, 1921, the oldest of six siblings. At sixteen he left
school to help support his family as an auto mechanic. In August 1940 he joined the Navy, intend-
ing to make it his career. His first ship was the ill-fated U.S.S. Indianapolis, his first port of call
Pearl Harbor. Luckily for GS, the morning of December 7, 1941, found Tom 700 miles southwest
of the Harbor, scouting landing areas off Johnston Atoll.
He later trained for the submarine service in New London, Connecticut, where he met his future
wife, Margaret Ellen Coughlin, a Connecticut College sophomore. During the rest of the war he
participated in successful submarine patrols in the Pacific aboard the U.S.S. Threadfin.
At his peacetime base in San Diego Tom learned to type and earned his high-school-equiva-
lency diploma. His commanding officer, R. W. Shafer, encouraged Tom to continue his education
by teaching in a NROTC program at some college that permitted naval trainers to enroll in aca-
demic courses. The summer of 1948 Dartmouth’s NROTC program hired Tom to teach navigation
and seamanship. A professor by day, he would stay up half the night studying physics and calculus.
Word of Alfred Korzybski and general semantics first reached Tom’s ears from the lips of Irv-
ing J. Lee, who came to Dartmouth as a guest lecturer around February 1950. Dartmouth’s Presi-
dent, John Sloan Dickey, had initiated an innovative “Great Issues” course, designed to expose se-
niors to the problems of national and international relations they would face as citizens. A promi-
nent expert would speak on Monday night and lead a discussion the next morning. Depending on
the fame of the speaker, the entire college community, including NROTC personnel such as Tom,
might crowd the hall.
Dr. Lee was at that time Professor of Public Speaking at Northwestern University. The speech
he gave, purportedly to make the case for communism, succeeded brilliantly. By the end of the hour,
Lee’s unwitting audience was vanquished.
Back at the lecture hall the following morning, Lee informed his sympathetic listeners that his
intent had not been political: he could just as easily have given the anti-communism speech that
was in his other pocket. His intent was to give an object lesson in propaganda. Then, using
general-semantics terms, he explained precisely how he had bent their minds and hearts to that pur-
pose. (The apple Lee placed on the podium to illustrate levels of abstraction would have particular sig-
nificance to Tom, who years later would develop an entire science course around just such an apple.)
When Lee left the lecture hall, Tom ran to catch up with him. “Do you have a bibliography?
What books should I read?”
THOMAS E. NELSON: A BIOGRAPHY 71
Over coffee, Lee gave Tom a crash course in general semantics. Before tackling Manhood of
Humanity and that “blue peril” [Science and Sanity], Lee suggested Tom read Wendell Johnson’s
book and Lee’s own book, The Language of Wisdom and Folly. Lee also gave Tom some mentorly
empathy about tackling the daunting amount of mathematics and science in Science and Sanity. Those
disciplines, Lee confessed, had intimidated him too.
A month after Dartmouth admitted Tom as a full-time student (September 19, 1950) he began
working part-time as research assistant to Adelbert Ames, Jr., at the Institute for Associated Re-
search (formerly the Hanover Institute, reorganized from the Dartmouth Eye Institute founded by
Ames in 1937). In 2004 replicas of Ames’s distorted room and other three-dimensional perception
demonstrations can be found in museums worldwide. In the early 1950s, however, news of their
existence had just begun to generate interest beyond Hanover. Had Korzybski not died first, he and
M. Kendig would have kept their appointment to meet Ames in Hanover in April 1950.
Part of Tom’s job was to guide visiting dignitaries through Ames’s demonstrations, explaining
the visual phenomena experienced. Tom also helped Ames make refinements to his rotating trap-
ezoidal window. Indeed, it was at Ames’s insistence that Tom demonstrated the window and lec-
tured on visual perception after completing his first Intensive Seminar at Bard College the summer
of 1951. He lectured again during the Winter Seminar of 1951-1952.
Sponsored by Charlotte Schuchardt (soon to be Read), M. Kendig, and Irving J. Lee, Tom was
the recipient of the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Fellowship Award for scientific research and writ-
ing for the year 1952. Tom, his wife Margaret, and his two children, lived at the Institute at Lime
Rock the entire summer. Coincidentally, Dartmouth appointed Tom a Senior Fellow for the aca-
demic year 1952-1953, to undertake a research project investigating “The Problem of Changing
Human Nature.” He decided to become a teacher.
Tom Nelson and his teaching demonstrations at an IGS Seminar-Workshop in the 1950s
Having earned his M.A.T. at Wesleyan University in 1955, Tom taught high-school mathemat-
ics in Chappaqua, New York. Three years later, administrative clashes prompted him to take a leave
of absence. He served briefly as East Coast college sales representative of The Wall Street Journal,
motoring from campus to campus in one of the first VW Beetles.
His fling with Wall Street was short-lived: he missed the classroom. In 1959 the New Canaan,
Connecticut, public schools were reputed to be the best in the nation. Tom signed on to teach jun-
ior-high science. A year later, he became department chairman, a post he held for more than two
decades.
Over the years, in continuing to integrate general semantics into the curriculum, Tom devel-
oped a physics course called “Evaluating in Physical Science” (EPS). One ordinary apple, a paean
to Newton’s apocryphal apple and Irving J. Lee’s Dartmouth apple, formed the basis of all the labo-
ratory experiments throughout the course. In a talk given in the early 1980s, Tom explained why
this apple was so important:
When a child has learned density, melting points, freezing points, laws of motion, distillation—
every principle of physical science that can be taught with one apple [...], there’s something more
important that he learns. The more he studies and disassembles this apple, the more he becomes
aware that he doesn’t know all about a single apple. [...] And if you don’t know all about an apple,
you don’t know all about women or men or yourself or indeed anything else.
With the prototype in place by 1981, Tom pushed forward with the publication of the students’
textbook and the teacher’s manual. Enthusiasm for this Science Education Improvement Project
(SEIP) in the GS community generated grants from the Institute of General Semantics and from
individuals such as Mary Morain of the International Society.
Anticipating the difficulty in getting his course accepted by a mainstream publisher, Tom founded
the Non-Aristotelian Audio-Visual Publishing Company (AAV). He planned to work full time on
completing the manuscripts for his “Evaluating in Physical Science” after taking early retirement
from Saxe Junior High School in June 1983.
Tom’s retirement, however, happened to coincide with the period when he became most actively
involved with the future of the Institute. When the Institute’s Lime Rock home was put on the mar-
ket, Tom and other Trustees agreed to move the Institute’s membership and publication services
office to Ridgefield, to be administered by AAV’s employees. The office of the Director, at that time
Bob Pula, moved to Baltimore.
Tom looked for ways to revive the Institute’s vanishing membership. One idea was to publish
an IGS newsletter. The first two issues came out in 1983.
By aggressively pursuing new members, Tom brought enrollment from its all-time low to its
highest in decades. This was accomplished in large part by converting the Institute’s mailing list
from an antiquated index-card system to a ten-thousand-name computerized database, but also by
offering enrollees “premiums” and by writing personal letters to long-time members whose annual
gifts were $500 or more.
And finally, he added new products to the IGS catalog: the reproduction of Myra Edgerly’s “The
Time-Binder” and the cassette recordings of the AKML lectures of Allen Walker Read (1983) and
Karl Pribram (1984).
This burst of steam proved too expensive for the Institute to maintain, especially when the sale
of the Lime Rock property failed to materialize. The Trustees voted to transfer all functions to the
Baltimore office of the Director.
THOMAS E. NELSON: A BIOGRAPHY 73
The non-renewal of the AAV-IGS contract, though by mutual consent, nonetheless proved di-
sastrous financially and professionally for Tom. In his enthusiasm to service the Institute, he had
personally signed leasing contracts for data storage systems and automated mailing equipment—
contracts he was able to break only after he was forced in 1989 to sell his home of twenty-eight
years and to declare personal and corporate bankruptcy.
Throughout the late 1980s and all of the 1990s, Tom continued to dedicate services to the
Institute’s agenda. He engaged his GS colleagues at times in vigorous fax and phone dialogues, and
he had no reservations about contacting non-GS people of renown whose work he admired. He called
his correspondents and phone buddies “like-minded thinkers,” but a “thinker” could just as easily
have been his young newspaper carrier, curious about “that spinning thing” on Tom’s windowsill.
Throughout the Bulletins, photographs and participants’ comments about the lecture-demon-
strations Tom gave from 1951 to 1991, whether at the Institute’s Summer Seminars, at the Ethical
Cultural Society in New York, at teaching conferences, or in his Connecticut home, attest to Tom’s
ability to give participants in his workshops some memorable semantic “surprises.” Participants
would see red when they expected green. They would see objects oscillating that were actually ro-
tating. They would see a “bump” when their fingers would detect a “hollow.” They would hoist a
big tin can of “Muchness Juice” and shrug “so what?” Then they would grasp a little tin can of
“Muchness Juice” and (figuratively) fall flat on their faces.
Though Tom’s mind continued to percolate with ideas for new demonstrations, his health prob-
lems prevented him from carrying them out. He did not publish much in relation to GS, and this too
saddened him towards the end of his life. Tom’s long-time friends and admirers, however, helped
Tom realize that his greatest contribution to GS was not his work but himself.
ON GENERAL SEMANTICS AND THE SHAPING OF THE FUTURE
BY THOMAS E. NELSON
[The following selection of Tom Nelson “as he spoke” comes from a published transcript of a
panel discussion on “General Semantics and the Shaping of the Future” which took place at the
Alfred Korzybski Centennial Conference on General Semantics, October 26-28, 1979, in New York
City (published in General Semantics Bulletin 47, 1980, pp. 126–147). Rachel Lauer chaired the
discussion. The invited panel included Rachel Lauer, Aat Dekker, Joseph Stewart and Tom. Rachel
presented the panel and audience members with some basic questions to consider: “Where might
general semantics, and that includes the Institute and other organizations, go from here into the future?
Do you see the need for formulation revision? Do we need to do something more or different about
teaching others than we have? Remember, our theme is time-binding .Our theme is change. I know
what we’ve been doing for years; do we need to do something different? Have you got some ideas?
Do we need to make some connections with other theories and perhaps even other organizations?
And, finally, an issue that was raised at our last seminar—Is there need for more training of our-
selves and the creation of a training group?” In the excerpt below, Rachel introduces Tom, who then
delivers his comments on general semantics and his teaching of it. Eds.]
RACHEL LAUER: Perhaps one of the best ways we can celebrate Alfred Korzybski’s birth is to
take him and us into the future. Now let me introduce [one of] the people who are going to stimulate
us into answering questions for ourselves. Tom Nelson, where are you? Oh, here he is on my left.
Let me tell you a little bit about him . Most of you already know Tom. When I first met him I was
deeply impressed by his enormous skill in teaching science. He worked at Dartmouth with Adelbert
Ames from 1949 to 1953, and he has been at the Institute of General Semantics as a Research Fel-
low in 1952, seminar staff for several years, ’52 through ’79, and presently he is Science Depart-
ment Chairman at Saxe Junior High School, New Canaan. Connecticut . He’s also a math teacher
and an IGS Trustee. I hope that he will, in addition to making remarks on these questions, tell us
about his way of reorganizing science instruction for students at the junior high school. Okay, Tom.
[APPLAUSE]
THOMAS NELSON: How much time would you like me to take? Just blow a whistle on me. I’m
accustomed to having students who come back the next day because if I use up this period, I pick
it up the next time .
RACHEL LAUER: Then we’ll see you next year .
THOMAS NELSON: Right. [LAUGHTER] But I don’t mind if you stop me if it seems like I’m
dwelling too long on one topic . Now would you like for me to do everything I’ve got to do in one
thing, or do you want to treat each question separately?
RACHEL LAUER : I think you said you had some comments on these basic questions. You go right
ahead with what you have .
THOMAS E. NELSON ON GS AND THE SHAPING OF THE FUTURE 75
THOMAS NELSON : All right . First of all, one of the interesting things about coming at this point
in the workshop at the conference is that almost everything has already been said, and I kept check-
ing off things I was going to say.
So I didn’t prepare a lecture. I do have comments on these questions which I’ll go into and if I
fail to put “well nigh” in front of each one [LAUGHTER], please supply that.
On the first question about the corrections and revisions and suggestions for that in the formu-
lations . I have a few I would like to suggest . As I understand it, Korzybski enlarged the field of
semantics by taking into account the undefined terms where we get the organismic meanings, and
this became a general system, a general semantics. But what I would claim is that it’s too general.
Korzybski created general general semantics, and so I use this term general in two senses: first of
all, to incorporate the undefined terms; secondly, it’s a very general system, and I think what we
need is a specific general semantics. Korzybski himself suggested some of this in front of the first
edition of his Science and Sanity and he talked about developing specific general semantics or non-
aristotelian systems for economics, non-aristotelian credit analysis, non-aristotelian socio-cultural
systems, and so on.
It’s a very long list, and the part that I’m particularly interested in is the suggestion that we de-
velop several specific applications in education, and he talks about non-aristotelian adult educa-
tion, non-aristotelian home education, and things like that.
So I’m working on supplying that specific application of general semantics to the teaching of
science, which, if there’s time, I’d like to talk to you about later.
A second revision that I would suggest is a revision of Korzybski’s structural differential. It’s
rather involved to make a clearer explanation of that, so I won’t attempt it, but I’ll mention the two
places where I think the structural differential is lacking; Korzybski himself in 1946 I thought was
working on this in his silent level diagrams which you’re all familiar with.
In the first place, the parabola to represent the event I think should be revised to include the
nervous system. It can be done quite simply with the structure from mathematics called the Möbius-
strip, where the one-sided object becomes the nervous system intermeshing with some event.
The second place where I feel a revision, at least for those who are learning general semantics,
would be on the object level . We have a disc and yet we know there are many, many objects levels,
internal as well as external.[Korzybski’s 1950 diagram allows for several levels within the ‘object
level’. See GSB 4 & 5 (1950-51), pp. 9–12. Ed.]
A third revision that I would like to see come about and I’m working on is, I believe that a rig-
orous development of general semantics can be made without relying upon the so-called ‘average
intelligent layman’ that Korzybski was writing his book for. It took me many, many years to under-
stand such things as the semantics of the differential calculus, and those chapters which relied upon
a fairly deep understanding of the history of mathematics and science, which was his background;
but I believe today we could produce a rigorous general semantics without relying upon that kind of
knowledge and still be not a popularization.
On the second question, what other disciplines might coordinate with general semantics, I have
a few suggestions. Horsley Gantt in neurophysiology is working very, very close to us [See “Re-
flexology and the Internal Universe” by Dr. Gantt in GSB 47, pp. 96–104. Ed.]; some of the work
in brain mechanism theory is getting very close to us .
We have a terminology problem and we’re in touch with some of the people in this field, but the
linguistic problem is that each of these disciplines has developed its own way of talking about it,
and it seems that we understand more what they’re doing, not that I fully understand brain mecha-
nisms, but I can see that they’re describing orders of abstracting and what’s going on.
In my own field, another discipline that I feel could be coordinated and helpful to us and possi-
bly to the other disciplines would be learning theory. I refer particularly to the work of Piaget . Again,
there is the linguistic problem to translate his terms, such as ‘mental structure’ and terms like that
into terms which we would find more acceptable, having a more similar structure to what it is we’re
talking about .
I also believe that there is a possibility of coordination in the computer sciences and the study of
thinking models in those fields that are developing [See Perry Crawford’s paper “Alfred Korzybski
and the Computer Transition” in GSB 47, pp. 120–125. Ed.]
On the third question, connections—oh, I got the questions mixed up.
RACHEL LAUER: Maybe I got them mixed up. You do it your way.
THOMAS NELSON: All right. I just answered the third question. The next one has to do with the
applications of general semantics to teaching. I think it could revolutionize teaching. The problems
of one teacher talking with another are great, working together and realizing that an English teacher,
a math teacher, a science teacher or a social studies teacher, are making inputs to the same nervous
system, and yet the student somehow is supposed to integrate these different inputs and the teachers
themselves do not have a coordinated, acceptable terminology which they could use to work to-
gether cooperatively.
I think that general semantics supplies such a terminology. For example, I believe education
can be defined as education of the semantic reactions. What discipline, what subject in the schools
from elementary levels to college levels does not deal with the abstracting process, with language
treated as a structure, with evaluating, with learning and passing from one ‘level’ of semantic inte-
gration to another? And, of course, communicating from one person to another .
I think that a non-elementalistic educational program could be brought together through gen-
eral semantics, and I think one of the greatest benefits would be the change in the attitude of the
teacher; I think that in my experience learning difficulties turn out to be learning blockages, seman-
tic blockages. I could illustrate that, but there won’t be time at this time.
Well, I think changes in the attitude of the teacher really would be the main way in which gen-
eral semantics would bring about a better coordination.
The last one is what emphasis do you see as needed most in general-semantics training? And I
find that the demonstration projects, I think, should show the effectiveness of general semantics. I
think the best proof of whether general semantics works is for someone, a science teacher, a math
teacher, an English teacher, to go into the classroom. Everybody recognizes—almost everybody—
the objectives of education. What we want, for example, is to help students to think better and to
become better evaluators, and so if we can show in general semantics that this does work where
other disciplines haven’t, I think funds would flow in our direction to train teachers .
I think in addition to applying and developing a specific general semantics in education, it could
be developed in administrative structures, governmental organizations, hospitals, and so on, but the
need is to develop those programs.
I think the Institute or the Institute in coordination with the university should provide and coor-
dinate and bring together a center for study. My own experience is that people pay quite a price to
THOMAS E. NELSON ON GS AND THE SHAPING OF THE FUTURE 77
learn general semantics if they’re teachers. You go to seminars which aren’t accredited. You can’t
get reimbursed as you normally could for a college course and things of that nature. In short, I think
we should provide sane asylums, places where—[LAUGHTER]—we could retreat and teachers of
like orientations can receive credit and time and consultation to work in that direction. And, of course,
we need funding to do this.
Have I gone beyond my time?
RACHEL LAUER : Yes . Do you want a minute or more? Go ahead .
THOMAS NELSON: Well, I’ll just mention the course that I am just attempting, with Mrs . Allen—
I’d like to introduce Katherine Allen—over here—she and I are working together with 85 seventh
graders and developing a course called, “Science As Sanity.” [The course and its related text were
later called “Evalutating in Physical Science: A General Semantics Structural Approach.” Ed.]
It’s a course in physical science and there are a number of features in it. It’s an application of
general semantics to the teaching of physical science. Some of the applications, some of the prin-
ciples which are developed is what we call, “the natural order of development.”
Instead of taking a chemical off the shelf and having students do experiments, we hand the stu-
dents an apple and they distill the apple and they get from it various liquids; we systematically take
this apple apart.
We’ve been working about four weeks now at doing this, and now we have an array of liquids
called L 1, L 2 , L3 —up to L7. We have four gases. We have many solids. We still don’t have any
names for these things, but we’re beginning to discover that one of them particularly has some of
the characteristics of the same liquid that comes out of the water tap, and so the natural order is to
take an apple, take a lemon and develop the electricity (you can produce electricity with a lemon)
and then later go into the more rigorous kinds of analysis. Naturally, our principle is the developing
of consciousness of abstracting in these specific cases. For example, the students now have an ori-
entation that knowledge occurs on many levels. Verbal levels, macroscopic levels, microscopic levels,
sub-microscopic levels.
Another principle is that we have an attitude on our part that it’s always fair game to ask how
you know something in science. It backfires quite a bit and we’re very often surprised that the stu-
dents use this, and they say . “Well, you mentioned molecules, electrons and they’re supposed to
spin. Tell us how you know this .” And, very often you have to say—”Well, we’ll come back tomor-
row—”
[LAUGHTER]
And by then you’ve figured it out .
[LAUGHTER]
I also find that one of the main blockages is what I, we all, call an ‘allness’ feeling. Students
come in already having had experiences with all kinds of materials. For example, boiling means
something hot, bubbling, and it takes a great deal to have students realize that something may boil
at minus 78 degrees centigrade. We put on demonstrations in which we boil water in a vacuum with
ice cubes and you have to—you must provide the actual materials and the jolt that is needed to get
across the notion that the notion of boiling of our everyday world has got to be expanded and re-
fined .
The notebooks: students are helped to make a distinction between descriptions and inferences.
In their notebooks on one side they have a description of what happened, what did they do, what did
they see, and what did they measure, and so on, and on the other side is the page on which they
make their inferences about what has happened.
And, in the beginning, you know, we say to students, inference means your opinion, your judg-
ment, your theory, your explanation, your generalizations, and so on, and they are very hard pressed
to make that distinction; for a long time the right hand page is blank because they don’t have any
reactions or they’re just not accustomed to having teachers invite those reactions. But when stu-
dents get the belief that we mean it, they come on rather quickly. But it takes a lot of training to do
that.
Another principle is that predictability is a criterion for a linguistic structure, such as a science
language, and a criterion for predictability is that there be a similarity of structure between the non-
verbal world and the structure of the language that one is using.
Another one is the attitude of the teachers and the students, and this, in brief, is that science is a
man-made product; so we have an historical approach and we have what I would call a time-bind-
ing approach. I think this is very necessary for students to have some notion as to where they fit into
this evolutionary development of science.…
Later, during this 1979 panel discussion, Rachel Lauer asked the
panel and audience about the possibility of GS-oriented people or groups
affiliating with the Association of Humanistic Psychology. This organization
had been in the forefront of the so-called human potential movement of the
Seventies (Esalen, encounter groups, hot tubs, etc.)
RACHEL LAUER: ..is this the kind of organization that we might

consider merging with?...Okay, Tom, do you have something to say?”
TOM NELSON: Would we have to take our clothes off too?
[Laughter]
RACHEL LAUER: Tom, if we had to take our clothes off in order to

bring about a life style that would add to our survival, I’m in favor of taking
off our clothes. Anybody else—
[Laughter]
[Applause]
KEN JOHNSON – TEACHER, MENTOR, FRIEND
[Gregg Hoffmann and Andrea Johnson were students and friends of Ken Johnson. They wrote the
following articles to honor him and his work. Reprinted from the 2004, 3rd Edition of Ken’s Gen-
eral Semantics: An Outline Survey. Fort Worth, TX: Institute of General Semantics.—Eds.]
About Ken Johnson
Ken Johnson, 1963
For more than 30 years, Kenneth Johnson taught students how to learn. His general-semantics
course at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was one of the more popular and challenging
classes in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. In his quiet, challenging man-
ner, Ken pushed students to analyze the information they gathered and to carefully consider the
meaning of their words. Quoting one of his mentors, S. I. Hayakawa, Ken taught the “science of
how not to be a damn fool.” He died on December 18, 2002, at the age of 80.
Raised in Niagara, Wisconsin, Ken earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, then a master’s degree in journalism and a Ph.D. in mass communications
from the same school. He was a science writer in the early 1950s, then began teaching for the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Extension in 1955. He joined the teaching staff at the University of Wiscon-
sin-Milwaukee in 1961 and retired as an emeritus professor in 1987.
Those of us involved in general semantics knew him as a staff member of the IGS summer semi-
nar-workshop for more than 30 years, a great speaker and teacher, a prolific writer and editor, and
most of all as a wonderful person. The lessons I learned in Ken’s warm and inspiring classroom
helped push me into my own 20-year career teaching in the journalism school at UWM.
In addition to General Semantics: An Outline Survey, Ken edited the popular general-semantics
anthology Thinking Crea-tically, and authored both Research Designs in General Semantics and
Nothing Never Happens. He also served as associate editor of the General Semantics Bulletin. He
is survived by his wife, Carol, of Milwaukee, two sons, Van and Steven, and daughter Susan.
— Gregg Hoffmann
Reflections of Ken Johnson
Ken Johnson, 1995
With a little waggle of an eyebrow and a small impish grin, Professor Ken Johnson would let his
students know several things: he genuinely liked them; he wanted them to learn; he didn’t take himself
too seriously; and he delighted in teaching. As one of his students at the University of Wisconsin-Mil-
waukee in the early 1980s, I felt privileged, inspired, and challenged in each of his classes. Oh yes, he
also knew how to “teacher-tain.”
I learned a great deal about epistemology, mass communication theories, and especially
general semantics. I looked forward to his experiments. We mixed and matched cut-out pictures, in-
vented nonverbal languages, watched “fool-the-eye-mind” gadgets, assumed assigned roles for skits, and
so on. While this was fun, Ken made sure that we recognized and remembered the purposes for each
activity.
When I became a professor of professional communication at Alverno College in Milwaukee, I of-
ten invited Ken to guest-lecture to my general-semantics students. They were thrilled to meet the author
of one of their textbooks and they quickly discovered the magic he brought to the classroom. He would
wink and tell my students, “Andrea just invited me because she likes all the toys I bring.” I did like the
toys. But mostly, I loved to sit in my classroom and become an enthralled student once again.
I recently decided to go through the materials I’d saved from graduate school. Most of my notebooks
hit the dumpster. But when I came to the spiral-bound notes from Ken’s classes, I paused and read through
them. First, I was amazed that I had such neat handwriting back then. Next, I observed the precise ac-
counts I had kept for each class session—including the experiments and the lessons learned from them.
Then, I realized my notes reflected Ken’s outline approach to teaching. Each piece built upon the previ-
ous one so that a student could build her or his own general-semantics foundation. What a masterful
teacher!
Unfortunately, Ken is no longer around. But, the text [General Semantics: An Outline Survey] you
now hold in your hands can give you valuable tools for learning, understanding, and using the formula-
tions of general semantics. It’s organized to be read from front to back, but my students tell me they use
the non-linear approach to great effect. Read it however you wish—I know Ken would like that.
— Andrea J. Johnson
REMEMBERING KEN JOHNSON
BY IRENE ROSS MAYPER
Ken Johnson was my teacher at my first seminar, held in Denver, Colorado in 1970. Between
the altitude and the study of general semantics as it was taught by Ken, I experienced a tremendous
exhilaration and joy in discovery which hasn’t left me to this day.
For the next 25 summers, with very few exceptions, I and my family had the privilege of camp-
ing with Ken and his family, in some of the most beautiful places in Wisconsin. A nearby lake and/
or river was always a prerequisite for determining where we would camp. From our very first camping
trip, I learned that this kind, gentle, humorous, non-directive, unassuming professor, could become
a tough drill sergeant when it came time to pack and unpack our gear; load the boat on the van and
take it down to the water’s edge; stake down the tents; get the portable kitchen set up; wood ready
for the fire in the evening; water drawn from the nearest source; chairs set up around the fireplace
for toasting marshmallows and s’mores in the evening and the table with tablecloth and a banquet
set for our first meal at camp. We learned to do all these things in record time with never a cry of
protest under Ken’s supervision.
An important piece of our camping equipment was an old aluminum coffee pot with a wire handle.
It was wonderful to wake up in the mornings to the aroma of ‘swing’ coffee. We would hurry out of
our tent in time to watch the magic of centrifugal force as Ken would swing the coffee pot in a great
circle so that the coffee grounds would fall to the bottom of the pot, without spilling a single drop of
the coffee.
Among other talents, Ken was a serious fisherman. We knew we could rely on his skill to pro-
vide at least one meal of fresh fish for all of us at camp.
There were memorable canoe trips across an often choppy lake into a gentle river where we
paddled softly and quietly with Ken and his wonderful wife, Carol, in the lead canoe, pointing si-
lently to the flora and fauna ahead of them so that we wouldn’t miss the sightings.
There were walks in the woods in search of berries and wild flowers; star gazing at night; con-
versations around the fire and time for quiet reflection as the embers died. And as all good things
must end, time to pack up brought back the drill sergeant who made it possible for us to catch our
plane on time. Otherwise, we would still be out in the woods.
Carol asked me recently, when I visited with her and we went on a canoe trip together, if I
wanted something of Ken’s to remember him by. Ken was one of my best friends. And what he
taught me and shared with me and my family was the greatest gift to me. He will always be
remembered.
GENERAL-SEMANTICS PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
OF KENNETH G. JOHNSON
BY SUSAN PRESBY KODISH
Teaching
As Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Ken
taught introductory and advanced courses in general semantics.
He taught numerous additional courses involving general semantics, in areas such as epistemology,
critical thinking, transactional and humanistic psychology, general systems theory, communication of
science, teaching and communication methodologies, and communication theory and research methods.
He served as Adjunct Professor, Union Institute, for the doctoral work of Maxine Theodoulou
in Family Therapy-General Semantics. PhD awarded 1990.
He was on the faculty of the two-week seminar-workshops sponsored by the Institute of Gen-
eral Semantics on various campuses in the United States and Canada for more than 25 years. At
various times, he taught along with: Dr. Alton Barbour, Dr. Ray Bontrager, Dr. James Broadus, Milton
Dawes, R. Buckminster Fuller, M. Kendig, Dr. Susan Presby Kodish, Dr. Stuart Mayper, Dr. Russell
Meyers, Dr. Elwood Murray, Dr. Gail Myers, Thomas Nelson, Robert Pula, Charlotte Schuchardt
Read, Irene Ross Mayper, Dr. Marjorie Swanson, and others.
His teaching influence has resulted in three of his University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students
also teaching at IGS seminars, and in university settings; also serving as IGS Trustees.
Ken presented weekend seminars on general semantics in the Milwaukee area, and, under the
sponsorship of the Institute of General Semantics, in New York City and at the Universities of Chi-
cago, Toledo, and Texas (Arlington). He also presented well over 300 talks on effective communi-
cation before various groups, including labor and management groups, editors, reporters, teachers,
nurses, home economists, business communicators, and police officers.
Other GS-Related Activities

In addition to his teaching activities, Ken managed to have time for the following:
• Assistant Editor of the General Semantics Bulletin, 1958-64; Associate Editor, 1965-97.
• Founder (1980) and Co-director of the General Semantics Research Information Exchange.
• Member, Scholarship Committee, International Society for General Semantics.
• Member, Advisory Board, Thinking and Learning Center, Pace University.
• Member, Board of Trustees, Institute of General Semantics.
• Chair, committees on research and critical thinking, Institute of General Semantics.
• Consultant on Communication, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, Washington D. C.,
1981-85.
• Consultant on Communication, du Pont Research Management Seminars, E. I. Du Pont de
Nemours & Co., 1964-1970 (about 24 seminars); Supervisory Seminars 1973-80.
• Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecturer, 1994 (see publications).
• Panelist, “Language and Paranoid Life-Style Today,” Annual Meeting of the American
Psychiatric Association, Washington D. C., May 3-7, 1971.
• Leader, two-week conferences on Communicating Consumer Information, Milwaukee, June
1965 and July 1966; Laramie, Wyoming, June 1968.
GS PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES OF KENNETH G. JOHNSON 83
• Chairman, Task Force on Ethics and Standards, International Conference on General Semantics,
Denver, August 9-13, 1965.
• Associate Program Chairman, International Conference on General Semantics, San Francisco,
August 9-13, 1963.
• Chairman, Contributed Papers, International Conference on General Semantics, New York
University, August 13-16, 1963.
• Publications – See “The General-Semantics Writings of Kenneth G. Johnson,” which follows.
In sum, a list cannot adequately sum up a life. Indeed, no words can fully map the territory that
was Ken Johnson. He inspired, mentored and taught many of us. And he was a friend who shared
his life, his humor and wit, as well as his foibles, with concern and warmth. Quite a guy!
THE GENERAL-SEMANTICS WRITINGS OF KENNETH G. JOHNSON
In addition to being a warm, organized, effective teacher, fine friend and family man, and suc-
cessful university administrator, consultant, editor and journalist, Ken was a careful and prolific
scholar and writer. The following list encompasses only his general-semantics-related writings. He
also published in other areas, such as chemistry, science writing, and mass communication. The list
does not include feature articles or science news stories on a wide variety of subjects written for
newspapers and magazines.
Books
Communication: Perspectives from General Semantics. Lee Thayer, editor, Kenneth G. Johnson,
associate editor, Spartan Books, Inc., 1970.
General Semantics: An Outline Survey, University of Wisconsin Extension Division, 1960,
Revised 3rd Edition. Institute of General Semantics, 2004. (Italian translation, Lineamenti Di
Semantica Generale, Armando Armando Editore, 1978.)
Graduate Research in General Semantics. Compiled by Kenneth G. Johnson, Institute of Gen-
eral Semantics, 1985.
Nothing Never Happens: Exercises to Trigger Group Discussion and Promote Self Discovery,
Student Edition. coauthored with John Senatore, Mark Liebig and Gene Minor, Glencoe Press, 1975.
Nothing Never Happens. Teachers Edition, coauthored with John Senatore, Mark Liebig and
Gene Minor, Glencoe Press, 1975.
Research Designs in General Semantics, Kenneth G. Johnson, editor. Gordon and Breach Sci-
ence Publishers, Inc. 1974.
Thinking Creatica-lly. Kenneth G. Johnson, editor, Institute of General Semantics, 1991. Fore-
word by Steve Allen.
Papers, Articles and Chapters

“Assumptions and Self-Images,” in Sourcebook of Structured Experiences: Interpersonal Skills.
Indiana State University Bureau of Business Research, 1976.
“Basic Problems in Communication,” in Communication: Prescription for P.R. University of
Wisconsin Extension Division, 1964.
“Changing Theories of Resistance to Change,” General Semantics Bulletin (GSB), 32 & 33:
18-20, 1966.
“Comments on the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, 1978: “Perceiving our Perceptions of
Structure,” by Elwood Murray, GSB 44 & 45: 39-40, 1977-1978.
“Communication,” in The Changing Nature of the Child in the Institution. University of Wis-
consin Extension Division, 1960.
“Creative Use of Self-Reflexiveness.” Presented at a Joint Research Conference of the Ameri-
can Society of Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine and the Institute of General Semantics on
“General Semantics in the Prevention of Mental Illness,” October 8, 1972.
“Critical Thinking for Survival in the 21st Century.” ETC 43 (4): 358-362, Winter 1986.
“Epistomology and Responsibility of the Mass Media.” Presented at the 23rd Annual Korzybski
Memorial Meeting, October 25, 1974. Published in GSB 41-43: 61-71.
“General Semantics,” in A Practical Guide to Good Business Communication, Lilian Feinberg,
editor. Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. 1982.
THE GS WRITINGS OF KENNETH G. JOHNSON 85
“General Semantics in a Climate for Self-Actualization.” Presented at the Creativity-General

Semantics Conference, June 20-25, 1971,
“Harnessing Self-reflexiveness for Crea¯ tical Thinking,” in Thinking Crea¯ tically, Kenneth G.
Johnson, editor. Institute of General Semantics, 1991.
“Insights of General Semantics Would be Useful to Journalists,” Journalism Educator 30 (2):
35-39, July 1975.
“Invariance Under Transformation,” in Communication: Perspectives from General Semantics.
Lee Thayer, editor. Spartan Books, Inc., 1970.
“Korzybskian Models for Research,” in Research Designs in General Semantics, Kenneth G.
Johnson, editor. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Inc., 1974.
“Korzybski on Research: Suggestions from Science and Sanity,” GSB 51: 43-59, 1984.
“Language Categories: Demonstrations and Questions,” in Teaching General Semantics, Mary
Morain, editor. International Society for General Semantics, 1969. (Italian translation,
“Sprachkategorien: Beispiel und Fragen,” in Allgemeinsemantik und Verhalten. Verlag Darmstadter
Blatter, 1975.)
“My First Exposure to General Semantics,” ETC. 46 (1): 59-60, 1985.
“Non-Aristotelian Premises and Isomorphism,” in Coping with Increasing Complexities, Donald
Washburn and Dennis Smith, editors. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Inc., 1974.
“Patterns of Response to a Semantic Differential Test Before and After Training in General
Semantics,” GSB 22 & 23: 28-34, 1958.
“Relevant?” ETC. Spring 1991.
“Research Implications of General Systems Theory,” GSB, 44 & 45: 129-131, 1977-78.
“Self-Reflexiveness in Therapy and Education,” The Journal of Communication Inquiry 4 (2):
95-108, Winter 1979. Also in GSB 48: 51-56, 1981.
“Semantic Transformation of a Self-Image Statement,” in Teaching General Semantics II, Mary
Morain, editor. International Society for General Semantics (now Institute of General Semantics), 1980.
Theoretical Structure for Research in General Semantics, GSB 48: 51-56, 1981.
“Watch Your Language,” The Wisconsin Pharmacist 21 (11): 392-393, 406, November 1963.
“What Research Tells Us About the Effects of General Semantics Teaching.” Presented at the
Tenth International Conference on General Semantics, La Jolla, California, August 15-18, 1985.
GSB 53: 48-56, 1986-87.
Books Reviewed
Bandler and Grinder, The Structure of Magic: A Book about Language and Therapy, GSB 46: 100-102, 1979.
Beal, Bohlen and Raudabaugh, Leadership and Dynamic Group Action, Journalism Quarterly 40
(4): 615, Autumn 1963.
Galt, Alfreda, Trigant Burrow: Toward Social Sanity and Human Survival (selections from his writ-
ings edited by Alfreda Galt), GSB 51: 120-122, 1984.
Gilman, William, The Language of Science, Journalism Quarterly 39 (2): 234, Spring 1962.
Hunsinger and Ecroyd, Using Words Effectively, GSB 44 & 45: 189-191, 1977-78.
Mass, David Frank, The Images of Order, GSB 57: 77-79, 1993.
Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum, Measurement of Meaning, GSB 22 & 23: 87, 1958.
Swanson, Marjorie, Scientific Epistemologic Backgrounds of General Semantics, ETC. 18 (2): 242-
246, July 1961.
RELEVANT ?
BY KENNETH G. JOHNSON
[Ken Johnson struggled valiantly with the conseqeuences of a series of devastating strokes during the last
decade of his life.The following article turned out to be one of the last of his GS-related writings. As a pithy
summary of Korzybski’s contributions and the continuing relevance of general semantics—we haven’t seen
anything better. It appeared in the Spring 1991 issue of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics. Eds.]
My colleague glanced at the new book on my desk—Alfred Korzybski: Collected Writings,

1920-1950 (Institute of General Semantics, 1990). “Korzybski? Is that stuff still relevant?” he
asked.
I knew he was pulling my leg. He knew I had taught general semantics for more than thirty
years. He knew I would not call Korzybski’s work irrelevant.
An answer, both flip and brief, silenced him. But his question got me thinking. Why does
Korzybski’s work continue to be relevant almost sixty years after the publication of Science and
Sanity?
Science and Sanity, you may remember, came out in 1933 as a formidable tome published pri-
vately by a largely unknown author and independent scholar who lacked the “proper” academic
credentials. It didn’t fit the categories revered in academia—not quite philosophy, or linguistics, or
psychology, or logic, or neurology, or mathematics—yet borrowing from all of these and more. Many
dismissed it without bothering to read it. Some who read it saw nothing new.
Somehow it inspired many popularizations, over a hundred and fifty doctoral dissertations, and
two scholarly journals, as well as many college and university courses, international conferences,and
seminars. His work seems as relevant today as it did in 1933—and, in some respects, more in tune
with the times. Why?
My answer, of course, involves my interests, my experiences, my interpretations. (The map
necessarily includes the mapmaker.) Others would undoubtedly emphasize different reasons.
Korzybski did not attempt to give us answers to the questions that plague us. He provided an
open-ended meta-linguistic system for finding answers, for taking into account the nature of lan-
guage and the critical role of the human nervous system.
By a system I mean a collection of related elements. Many, perhaps most, of the elements
Korzybski integrated were not new. Many, apart from the system he created, seem simple, trivial,
commonsensical. Only as we see the interrelatedness of the elements do we begin to sense the power
and the originality of the system.
Korzybski made the human being the central element of his system. He saw mathematics or
science or art—all of the fragments of a curriculum—as functions of unique human nervous sys-
tems. He insisted on putting the human into every equation .
He recognized the vital role of language in the time-binding process—the process that distin-
guishes human from animal. He saw self-reflexive language as a product of the self-reflexive hu-
man nervous system.
Humans not only know about their environments, they know that they know; they can think
about how they think, evaluate their evaluations. Languages, too, have this self-reflexive character-
istic. They enable us to talk about talk, make statements about statements, write books on writing
books .
RELEVANT ? 87
Korzybski claimed that some second-order reactions (thinking about thinking, reasoning about
reasoning, evaluating our evaluations, etc.) represent healthy uses of self-reflexiveness. Others (worry
about worry, fear of fear, belief in belief, etc.) represent morbid semantic reactions. He then devel-
oped a system for using self-reflexiveness in healthier ways, by means of such tools as the struc-
tural differential, extensional devices, consciousness of abstracting, varying the levels of abstrac-
tion, and the related formulations.
Other tools call attention to either-or and “allness” statements, to inferences treated as facts, to
overgeneralizations, to multiordinal terms, to statements unrestricted in time, to overly-simple state-
ments of causality, etc. They enable us to monitor our ongoing input and output—whether speak-
ing, writing, listening, reading, or the critical talking-to-ourselves we usually call “thinking.” The
tools can be used, whatever the order of abstraction, whatever the source of the statement.
Korzybski showed much less interest in the “abstractness” of language than in the process of
abstracting by the human nervous system. His system, like the theory of relativity, focused atten-
tion on the observer, the human factor so often lost in preoccupation with subject matter, with “ob-
jectivity.” Consciousness of that process of abstracting, when internalized, can cause dramatic
changes in perspective. We become aware that the “realities” we have taken for granted were to a
significant degree our own creations. We empower ourselves to re-create them. Changes that seemed
impossible sometimes become simple.
Too often we accept certain premises, certain assumptions, as “given” and work within that sys-
tem. General semantics, by providing tools for effective use of self-reflexiveness, enables us to chal-
lenge and go beyond the limits imposed by those assumptions .
In this brief statement I have emphasized some of the characteristics of Korzybski’s system that
I believe make it unique and relevant today. In a process world we must expect change, but the basic
structure of the system, I believe, will be relevant for years to come.
REMEMBERING BOB PULA
[Our close friend, Robert P. Pula, preeminent general-semantics scholar/teacher, died on Jan. 11, 2004 after
an unexpected bout of double pneumonia. Bob was born on Dec. 3, 1928 and had only recently celebrated
his 75th birthday with family and friends. A polymathic poet, painter, pianistic composer, polka historian,
Polish culturalist, cartoonist and extraordinary teacher (only a short list of his many talents), Bob will be
sorely missed by his children, family, students and friends. Following are two personal remembrances by
Susan Presby Kodish and James D. French. Then Bruce I. Kodish summarizes Bob’s extraordinary writing
and teaching contributions to GS. We conclude this memorial section with two articles for you to taste and
savor: Bob’s “Annotated Bibliography” of his own general-semantics writings and a slightly revised ver-
sion of Bob’s “Preface to the Fifth Edition of Science and Sanity.” – Eds.]
ENDEARING BOB PULA

My introduction to Bob Pula at the 1981 Institute Seminar-Workshop was ‘spectacular’—he was in
top form as a teacher, which, compared with most teachers, was over-the-top. At this, my first general-
semantics event, he made GS come alive with verve and humor, combined with a deep level of serious-
ness. For example, he bumped into a table (hard) to demonstrate a process level outside of us; he de-
scribed, as another example of process, the ‘vaporization’ of the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. And he had the students quickly pegged, in a positive way; his assignment to each of us of
a formulation to study and then teach, seemed particularly on target as to our abilities and needs.
How he managed, I don’t know. Even with hosting “Pula’s Pub” in his room until 2 a.m. or so each
night, he started each class with sharp, follow-up GS-related comments on what he had observed since
his last class. His unique combination of seriousness, wit and whimsy endeared him to me.
Robert P. Pula, 1992

REMEMBERING BOB PULA 89
As we hugged goodbye at the end of those two weeks, he urged me to write for the General
Semantics Bulletin; well, here I am, as I have been ever since. His mentoring extended to quickly
engaging me in editing and teaching. How could I not find that endearing?
Bruce’s and my introduction to Bob’s hometown of Baltimore began when we attended a Sci-
ence and Sanity Seminar at the Institute office there. What a five days; we and Aat Decker worked
intensively with Bob and Stuart Mayper each day, and played intensively each evening; good dinners,
sight-seeing, an evening ‘snack’ of steamed crabs served the Baltimore way—dumped out on a newspa-
per-covered table and accompanied by beer to balance the spicy “Old Bay” seasoning. Much learning
(how to approach the strange-to-us food), laughter, and for some, subsequent indigestion.
When Bruce and I subsequently moved to Baltimore, Bob extended a grand welcome by having
a party to introduce us to his extensive family and group of friends. This hospitality continued through-
out our nine years living there—including our welcome at family picnics every Memorial and La-
bor Day by the pond at his sister Betty’s farm—such that we felt part of his wonderful family.
With Bob and his daughter Jean, we started the Baltimore Society for General Semantics. Bob
said he would act as advisor and held to that, participating in our monthly meetings and thus con-
tinuing his mentoring and friendship.
We shared many trips with Bob to the New York area for Institute Board meetings and other
events. I looked forward to those times with Bob, during which we caught up on news about our
respective families, discussed Institute business and general semantics, shared puns, etc. Bob took
great delight in the New Jersey Turnpike and our stops along the way. Let him at that hamburger
and fries; he was one happy man.
We were still living in Baltimore when we completed the first draft of Drive Yourself Sane. Bob,
at that time living in an apartment comprising the second floor of Betty’s home, was one of the
people who had agreed to edit the manuscript; the only one to whom we could deliver it in person.
So we made a date, prepared to hand over the goods, visit a bit and leave. This we did, but the na-
ture of the visit was wonderfully unexpected. He delayed taking the package, instead leading us to
a table by the pond, set up with a bottle of Champagne, glasses, and a bowl of peanuts. With great
ceremony, he served us and offered a toast of congratulations, and then took the package. Such warmth
and elegance, topped off with a phone call as soon as we got home, with further congratulations
after he had begun reading.
We missed him when we moved to California, but kept in touch via stimulating phone conver-
sations in addition to attending Institute events over the years. The last such event was the 2003
International Conference; Bob didn’t present anything formally, but was very much present, and
again welcomed people to his room after-hours, for much discussion and laughter. After the confer-
ence, Bob and his son Victor (then working as Bob’s assistant) returned with us to our home for a
few days. Shades of the New Jersey Turnpike: When we stopped to get fuel for the car and our-
selves, Bob again ate his hamburger and fries with great relish, as did Victor; two happy men.
We were involved with Bob in publishing a book of his “Selected Writings” and had arranged
the visit to work together on it. This we did, along with watching old movies, hanging out, and talk-
ing, talking, talking… For now, that project is on hold. Also in the works was a biography of
Korzybski for which Bob had been doing research for years (in the Institute archives, the Korzybski
collection at Columbia University, and in Poland); he was almost at the point of starting to write.
He had work to do and was determined to live long enough to complete it.
Well, the universe ‘had other plans’ and death caught Bob before that point. Sad, but perhaps
not bad, to die in the midst of important, engaging work.
Like the rest of us, Bob had quirks and foibles over which he and others stumbled. Yet, for me, the
positive far outweighed the negative. My love and affection for him has endured and will continue to do so.
BOB PULA: THANK YOU, SIR

BY JAMES D. FRENCH
With the death of Robert P. Pula, an era has passed for the Institute of General Semantics (among
many ‘eras’). We have lost our preeminent GS researcher, scholar, and writer. He and his fine, creative
brain cannot be replaced, of course. I imagine that in some ways, the full extent of his contributions to
general semantics will only be rightly assessed by future generations. It seems too early to know now.
But we can say straight off that his work was greatly influenced and enhanced by his GS friends
and close colleagues: Stuart Mayper, Charlotte Read, Russell Meyers, Kenneth Johnson, Allen Read,
Milton Dawes, etc., and his countless students. He was great in his enthusiasm for his friends. He
assumed the role of lead lecturer (and mentor) at Institute summer seminars for about 30 years.
Robert P. Pula came to general semantics from a background as a student of aristotelian phi-
losophy at a Jesuit college, and an interest in things Polish. Eventually that interest led him to Alfred
Korzybski and A.K.’s non-aristotelian discipline.
Bob’s GS explorations (in the early 1960s) were grounded as they should be for a scholar: first
and foremost in Korzybski’s major writings, Manhood of Humanity, and Science and Sanity. Read-
ing in Science and Sanity, he said to himself, “If this guy is right, then almost everybody else that
I’ve read up to this point is wrong.” From that korzybskian base, his reading, evaluating, branched
out to include the most prominent ‘popularizations’ of general semantics—Irving J. Lee, S.I.
Hayakawa, Wendell Johnson, Harry Weinberg, Francis Chisholm, et. al. Bob Pula was a reader—
and how. Through constant study, he kept up-to-date with older and newer developments in
general semantics and the sciences, not to mention current affairs.
Of special time-binding significance perhaps, we can mention these important contributions:
his years as editor-in-chief of the General Semantics Bulletin (1978-1985); his fine “Preface to the
Fifth Edition of Science and Sanity” (where he laid out, in a way that no one had quite done before,
a long list of Korzybski’s momentous contributions to human knowledge); his work with Charlotte
Schuchardt Read as an assistant editor on Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings; the publication of
the fine and much-needed, A General-Semantics Glossary: Pula’s Guide for the Perplexed; his long
“Bio-Methodological Sketch” of Alfred Korzybski in Polish American Studies in the Autumn of
1996; and his lectures introducing Korzybski and general semantics to the students and faculty of
seven universities in Poland in 1997 and 1999-2000.
Bob insisted on adhering to the rigor of general semantics as presented in Science and Sanity,
and he lived the discipline. Teaching by example (a life lived by GS formulations), he introduced
general semantics to his six children when they were young. At his Alfred Korzybski Memorial
Lecture (AKML), “The Impact of Korzybski at the Planetary Level: The View From 2000,” Bob’s
daughter, Edith, said:
It’s hard to explain being raised on general semantics. Such a part and parcel of the way we grew up, learning
how to think critically, to evaluate very openly, to not jump to conclusions in any kind of sense; and I feel it
has made a tremendous impact on all of our abilities to open ourselves up to culture, to experience, to evalu-
ating, to be probably very different people than we would have been without this, or if we would have come
to it later in life, and I’m very thankful for it.
REMEMBERING BOB PULA 91
Note that Bob Pula was the AKML lecturer at the turn of the century, an honor that shows the extent
to which he was esteemed by the Trustees of the Institute.
In large and small ways, Robert P. Pula was a mentor to many GS students who became prominent
in the field. He could talk the talk, walk the walk.
He took large and imaginative chances with his writing, which did not always work (to the chagrin
and annoyance of his editors); but when it did, it came across as exceptional. He was famous for his
extended qualifiers, but they often seemed right enough, and fit his style. He was a true innovator, com-
ing up with such pithy phrases as “Not things changing, but change ‘thinging’.” He coined the term
“densar,” as I see it, in my ‘vast’ knowledge of astronomy—“look at all those stars, Mommie!”—a bet-
ter, more descriptive term for “Black Hole.” I’m still mulling over “uni-substantialism.”
For some reason, Bob liked me, and I wish I had been more responsive as a friend, kept more in
touch, talked things over on long evenings. I’m sure I would have learned more, at the very least. Thank
you, Bob.
Robert P. Pula, Self-Portrait, 1995

Reproduced with permission of the Pula family
From the Notebooks of Robert P. Pula

© 2004, Robert P. Pula Estate
Mechanisms: a symbolic class of life will sometimes be satisfied with exclusively verbal
nourishment. We should not be surprised at this. We should labor to expose it, i.e., become
conscious of abstracting. But recognize that it’s very hard to become aware of one’s
neurolinguistic auto-intoxication. The wish is mother to the formulation. In what area of self-
deception do you specialize?
Perhaps we should establish these education and training institutes: Failure Seminars, Inc.,
Uncertainty, Inc., The Face Death Corporation. For our health.
I am well aware of the limits of reason; but they are far less restrictive than the limits of anarchy.
No nation has produced culinary nonsense; but they all have produced philosophical non-
sense.
WRITING AND TEACHING GENERAL SEMANTICS:
ROBERT P. PULA’S LEGACY
BY BRUCE I. KODISH
For over thirty years, Robert P. Pula (known to his students and friends as “Bob” or sometimes
just “Pula”) served as lead lecturer at Institute of General Semantics Seminar-Workshops (longer
than Korzybski’s tenure at that job). Bob edited the General Semantics Bulletin from 1978 through
1985 (G.S.B. Numbers 44-51). He served as the Director of the Institute from 1983 to 1986. In its
sheer volume of rigorous quality, his list of scholarly publications in the field of general semantics
remains hard to match by any other post-korzybskian formulator (see the following annotated bib-
liography). For all these reasons, Bob qualified until his death as the world’s foremost living gen-
eral-semantics scholar and one of the most important continuators of Korzybski’s work.
Bob discovered GS in 1963 while doing research for a magazine series he was writing on no-
table Poles in America. Always interested in digging deeper into his Polish roots, Bob read Science
and Sanity and decided to write a young person’s biography of Korzybski. He contacted the IGS,
corresponded with M. Kendig and Charlotte Read, attended some seminars, etc. Now over forty
years later, here I am, his student, colleague, editor, and friend, trying to give a glimpse of the man
and his work as I knew him for a quarter of a century. Here I want to focus on his writing and teach-
ing. What values and principles led him to dedicate himself to GS in the way that he did?
First, Bob felt it his time-binding responsibility to become as knowledgable as possible about
what the founder of the field actually wrote and intended. There may be quite a few “general se-
manticists,” but there are very few korzybskian and Korzybski scholars, which Bob strove to—and
did—become. In a field where writers and teachers have often emphasized bits and pieces of
Korzybski’s comprehensive non-aristotelian system of evaluation —and thereby distorted it—Bob
sought “rigor,” as he called it. For him, “rigor” involved a serious attempt to understand Korzybski’s
system/discipline, as well as possible, and then to clearly present it as a whole without oversimpli-
fied shortcuts.
Bob’s Roman Catholic upbringing and his training in aristotelian (thomistic) philosophy at a
Jesuit college prepared him to explicitly see, as others might not, the truly radical and comprehen-
sive nature of the evaluational shift that Korzybski had proposed. Bob’s ‘conversion’ to become a
dedicated uncertaintist—what he called a “born-again agnostic”—did not take place in a sudden
melodramatic moment. But it was profound. He continued to research Korzybski’s historical, cul-
tural, philosophical and scientific roots until his death. Those students who were fortunate enough
to attend one of Bob’s and Stuart Mayper’s five-day ‘graduate seminar’ reading courses in Science
and Sanity may remember a grueling yet highly rewarding journey toward seeing that work in its
broadest possible context.
The complementary side of Bob’s time-binding sense of responsibility to get korzybskian GS
‘right’ was his interest in ‘going beyond’, i.e., to corroborate and correct (in terms of modern sci-
ence and scholarship), elaborate, and build upon Korzybski’s pioneering efforts. With the help of
scientist friends like Russell Meyers and Stuart Mayper, Bob persistently worked to keep up with
scientific/scholarly advances and urged his readers and students to do likewise.
For Bob, new findings were not a threat to GS, but provided possibilities for clarifying and test-
ing it. For him it seemed a matter of honor not to make any firm claims seriously at odds with estab-
lished sciences. Not only did this remain part of his standard of rigor, it also led him to new ways of
WRITING AND TEACHING GENERAL SEMANTICS: ROBERT P. PULA’S LEGACY 93
elucidating GS formulations. For example, in his seminar-teaching he regularly discussed the pro-
cess of abstracting in terms of modern neurobiological findings (describing the fundamental steps
in the process as “structurally-determined selecting-filtering, transducing, integrating, projecting”—
all non-verbal—and last but not least, talking).
On the other side, Bob worked to show how general semantics could be useful for scientists and
scholars. In a number of articles and reviews, he discussed GS in relation to areas of study such as
fuzzy logic, linguistics, neurobiology, semiotics, etc. Bob’s work in GS and his study of such re-
lated fields (what field is not related?) led him to make suggestions for research and application to
workers in those fields. For example, to physicists he suggested replacing the potentially confusing
term ‘black hole’ with “densar,” which he considered a more structurally appropriate usage. Like
Korzybski, Pula was not shy.
Bob’s elaborations of GS formulations led him to new ways of understanding and using them.
His writings on GS and creativity, the cultural implications of GS, identification and psychology,
GS and the Holocaust, etc., remain exemplars of how to creatively apply the discipline.
In building upon the Korzybskian foundations, Bob also did not shy away from formulating
new contributions to the system, including “the non-identifying person,” “change thinging,” “neuro-
linguistic feedback” and “uni-substantialism,” among others. I recall him saying, “If you say some-
thing differently, you say something different.” And Bob did not fear saying things differently. He
insisted on the necessity for such innovation—for himself and for his students and readers—to keep
necessary rigor from turning into rigor mortis.
No doubt some of Bob’s verbal verve here resulted from his Shakespearean love of language.
Bob did graduate work in English and had read widely in literature as well as the sciences, philoso-
phy and history. (He taught reading improvement and writing in high school before branching out
as a GS-based trainer, adult educator, and communications consultant.) But for Bob, what he re-
ferred to as “structural appropriateness” ranked above verbal elegance and wit. And so he perpetu-
ally asked—no, commanded—himself to re-evaluate his own formulating: “Is what I just wrote
consistent with Korzybski’s formulations?” “Does the structure of my language properly relate to
what I am writing about?”
Bob’s reading habits merit some attention here. He remained a ‘student’ his entire life. A book
provided him with a window through which he could view another person’s evaluational ‘furnish-
ings’. Even better, it gave him a way to clarify, re-evaluate and re-design his own. So in the
korzybskian tradition, Bob owned lots of books and read with pen or pencil in hand. Their text and
margins became an evaluational workbench where he sharpened and honed his neuro-evaluational,
neuro-linguistic consciousness. And his playfulness. Often what he developed in these marginalia,
as well as in other notes and jottings, became the content of later writing and teaching.
Bob’s writing has at times a density of ‘thought’, often involving an extensive use of quoted
material. Some have found this off-putting. However, patient readers can find great rewards. As a
careful reader, Pula’s respect for authors, even ones he disagreed with, required that he present enough
data from their own words (paraphrasing might not do) so that the reader could make his own deci-
sions about issues discussed. Reading one of Bob’s masterful pieces such as “Knowledge, Uncer-
tainty and Courage: Heisenberg and Korzybski,” you can have a surrogate experience of the kind of
close reading and careful evaluating in which Pula excelled. “By George” (and Bob), you will know
some profoundly important things about modern physics and a scientific worldview when you fin-
ish that essay. [See General Semantics Bulletin 46, 1979, pp. 10-25.]
Bob considered his writing an extension of his teaching role. In turn, Bob’s classroom teaching,
though deceptively spontaneous and informal in appearance, was backed by years of serious read-
ing-writing-formulating-practicing. His sharp verbal formulations could catch the straying atten-
tion of a participant, as could his simple, sometimes shocking examples, puns and wordplay. He
looked for unusual ways to demonstrate the formulations. His classes were filled with illustrations,
exercises, discussions and practice as befits a highly extensional teacher of our extensional disci-
pline—consistently filtered through Bob’s serious focus on GS as a unitary system of related for-
mulations.
For Bob, seriousness was not at odds with playfulness. His classes, though serious “neuro-se-
mantic, neuro-linguistic laboratories” as he called them, were filled with fun. Bob saw his job as
training people in the basics of the GS system and in how to begin to apply that system as a disci-
pline to their own lives and problems. He was not there to do psychotherapy. Inevitably participants
would begin to consciously and/or unconsciously bring up evaluational problems and sticking points.
Bob’s experience as a classroom teacher of many years, and as a father of six, helped him to deal
with such issues gently and with humor.
Bob once told me that for much of his early life, he considered himself a writer. Sometime in his
thirties, he realized that he hadn’t written much, that he wasn’t going to live forever, and that if he
was going to continue to consider himself a writer, he had better write. And he did.
After he discovered general semantics, he also realized that he had some important things to
say. Bob, I believe, wanted to make the world a better place, although he eschewed any urgency in
‘completing’ the job by means of some GS-version of utopia. Instead, he worked to apply GS to
improve the world piecemeal—in the way best served by his writing and teaching talents—“one
word at a time, one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time.” Bob succeeded. And the legacy of
his writing and teaching gives all of us—legitimately all—something to which we can aspire.
THE ANNOTATED GENERAL-SEMANTICS BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT P. PULA
BY ROBERT P. PULA
[Editor’s Note: Bob Pula first put together this bibliography in 1995; then he revised and updated it in
2002-2003. We have changed “general-semantics” where appropriate to “general semantics” to conform to
present Institute policy regarding the name of the discipline. You will still see the term hyphenated here
when it is used as an adjective.]
This bibliography, originally prepared for distribution at the Institute of General Semantics’ annual
summer seminar-workshop, lists my major publications in general semantics, found for the most
part in the General Semantics Bulletin and Etc: A Review of General Semantics. Except for some
instances where particular methodological points are made, I have not listed editorials, biographies
of contributors, notes, fillers, etc., written during my tenure as editor of the Bulletin; nor have I ref-
erenced drawings and cartoons. Having been asked to publish my collected writings (to be titled
Knowledge, Uncertainty and Courage: Selected General-Semantics Writings of Robert P. Pula), I
have listed some items not yet published which will appear there for the first time. Those are clearly
tagged. The list is chronological overall, except for items that are grouped by type, e.g., my reviews
of Korzybski’s Collected Writings. (2002 note: The book referenced above is still ‘in press’. My
second book is also completed. I am seeking a “trade” publisher for it. My glossary, A General
Semantics Glossary: Pula’s Guide for the Perplexed, was published by the International Society for
General Semantics in May 2000. All three books are listed below.)
Books
1. A General Semantics Glossary: Pula’s Guide for the Perplexed. Concord, CA: International
Society for General Semantics, 2000. The omnium gatherum of the glossary series from ETC., pub-
lished in book form as per agreement at the outset in 1991. See below for characterizations of indi-
vidual sections.
2. Knowledge, Uncertainty and Courage: Selected General-Semantics Writings of Robert P. Pula.
A representative selection of papers, mostly from the General Semantics Bulletin, that span my career
as a writer in the field. [to be published]
3. The Non-Identifying Person: Conscious Self-Restructuring for the Extra-Planetary Era. Type-
script. Addresses why those who will colonize the near universe should be educated in general se-
mantics.
Papers, Articles, Etc.

4. “Alfred Korzybski: The Time-Binder,” The Rosarian, Baltimore, Maryland, Sunday, March
31, 1963, p. 2. Published in a parish newspaper when I still attended such places, this piece repre-
sents my first publication related to general semantics. It briefly gives a biographical sketch and
answers the question “Why did you write an article about Alfred Korzybski?” Relies on writings of
Hayakawa (too much) and Russell Meyers (not enough).
5. “In Memoriam: Harry Weinberg,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.35, 1968, p. 67. A brief
appreciation of the author of perhaps the best ‘second generation’ book in general semantics, Levels of
Knowing and Existence: Studies in General Semantics. In a letter of recommendation written in 1947,
Korzybski wrote of Weinberg: “I consider Harry Weinberg one of the most gifted students I have
had, I can recommend him highly as an expounder of General Semantics and scientific method.”
6. “Review of Bois’ The Art of Awareness.” General Semantics Bulletin, No.36, 1969, pp. 78-
81. A largely approving account of what I think is Bois’ best book, with some serious questioning of
the ‘participatory’ “Stage Five” of his Korzybski and Bachelard-derived Epistemological Profile.
7. “Neglected Formulations: Function and Multiordinality,” in Lee Thayer, ed., Communica-
tion: General Semantics Perspectives. New York/London: Spartan/Macmillan, 1970, pp.43-53. Those
formulations have not been neglected in Institute of General Semantics seminars, but they still (1997)
seldom appear in popular, often casual, ‘general-semantics’ writing—a pity, since the terms are central
to Korzybski’s systematic formulating. First presented at the Eleventh International Conference on
General Semantics —”A Search for Relevance, 1968,” University of Denver, August 5-9, 1968.
8. Robert P. Pula, ed., with Charlotte Schuchardt Read, “Letter from Alfred Korzybski to Will-
iam Benjamin Smith,” ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vol XXVIII, No.2, June 1971, pp.
139-150. Korzybski’s subtle response to a review of his first book, Manhood of Humanity, in which
he does some powerful formulating.
9. “Comments on Elton Carter’s Paper ‘Developing an Educational-Heuristic Orientation in the
Evolution of General Semantics’,” (1973) General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 41-42-43, 1976, pp.
37-38. Wherein I question Carter’s espousal of achieving what Jean Gebser called an “aperspective
state.” Compare with the “Creativity” paper, below.
10. “General Semantics as a General System Which Explicitly Includes the System Maker,” in
Donald E. Washburn and Dennis R. Smith, eds., Coping With Increasing Complexity: Implications
of General Semantics and General Systems Theory. New York/London/Paris: Gordon and Breach
Science Publishers, 1974, pp. 69-81. The title speaks for itself but does not indicate that my paper
compares general semantics and general systems theory (GST) by quoting from a general systems
writer (F. Kenneth Berrien) and then ‘translating’ (reformulating) his text into ‘general-semantish’
an interesting, instructive exercise. First presented at the conference, “Coping With Increasing
Complexity,” held at the Phipps Conference Center, University of Denver, May, 1970.
11. “Extensional Devices in Release of Creativity,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 41-42-
43, 1976, pp. 183-189. Discusses the applications of indexing, dating, et cetera (etc.), hyphens and
quotes to creative work in any field, genre, etc.: “...it seems to me that the key psycho-logical op-
eration needed for creative behavior is the on-going ability to take a fresh look, to, to some degree,
be able to ‘escape’ present structures (through consciousness of abstracting, internalization of non-
identity, etc.) and perceive-invent new ones.” Internalizing of the extensional devices so as to influ-
ence one’s orientation may promote ‘creativity’.
12. “Editorial,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 44-45, 1978, pp. 7-8. The first paragraph of
my first editorial reminds us of the need to apply general semantics to general semantics.
13. “J. Samuel Bois: In Memoriam,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.36, 1978, pp. 9-10. Per-
sonal remembrances of Bois the man, with some evaluation of Bois the formulator.
14. “Introduction to Charlotte Schuchardt Read,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 44-45, 1978,
p. 12. In which Charlotte Read is labeled “a heroine of civilization.” (I realize now that Hero ‘was’
a woman, so the ‘feminine’ form “heroine” seems redundant.)
15. “Ben Bova’s Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, 1977: A Report,” General Semantics
Bulletin, Nos. 44-45, 1978, pp. 17-18. Ben Bova, author and editor of Analog: Science Fiction/Sci-
ence Fact, could not publish his lecture in the Bulletin, so I wrote a report of it based on my notes
ANNOTATED GS BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT P. PULA 97
written during the lecture, which was titled “Energy: How We Lost the Battle But May Yet Win the
War.” (This was delivered during the ‘energy crisis’ of the mid-to-late 70s.)
16. “Identification: The Illusion-Delusion Builder,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 44-45,
1978, pp. 41-50. With commentary by and a brief biography of M. Kendig. A paper prepared for the
annual meeting of the American Society for Psychosomatic Medicine and Dentistry, Oct. 6-8, 1972,
favorably commented on there by Stanley Krippner. Distinguishes Freudian and Korzybskian ‘iden-
tification’, and suggests that identification as used by Korzybski (confusion of orders of abstract-
ing) ‘identifies’ the illusion-delusion generating mechanism.
17. “Comments on What Makes Education Environmental? by Noel McInnis and Don Albrecht,
eds.,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 44-45, 1978. pp. 196-197. The book under review addresses
the (still with us) educational and environmental issues from a general-semantics perspective, i.e.,
they recognize that the ‘environment’ includes the neurosemantic environment as environment.
18. “Editorial,” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 46, 1979, pp. 6-7. A report on an event in the
Einstein Centennial in which, on a TV production, “Peter Ustinov was charmingly comic as a be-
fuddled Newtonian Everyman,” addresses the distortive risks involved in trying to make science
‘cute’ and, even in serious attempts to arrive at structurally sound terminology, the pitfalls of des-
perately attempted ‘accessibility’. Includes my first published suggestion that we replace the mis-
leading term “black hole” with the more structurally sound term “densar.”
19. “Knowledge, Uncertainty and Courage: Heisenberg and Korzybski,” Haarlem, The Nether-
lands, Methodology and Science, Special Korzybski Issue, Vol. 10, No.2, 1977, pp. 140-166. Re-
printed, with slight revision, in General Semantics Bulletin, No. 46, 1979, pp. 10-25. A distinguish-
ing of the restricted uncertainty of Heisenberg and the general uncertainty of Korzybski and the
human factors involved in their formulating. Quotations from many leading scientists supply the
markers along the path.
20. “Korzybski’s Polish Matrix,” With Pronunciation Guide, General Semantics Bulletin, No.47,
1980, pp. 30-54. Korzybski was 36 years old when he left Poland, as it turned out, for good. (I am
not counting his visit to Warsaw in 1929 to attend that year’s Mathematical Congress of the Slavic
Countries, at which he presented a summary of his work in progress that became Science and San-
ity.) So the first ‘half’ of his life (he died at 70 in 1950) was spent in Poland, with trips to other
European countries as cultural punctuation. He often affirmed the importance of influences from
those years, especially the impact on him of ancient traditions in Polish philosophy, planetarism,
political theory and practice, and education. (The first national public Ministry of Education in Europe
was established in Poland in 1773.) As he wrote to Dr. Julian Grove-Korski in 1922, “My theory
[time-binding] is first of all entirely Polish; it is the practical expression of the so old Polish practi-
cal idealism....I see the Polish independence fortified by a new social, ethical and political philoso-
phy, which as history proves, is stronger than arms. I had this in mind from the beginning.” Very
much in the tradition of “for your freedom, and ours,” a slogan of Polish soldiers who, having lost
their freedom in the late eighteenth-century partitions of Poland, fought in various nineteenth cen-
tury European wars of liberation. The non-violent revolution summed under the name “Solidarity”
(1979-1989), which ended communism in Poland and contributed to its collapse among Poland’s
neighbors, was very much in this tradition. Studying Korzybski’s Polish matrix can help us to see
how and from where he derived much of his system; can help us understand aspects of the system
itself.
21. “Editorial: What Should a Teacher of General Semantics Know?” General Semantics Bul-
letin, No. 48, 1981, pp. 8-10. A stern ‘curriculum’ is laid out for those who would presume to teach
others about talking to others.
22. “Review of S.I. Hayakawa’s Through the Communication Barrier: On Speaking, Listening
and Understanding,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.48, 1981, pp. 96-99. This is a review of a pre-
publication version of Hayakawa’s book. In it he details his early association with Korzybski and
his debt to him: “So many of his fundamental ideas have helped to shape my thinking; their influ-
ence is no doubt to be detected on almost every page.” As we know (witness Hayakawa’s “Abstrac-
tion Ladder”), some of us think that influence didn’t go deep enough. The review concludes: “The
reader doesn’t have to (wouldn’t expect to) agree with everything the author says. Some of his so-
cial analyses seem to me clearly untenable on factual grounds alone. Nevertheless, the book con-
tains enough to suggest that, behind the headlines [Hayakawa was still in the U.S. Senate in 1979],
there still lurks a wiser, more “prudent Hayakawa than his current media image would lead us to
expect.”
23. “What Can General Semantics Contribute to Trans-Cultural Communications?” General
Semantics Bulletin, No. 49, 1982, pp. 67-71. A paper read at the conference held at United Nations
headquarters in New York titled “Toward Better Understanding Among Nations,” November 7, 1981.
Among other suggestions I made there was that general semantics can contribute the neurolinguistic,
neuro-biological, time-binding point of view, since that point of view and the science that undergirds
it, applies to all human cultures.
24. “Accountability: Si! Magic: No!” General Semantics Bulletin, No.49, 1982, pp. 113-114.
This is a reprint (revised) of a “Guest Editorial” I originally wrote for Newsletter of the Maryland
Chapter of the American Society for Health Manpower Education and Training, January-February,
1976. In it I urge responsible educators and trainers to recognize the interactive character of educa-
tion/training (i.e. the trainee has responsibilities, too) and to refuse to contractually ‘guarantee’ re-
sults.
25. “Review of Douglas R. Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid,” Gen-
eral Semantics Bulletin, No.49, 1982, pp. 129-131. Hofstadter’s brilliant, yea, dazzling book ad-
dresses many issues of concern to general-semantics practitioners, formulations which reverberate
with general semantics: “Meaning and Form in Mathematics,” “Figure and Ground,” “Recursive
Structures and Processes,”: “The Propositional Calculus, “ “Levels of Description, and Computer
Systems,” “Brains and Thoughts,” “Self Ref [reference] and Self Rep [reproducing],” “Strange
Loops, or Tangled Hierarchies,” etc. A letter from the author thanked me for the review and, except
for my effusive praise, allowed as how I had got it just about right. A brain feast.
26. “Avoiding Allness in Wholeness: Locating Lower Order Structures in Higher Order Struc-
tures,” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 49, 1982, pp. 140-141. Presented at the Symposium on
Korzybskian Theory, New York, March 13, 1982. A warning made during the heyday of ‘holism’ to
avoid disdaining necessary analytical, differentiating formulating. A companion piece to Allen Walker
Read’s “Is There a Place for ‘Mysticism’ and ‘Occultism’ in General Semantics?” (pp. 141-142) .
27. “A Note on Language, Science, and Action: Korzybski’s General Semantics A Study in Com-
parative Intellectual History by Ross Evans Paulson,” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 50, 1983,
p. 188. A brief ‘review’ giving notice of Paulson’s excellent study and making some points I make
in detail in the full review which appears in GSB No. 51, listed below.
28. “Introduction of Allen Walker Read,” 1983 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, General
Semantics Bulletin, No. 51, 1984, pp. 9-10. A great privilege to introduce Allen Walker Read, espe-
cially on such an occasion. Included here because in my remarks I make some important points
about rigor and responsibility in formulating.
29. “Depths Not Yet Plumbed,” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 5l, 1984, pp. 35-42. A paper
presented at the conference, “General Semantics: The First Half-Century and Beyond,” which ad-
dresses some aspects of Korzybski’s system not sufficiently examined and newly formulated in depth:
namely, “Combinations of Higher Order”; “Non-Identity,” emphasizing non-identity ‘at’ non-ver-
bal levels (the object level/parabola relationship); “Uncertainty” (Korzybski’s general uncertainty
principle as broader, more inclusive than, Heisenberg’s restricted uncertainty principle; and “A Non-
Identifying Person,” which addresses the question “What would a ‘non-identifying person’ be like?”
I have written a book on that last. (See item 3 above.)
30. Robert P. Pula, with Stuart Mayper, “Four Kinds of ‘Science’,” General Semantics Bulletin,
No. 51, p. 112. A seminar worksheet used for a joint presentation I make with Dr. Mayper in which
we discuss (and get sometimes excited reactions to) “Accepted Science,” “Erroneous Science,”
“Pseudoscience,” and “Fringe Science.”
31. “Review of Language, Science and Action: Korzybski’s General Semantics—A Study in
Comparative Intellectual History, by Ross Evans Paulson,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.51, 1984,
pp. 123-126. The full review of Dr. Paulson’s study promised in GSB 50. Paulson’s approach is
cultural-historical {he devotes two chapters to Korzybski’s Polish background and, once in America,
his continued contacts with Polish science, logic and linguistics), but he includes a rigorous chapter
called “Science and Sanity: A Historical Critique.” A must for serious students of general seman-
tics.
32. “Correspondence,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.51, 1984, pp. 126-127,142-143. An
exchange of letters between Institute member Al Spoor and the editor (me) of the Bulletin in which
societal applications (or lack thereof, as charged by Spoor) of general semantics are discussed. Fir-
ing-line stuff.
33. “Review of The Integrated Mind by Michael Gazzaniga and Joseph E. LeDoux,” General
Semantics Bulletin, No.52, 1985, pp. 80-82. Gazzaniga and LeDoux demolish the pop-’science’ notion
that there are ‘two brains’ (‘left brain, right brain’) in the human skull. Another demonstration of
how unreliable media presentations of ‘science’ tend to be. My review-observations are strongly
supported by Dr. Russell Meyers (in personal correspondence), distinguished neurosurgeon, neuro-
scientist, etc.
34. “In Memoriam: Joseph I. Meiers, M.D., 1894-1985,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.52,
1985, pp. 87-88. An affectionate account of my relationship with the German-born, Latvian-raised,
New York-based psychiatrist who began his association with the Institute of General Semantics a
few years after arriving in the United States in 1939. Joe Meiers was the person who urged the ini-
tiation of the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture. According to Charlotte Read, “this out-
standing series resulted from his suggestion.”
35. Robert P. Pula, with Stuart Mayper, “Comments by Robert Pula and the Editor,” (on a for-
mal exchange between Ralph Kenyon and C. Andrew Hilgartner), General Semantics Bulletin, No.55,
1990, p. 74-76. A good example of general-semantics practitioners at work, exploring, debating
aspects of the system which, being open-ended, ‘expects’ continued development, refinement, etc.
The subject discussed is whether or not there can be “non-identity languages.”
36. “Review of The Way to Ground Zero by Martha Bartter,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.55,
1990, pp. 110-112. A favorable review of Bartter’s study of how American science fiction writing
prepared Americans and others to expect and accept the atomic bomb. The review concludes: “For
those interested in literature, in science as human behavior, science fiction and what might be called
socio-epistemology, I highly recommend this book.”
37. “Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings: 1920-1950. An Appreciation and a Review,” ETC.:
A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 48, No.4, Winter 1991-92, pp. 424-433. The word “apprecia-
tion” in the title of this review was supplied by the editor of ETC., but I guess it’s descriptive.
Korzybski’s Collected Writings surely qualifies as one of (if not the) major publishing events in
general semantics since Science and Sanity. The book contains published materials brought together
for the first time; also contains many fascinating documents not previously published, much of it
revelatory of the history and development of general semantics. The review highlights some of the
book’s strengths. Another ‘must’ for general-semantics scholars. Korzybski’s collected writings were
originally gathered and arranged many years ago by M. Kendig. She was not able to complete her
cherished project. Charlotte Schuchardt Read and I (primarily Charlotte) worked on the volume for
several years, finally completing it for publication in 1990. Charlotte saw her work as completing
her friend Kendig’s work, so, even though we did the final collating and some editing, Charlotte
insisted on crediting Kendig as the producer of the book. The full bibliographical citation I have
used when referring to it in print reads: Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings: 1920-1950. Collected
and arranged by M. Kendig. Final editing and preparation for printing by Charlotte Schuchardt Read,
with the assistance of Robert Pula. Englewood, NJ: International Non-Aristotelian Library/Insti-
tute of General Semantics, 1990.
38. “A General-Semantics Glossary: general-semantics,” ETC: A Review of General Seman-
tics, Vol. 48, No.4, Winter 1991-92, pp. 462-464. The editors of ETC. asked me to write a glossary
of general-semantics terms (a sort of ‘guide for the perplexed’ ); this is the first installment, a defi-
nitional description of what we intend when we use the term “general semantics.” The first section
of item 1 above.
39. “The Nietzsche-Korzybski-Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?” ETC: A Review of General Seman-
tics, Vol. 49, No.1, Spring 1992, pp. 50-57. Traces pre-and-post-Korzybskian hints about the pre-
disposing function of particular languages in nudging people to see their worlds in accord with those
languages. Can be read for profit with ETC. editor Jeremy Klein’s introduction to, and the text of,
Nietzsche’s “Truth and Falsity in an Extra-Moral Sense,” which follows on pp. 58-72.
40. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part II): process and time-binding,” ETC.: A Review of
General Semantics, Vol. 49, No.2, Summer 1992, pp. 234-238. Two fundamental, i.e., foundational,
terms are discussed. Without understanding what these terms represent, the reader-student of gen-
eral semantics might well be blocked at “So what?”
41. “Index to General Semantics Bulletin, Numbers 1-55,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.56,
1992, pp. 77-78. Lists 29 papers, reviews, etc., by me which appeared in the Bulletin between 1969
and 1990. Those are, of course, listed and annotated in this bibliography.
42. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part III): abstracting,” ETC.: A Review of General Seman-
tics, Vol. 49, No.4, Winter 1992-93, pp. 470-473. If the goal of general-semantics training is the
achievement of consciousness of abstracting, then what Korzybski wanted us to understand by “ab-
stracting” must be crucial. Some ‘leading’ general semanticists haven’t gotten this. How about you?
43. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part IV): elementalism/non-elementalism,” ETC.: A Re-

view of General Semantics, Vol. 50, No. 1, Spring 1993, pp. 69-72. Why do some general semanti-
cists still allow themselves to talk about ‘ideas’, the ‘mind’, ‘space’, ‘time’, etc.? Because they haven’t
yet understood elementalism. Read it and weep. Then reform (i.e., re-evaluate).
44. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part V): semantic reaction,” ETC.: A Review of General
Semantics, Vol. 50, No. 2, Summer 1993, pp. 192-195. A discussion of one of Korzybski’s central
non-elementalistic coinages which does not split ‘thought’ from ‘feeling’ in considering total or-
ganismic responses (‘meanings’) to external and self-generated (internal) stimuli.
45. “Review of Toward Non-Essentialist Sociolinguistics by Karol Janicki,” General Seman-
tics Bulletin, No. p. 57, 1993, pp. 89-100. Evaluates an important introductory book on the author’s
subject, for which he saw Korzybski as a major precursor. The Korzybski connection seems espe-
cially focused on non-aristotelian, non-essentialist factors. Important reading (Janicki’s book) for a
general-semantics-related field which will be discussed well into the twenty-first century.
46. “Review of Thinking Crea-tically: A Systematic Interdisciplinary Approach to Critical Think-
ing, edited by Kenneth G. Johnson. Foreword by Steve Allen,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.58,
1993, pp. 39-50. (The date is correct; this is the second Bulletin published in 1993, part of a catch-
up operation.) An important example of applying general semantics to general semantics. The re-
viewer found some things to praise here, but much to disapprove, correct, etc. Difficult evaluations
to make and publish, since most of the writers are friends-colleagues and the book was published
by the Institute of General Semantics.
47. “Preface” (1993) to Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian
Systems and General Semantics. (1933) 5th Edition, pp. xiii-xxii. Englewood, NJ: International Non-
Aristotelian Library/Institute of General Semantics, 1994. A historical update and summary-discussion
of 31 of Korzybski’s original formulations and unique emphases that make his system a system.
48. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part VI): multiordinality of terms and mechanisms,” ETC.:
A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 50, No.4, Winter 1993-94, pp. 494-495. ‘Vertical’ and ‘hori-
zontal’ multiordinality are discussed as inevitable sources of disabling ambiguity if we are not con-
scious of abstracting.
49. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part VII): identity/non-identity,” ETC.: A Review of Gen-
eral Semantics, Vol. 51, No.1, Spring 1994, pp. 84-87. The source of “The map is not the territory,”
i.e., do not confuse orders of abstracting.
50. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part VIII) : extensional orientation as orientation,” ETC.:
A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 52, No.2, Summer 1994, pp. 224-226. Through general-se-
mantics training we can develop consciousness of abstracting and, eventually, an extensional ori-
entation, manifesting the habitual willingness to test our assertions against non-verbal levels, valid
documentation, etc.
51. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part IX): extensional devices: indexing and dating,” ETC.:
A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 51, No.4, Winter 1994-95, pp. 440-452. A definition of and
application of indexing and dating to ways people talk about the Holocaust. My hardest-to-do ap-
plication yet of general semantics to a tortured subject.
52. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part X): extensional devices revisited; over/under-defined
terms,” ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 52, No.1, Spring 1995, pp. 59-65. Et cetera (etc.),
hyphens and quotes are discussed, along with the neglected but vital formulation of over/under-
defined terms: over-defined by intension and under-defined by extension.
53. “The Next Thousand Years,” Newsletter of the North American Study Center for Polish
Affairs, STUDIUM, Spring 1995, pp. 14-15. An application of general semantics to ways of talking
during an international discussion on the improvement of German-Polish relations on a culture-wide
(not merely diplomatic-political) basis, much of which will be carried out in this journal. The aim
of the dialog is ‘rapprochement’—in quotes because ‘rapprochement’ has not consistently charac-
terized those relations. The first “thousand years” refers to the period 963 to 1945; for the most part,
years of enmity. The people involved in the dialog want to fix that.
54. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XI) extensional devices applied, part two,” ETC.: A
Review of General Semantics, Vol. 52, No. 2, Summer, 1995, pp. 208-211. Application of indexing
and dating to the terms “feminist” and Katherine Liepe-Levinson and Martin Levinson, “Glossing
Over Feminism? A General Semantics Critique,” in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 52,
No. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 440-452, and my response to their response listed below.
55. “Neuroscience Update 1995: A Triple Review of Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: The Matter of
the Mind by Gerald Edelman, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain, by
Patricia Smith Churchland, and The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind by Steven Rose,”
General Semantics Bulletin, No. 62, 1995, pp. 29-52. Presented in the Bulletin to keep
general-semantics practitioners up-to-date in the neuroscientific, neurolinguistic underpinnings of
general semantics, and to show that the descriptions and speculations of Korzybski in Science and
Sanity (1933) are validated by current (1995/1997) research.
56. Robert P. Pula, Aat Dekker, “The Tao of Korzybski?” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 62,
1995, pp. 53-64. An integration of two papers by our Dutch colleague Aat Dekker, with significant
segues and maxi-and-mini-corrective footnotes, even three non-trivial endnotes, by Robert Pula,
all authorized by Mr. Dekker. That’s why his piece is listed here. Dekker has made himself our prime
integrator and commentator on the relationship between general semantics and ‘Eastern’ thought.
Particularly valuable for those who want a rational, science-based explanation of why Tai Chi might
be good for you.
57. “Reversals of Reversals of Reversals,” General Semantics Bulletin, No. 62, 1995, pp. 75-
87. An extended response to John Condit’s “Hooked on English” (General Semantics Bulletin, No.59,
1994, pp. 20-29), in which he charges the late S. I. Hayakawa with distorting Korzybski when he
(Hayakawa) campaigned against ‘bilingualism’ as practiced in U.S. public schools. Pula details his
counter claim that, in this instance, it is precisely Condit who is doing the distorting and, in the
process, unwittingly contributing to a cultural crisis in present-day America.
58. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (1),” General-Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XIII, No.2, July
1995, p.2. This is the first of what is projected to be a long series of reviews of items in Alfred
Korzybski Collected Writings: 1920-1950. Collected and arranged by M. Kendig. Final editing and
preparation for printing by Charlotte Schuchardt Read, with the assistance of Robert Pula. Englewood,
NJ: International Non-Aristotelian Library/Institute of General Semantics, 1990. The series will take
fourteen years from this first overall review, so I’ll be 81 when I finish the last one! (For my first
review of the entire volume, see Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings: 1920-1950. An Appreciation
and a Review,” in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 48, No. 4, Winter 1991-92, pp. 424-
433, listed above.)
59. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XII): formulating and eva1uating,” ETC.: A Review of
General Semantics, Vol. 52, no.3, Fall 1995, pp. 344-347. At the request of the editor of ETC., I review
two terms much used in general semantics but which some casually trained readers seem unfamiliar with.
60. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (2): A Discussion of ‘Principles of Industrial Philosophy,’

A Tribute to H.L. Gantt by Walter N. Polakov,” General-Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XIII, No.3,
October 1995, p. 5. This second review of items from Korzybski’s Collected Writings shows
Korzybski in the early days when he saw himself as a “human engineer,” a term that he eventually
dropped because of its misuse by others. Contains some suggestive statements, such as, “Capital, in
fact, is an inanimate thing which can be...controlled by engineering.”
61. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XIII): general uncertainty,” ETC.: A Review of Gen-
eral Semantics, Vol. 52, No. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 476-481. A cautionary glossary entry for those who
mistakenly see general semantics as an appropriately certaintist discipline designed to replace mis-
takenly certaintist systems. Introduces for the first time in publication my “Uncertainty Umbrella,”
designed some years ago as a pedagogical device for use at Institute seminars.
62. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (3) ‘Fate and Freedom’,” General-Semantics Newsletter,
Vol. XIII, No.4, December 1995, p. 5. A review of Korzybski’s first major paper, delivered and
published in several venues, which sketches many notions that he was to later develop into central
formulations of general semantics.
63. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (4) “Patent Application. Educational Appliance. Anthro-
pometer [Structural Differential].” Filed July 6, 1923. Time-Bindings (Institute of General Seman-
tics Newsletter), March, 1996, pp. 6-7. Comments on formulations in Korzybski’s patent applica-
tion (granted on May 26, 1925), with Korzybski’s description of his encounter with the U.S. Patent
Office, an account of the patent infringement lawsuit, Korzybski v. Underwood and Underwood, of
1927, and correlations to present-day intellectual property law. Korzybski charged patent infringe-
ment from the publication of an unauthorized photograph of his ‘intellectual property.’
64. “The Tyranny of Agreement: A Response to a Response,” ETC.: A Review of General Semantics,
Vol. 53, No. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 96-105. A former student and his equally involved general-semanticist
partner (the Levinsons) critiqued my Glossary XI (their critique appeared in ETC., Vol. 52, No. 4, Winter
1995, pp. 440-454, listed above) which dealt with indexing and dating the terms ‘feminism’ and ‘femi-
nist’. In my response to their response I give another lesson in general semantics.
65. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XIV): neuro-linguistic feedback,” ETC.: A Review of
General Semantics, Vol. 53, No. 2, Summer 1996, pp. 221-226. The notion of feedback, not explic-
itly formulated by Korzybski, was implied in his formulation of the “circularity of human knowl-
edge,” via the Structural Differential. Korzybski not only indicated that our highest abstractions are
about our ‘lowest’ (our object-level abstractions re the process-event level), but that our present
abstracting greatly determines our subsequent abstracting. He very much approved Norbert Wiener’s
term “feedback” as a term that well describes the mechanism of an abstracting nervous system in-
fluencing itself as nervous system. This relates also to the Korzybskian formulation of self-reflex-
iveness. In Institute seminars I have interpreted the ‘returning’ arrow on the Structural Differential
as indicating “neurolinguistic feedback,” the kind of formulational development (consistent with
his system) that Korzybski encouraged.
66. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (5): The Brotherhood of Doctrines,” Time-Bindings, News-
letter of the Institute of General Semantics, June 1996, pp. 4-5. Perhaps Korzybski’s most ‘Keyserian’
paper, drawing centrally on, indeed reporting on, Keyser’s formulation of “Logical Fate.” Since
what we do is a function of our doctrines (assumptions, theories, etc.), Korzybski maintains that
“The ‘Brotherhood of Man,’ of which we all dream, can be accomplished only and exclusively by
the ‘Brotherhood of Doctrines’”
67. “Alfred Korzybski, 1879-1950: A Bio-Methodological Sketch,” Polish American Studies.

Journal of the Polish American Historical Association. Vol. LIII, No. 2, Autumn 1996, pp. 57-105.
Korzybski said, “My personal life was a very standard one, insignificant. [!] My work was signifi-
cant, and you cannot write my biography without stressing the work, theories. It means, instead of
asking endless questions across the world about petty details, concentrate on the theoretical side,
which filled my life. My life was nothing but my work.” I have honored his preference for stressing
the work, but I’ve included quite a few ‘endless’ details. The fullest biography to date, but not the
full-length biography that is on my list of projects to complete before I coagulate.
68. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XV): function,” ETC.: A Review of General Seman-
tics, Vol. 53, No.3, Fall 1996, pp. 326-332. One of the “neglected formulations” in the post-Korzybski
general-semantics literature, I emphasize its central position and generating role in the development
of Korzybski’s system-function.
69. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (6) ‘Time-Binding: The General Theory (1924)’,” Time-
Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XIV, No.3, September 1996, pp. 7-8. The
first of the great Time-Binding papers is here reviewed. Korzybski affirms that this paper is a “sum-
mary of a larger work on Human Engineering [a term he eventually dropped: RPP] soon to be pub-
lished.” That work, not published until 1933, was, of course, Science and Sanity.
70. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (7): ‘Time- Binding: The General Theory (1926)’,” Time-
Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XIV, No.4, December 1996, pp. 5-6. I
begin my review: “This second time-binding paper is similar to but different from its predecessor.
It reiterates some of the theory from Paper I (and Manhood of Humanity) but fleshes those out and
introduces some new(er) notions. I’ll emphasize the differences in this review. This second paper
also shows Korzybski’s remarkable growth in the two years since the 1924 paper.”
71. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XVI): higher order functions,” ETC.: A Review of
General Semantics, Vol. 53, No.4, Winter 1996-97, pp. 464-470. Traces the development of
Korzybski’s general semantics through the increasingly complex structures of “function,” “propo-
sitional function,” “doctrinal function,” and, finally, “system-function.” Contains a diagram show-
ing the relationships within and among those structures.
72. “E-Prime Is No Crime,” in D. David Bourland and Paul Dennithorne Johnston, E-Prime III!
A Third Anthology. Concord, CA: International Society for General Semantics, 1997, pp. 157-175.
Followed by two responses titled “Reply to Pula” by D. David Bourland and David Maas, pp. 180-
190 and 191-194, respectively. To be reprinted in Knowledge, Uncertainty and Courage: Selected
General-Semantics Writings of Robert P. Pula.
73. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XVII): uni-substantialism,” ETC.: A Review of General
Semantics, Vol. 54, No.1, Spring, 1997, pp. 102-107. In an attempt to overcome the elementalism of
‘mind’ , and ‘body’, ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’, I coin the term uni-substantialism, emphasizing that all we know
empirically shows one ‘stuff’ (the plenum/fullness), aspects of which are ‘consciousness’, ‘thought’, etc.
74. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (8): ‘The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking’, a review
of Cassius Jackson Keyser’s Mole Philosophy and Other Essays. Time-Bindings, Institute of Gen-
eral Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XV, No I, March 1997, pp. 3-4. Korzybski’s appreciation of his early
mentor, Cassius Jackson Keyser and his “mole philosophy,” i.e., as I note in my review of Korzybski’s
review, “…the kind of scientific philosophy that both Keyser and Korzybski practiced, namely
philosophical method and procedure that ‘burrows’, that digs into the analytical underground to
engage in what Keyser called “postulate detection.”
75. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (9): ‘Alexander Vasilievitch Vasiliev (July 2, 1853-Octo-
ber 6, 1929), ” Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XV, No.2, June 1997,
pp. 6-7. Korzybski’s obituary of a respected scientist and teacher, published in Science, December
20, 1929, Vol. LXX, No. 1825, pp. 599-600. Korzybski writes, describing himself as well as Vasiliev:
“To be a great scientist is one thing; to be a great scientist and a great teacher is quite another. To be
at once a great scientist, a great teacher and a great man is still different—it is all too rare a combi-
nation.”
76. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XVIII): validity and truth,” ETC.: A Review of Gen-
eral Semantics, Vol. 54, No.2, Summer 1997, pp. 235-246. Distinguishes between “validity’ and
“truth,” a distinction often blurred in philosophical writing and discourse. Since a statement may be
simultaneously (logically) valid and not true, the distinction is a very important one for
general-semantics practitioners to make.
77. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XIX): neuro-logical inevitability,” ETC.: A Review of
General Semantics, Vol. 54, No.3, Fall 1997, pp. 363-368. A recasting of Keyser’s and Korzybski’s
“logical fate,” the tight relationship between premises and conclusions/behaviors.
78. “Stuart A. Mayper: 1916-1997,” General Semantics Bulletin, No.64, 1997, p. 8. Written for
inclusion in Bulletin 64, just as it was going to press.
79. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (10): ‘Comments on “Mental Hygiene and Criminology”
by Dr. Franz Alexander’,” Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XV, No.3,
September 1997, p. 3. In which Korzybski charges Alexander and other scientists with confusing or-
ders of abstracting, identification, objectification of terms, etc.—in a phrase, pathological abstracting.
80. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XX}: types of questions,” ETC.: A Review of General
Semantics, Vol 54, No.4, Winter 1997-98, pp. 490-495. A typology of question-forms (limited to
four) and their implications for answers. The four types are: operational/extensional, speculative,
fun, and pathology-inducing/intensional.
81. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (11): ‘A Non-Aristotelian System and Its Necessity for
Rigour in Mathematics and Physics’,” Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter,
Vol. XV, No.4, December, 1997, pp. 8-9. A major paper delivered before the American Mathemati-
cal Society at the New Orleans, Louisiana, meeting of A.A.A.S., December 28, 1931. Printed as
“Supplement III” in Science and Sanity. Korzybski practices what he preaches in this rigorous, tightly
reasoned ‘preview’ of general semantics, not yet so named. Noting that the multiordinality of terms
was not discovered until 1925 (by Korzybski), he succinctly relates them to the problem of identi-
fication: “Multiordinal terms sound and look alike on all levels; experience has shown how easy it
is to confuse their orders and identify the many values into one.”
82. “Report on the Colloquium ‘Enhancing Our Lives Influencing Our Creativity: Explorations
in Creativity and Relations with General Semantics’.” December 7, 1996, Pace University, New
York City. General Semantics Bulletin, No.64, 1997, pp. 21-23. Evaluations of the contributions of
Mihaly Czikszentmihaly, George Klein (Director, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden), Dr.
Martha Bartter, Dr. Bruce Kodish, Dr. Rachel Lauer, and Robert Pula.
83. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XXI): I.F.D. disease; Korzybski’s Happiness Formula,
ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 55, No.1, Spring 1998, pp. 102-105. A restatement of
the Korzybski/Wendell Johnson formulation, emphasizing the relationship between expectations
and results in generating relative happiness or despair.
84. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (12): ‘Keyser and Korzybski: Letters [2] About Keyser’s
Reviews of Science and Sanity, Apri1-June 1934’ .” Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics
Newsletter, Vol. XVI, No.1, March, 1998, pp. 7-9. Including pertinent excerpts from Keyser’s two
reviews (in The New Humanist and Scripta Mathematica), this item in the Collected Writings pro-
vides a very instructive discussion by two giants of formulating.
85. “General Semantics and Fuzzy Logic/Sets: Similarities and Differences,” in Developing
Sanity in Human Affairs. Edited by Susan Presby Kodish and Robert P. Holston. Prepared under the
auspices of Hofstra University. No. 54 in the series Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and
Communications. Westport, CT/London: Greenwood Press, 1998, pp. 82-95. Based on a study of
fuzzy logic and personal conversation with Lotfi Zadeh, the paper concludes that, like general se-
mantics, fuzzy logic is thoroughgoingly non-aristotelian (though some of its practitioners seem yet
elementalistic) but more narrowly focused than general semantics, and that the two formulational
sets show a symbiotic relationship.
86. “A General-Semantics Glossary (Part XXII), Korzybski’s Structural Differential with varia-
tions, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 55, No. 2, Summer, 1998, pp. 204-216. Presents
the Structural Differential diagram and my variations as a summary of all that has gone before (since
entry 1 in 1991). Reference is also made to the variations of J. Samuel Bois, Wendell Johnson, Harry
Weinberg, and S. I. Hayakawa’s misevaluative “Abstraction Ladder.”
87. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (13): ‘An Outline of General Semantics: The Application
of Some Methods of Exact Sciences to the Solution of Human Problems and Educational Training
for General Sanity’.” Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XVI, Nos. 3
and 4, September/December 1998, pp. 8-9. This brief outline can be paired with Korzybski’s last
paper, “The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes.” They both present in compact form an
overview with details of the system. My review concludes, “Reading Korzybski’s brief (31 pages)
“Outline of General Semantics” can remind us of his purpose and re-invigorate us.”
88. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (14): ‘Neuro-semantic and Neuro-linguistic Mechanisms
of Extensionalization: General Semantics as a Natural Science’.” Time-Bindings, Institute of Gen-
eral Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XVII, No. I, March 1999, pp. 5-7. In which I observe, “In the brief
paper under review, Korzybski does a good job of specifying the neurological mechanisms of ab-
stracting in general and the two modes of semantic reaction, signal (animal) and symbol (human).”
89. “General Semantics and Semiotics: Similarities and Differences”, Lingua Posnaniensis XLIII,
Poznan, Poland, 2001, pp. 141-171. A pioneering paper, the first to deliver what its title promises,
developed from a lecture given at Professor Jerzy Pe1c’s seminar at the University of Warsaw on
December 17, 1999, but also delivered at the University of Opole (February 22, 2000), and Kopernik’s
(Copernicus’s) alma mater (University of Krakow) in June 2000. A thoroughgoing, challenging
examination, with special emphasis on the epistemological foundations of both fields and bio-meth-
odological discussions of leaders therein. A major point is that general semantics can serve as an
organizing paradigm and method for the unification of ‘semiotics’. Concludes with an Abelardian
comparison as in my “General Semantics and Fuzzy Logic/Sets.”Also published in Jerzy Pelc’s Studia
Semiotica in Warsaw.
90. “General Semantics and the Restructuring of Polish Society for the ‘Third’ Millenium,” in
Stanislaw Gajda, ed., Zlota Ksiega: 50 lat polonistiki opolskiej (Golden Book: Fifty Years of Polish
Philology (Polonistics) in Opole. Opole (Poland): University of Opole, 2001, pp. 295-323. A nervy
(for a non-native Pole) recipe for restructuring Polish society-culture in accordance with what I define
as “the Polish Mainstream,” using general semantics as the orientation and methodology for doing
so. Originated as a lecture at the University of Opole, Institute of Psychology, which I gave on Feb-
ruary 22, 2000.
91. “The Impact of Korzybski at the Planetary Level: The View from 2000.” The Alfred Korzybski
Memorial Lecture. General Semantics Bulletin, No. 65-68, 1998-2001, pp. 43-55. A wide-ranging
account of Korzybski’s impact and long-term influence from Manhood of Humanity to the present,
concluding with my work as a ‘Johnny Appleseed’ (or ‘Typhoid Mary’) of general semantics, in-
cluding my visits to Poland where, lecturing and researching the ‘Polish half’ of Korzybski’s life, I
discovered much more awareness of Korzybski than I had been led to expect.
92. “Stuart A. Mayper: 1916-1997,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 65-68, 1998-2001, pp.
57-65. A substantial bio-methodological sketch of my late colleague and friend, in which I detail our
work together and present an annotated bibliography of his published general-semantics writings.
93. “Russell Meyers: 1904-1999,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 65-68, 1998-2001. pp. 79-
81. As with Stuart Mayper (above), I present here a bio-methodological sketch of another colleague-
friend and mentor in the neurosciences. Russ Meyers, a much honored neurosurgeon, neuropsy-
chologist, neurosemanticist (as he called himself) and teacher, served for many years as consultant
to the Institute of General Semantics. He published many papers dealing with the general semantics
of neurology, neuropsychiatry, etc., in the Bulletin and elsewhere, concluding with his Alfred
Korzybski Memorial Lecture of 1985 (“The potentials of Neurosemantics for Modern Neuropsy-
chology,” GSB No. 54, 1989, pp. 13-60), in which he gives a brilliant summary of his yet unpub-
lished book, Orientation for Neurology, Psychology and Psychiatry (namely, general semantics).
94. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (15): ‘General Semantics: Extensionalization in Mathemat-
ics, Mathematical Physics, and Education. Paper I: The Extensional Method’.” Paper delivered before
the Mathematics Section, A.A.A.S., St. Louis, Missouri, January 2, 1935. Time-Bindings, Institute
of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XIX, No. I, Spring 2001, pp. 2-3. Tracing indexing back to
the ancient Egyptians, Korzybski fleshes out the notion of extensionalization and the devices he
invented to promote it, concluding with this observation cum caveat: “To avoid subtle confusion,
let me add that ‘pure’ extension is humanly impossible, while ‘pure’ intension is possible and is found
in hospitals for the ‘mentally’ ill, and some chairs of ‘philosophy’, in the universities of the world.”
95. “Korzybski as Scientist,” Time-Bindings. Newsletter of the Institute of General Semantics,
Vol. XX, No.1, Winter, 2001, pp. 5-7. A corrective response to some comments about the present
condition of general semantics (Time-Bindings, December, 2000), in which I present my rubric of
‘science’ first published in my general semantics and semiotics paper listed above, and demonstrate
that Korzybski was as much a scientist as Einstein, and made far more far-reaching formulations
than the great relativist.
96. “Korzybski’s Collected Writings (16): ‘The Science of Man’.” Time-Bindings, Newsletter
of the Institute of General Semantics, Vol. XX, No. 2, Spring-Summer 2002, pp. 6-8. My review of
Korzybski’s approving review of Alexis Carrel’s Man the Unknown, in which Korzybski points out
many points of congruence between his positions and Carrel’s.
ics, Mathematical Physics and General Education. Paper II: Thalamic Symbolism and Mathemat-
ics’.” Presented in abstract to the mathematical Section, A.A.A.S., Richmond, Virginia, December
29, 1938. Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newsletter, Vol. XXI, No.1, Winter, 2003,
pp 5-7. Demonstrating his remarkable prescience (pre-science, pre-knowledge), Korzybski details
the mechanisms of thalamo-cortical integration. The review concludes with a substantial set of
quotations from current (2000) neuroscience which validate Korzybski’s 1930’s formulation.
ics, Mathemathical Physics, and General Semantics. Paper III: Over/Under Defined Terms’.” (Ab-
stract only) “‘Excerpt from a Letter’ to Alston S. Householder,” University of Chicago, May 28,
1940. An elaboration of Paper III Abstract. Time-Bindings, Institute of General Semantics Newslet-
ter, Vol. XXI, No. 2, Spring, 2003, pp. 6-7.
99. “Alfred Korzybski, 1879-1950: A Bio-Methodological Sketch,” General Semantics Bulle-
tin, Nos. 69-70, 2002-2003, pp. 47-90. Revised (corrected) version of the Polish Historical Asso-
ciation paper, reprinted from Polish American Studies. See above for annotation.
100. “Partners: Charlotte Schuchardt Read (1909-2002) Allen Walker Read (1906-2002)”, Gen-
eral Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 69-70, 2002-2003, pp. 93-101. My memoir and evaluation of Char-
lotte and Allen based on my thirty-seven years (1965 to 2002) of collaboration and friendship.
101.“Biographical Accounts of Charlotte and Allen Read,” General Semantics Bulletin, Nos.
69-70, 2002-2003, pp. 127-132. Includes M. Kendig’s brief bio of Charlotte from Bulletin 32-33,
my “Introduction to Charlotte Schuchardt Read,” Bulletin 44-45, “Biographical Account of Allen
Walker Read” that accompanied Allen’s paper “Formative, Influences on Korzybski’s General Se-
mantics”, Bulletin 47, my “Introduction to Allen Walker Read” on the occasion of his Alfred
Korzybski Memorial Lecture, “Changing Attitudes Toward Korzybski’s General Semantics,” Gen-
eral Semantics Bulletin 51, and bibliographies of Charlotte’s and Allen’s general-semantics writ-
ings.
102. “D. David Bourland, Jr. (1928-2000)”, General Semantics Bulletin, Nos. 69-70, 2002-2003,
pp. 139-140. The remains of a drastically cut evaluation of the life and work of Dave Bourland, cut
by Bulletin editor Jim French because he deemed it “too polemical for an obituary.”
To Be Published
The following items will be included in Knowledge, Uncertainty and Courage: Selected Gen-
eral-Semantics Writings of Robert P. Pula. About 1/3 of what is listed in this bibliography will ap-
pear there.
103. “Contra-Korzybski: An Evaluation of Margaret Gorman’s General Semantics and Contem-
porary Thomism,” a 118 page typescript. An evaluation of Gorman’s excellent study and critique of
general semantics as of 1958. Completed in 1969, it was to be published by the Institute in the
“General Semantics Monographs” series, but administrative and budgetary difficulties prevented
that. A reduced version is scheduled for publication in my Selected Writings.
104. “The General Semantics of the Holocaust.” An expansion of a lecture I have given at sev-
eral Maryland colleges/universities and at several Institute seminars. While full (not ‘total’ ) his-
torical documentation is given, the emphasis is on how various people talk about the Holocaust.
Some of this material was used in item 51, above. The lecture will appear as a chapter in my Se-
lected Writings.
105. Preface to the 5th Edition of Science and Sanity, First Iteration. My first version of the 5th
Edition Preface was twice as long as the one that appears in the published book; i.e., it was too long.
(Charlotte Read said to me during an editorial session: “After all, Bob, it is Alfred’s book.” The
typescript is forty-one double-spaced pages.) The cut parts contain some original speculations and
formulations that I deem worth printing. Those, as further edited, will be published under separate cover.
Cassettes
106. General Semantics Seminar. Album IV-D. Six one-hour audio tapes derived from a six-
teen-hour recorded seminar given in San Diego in 1979. Las Vegas, NV: Educational Cassettes, 1980.
1 listened to it recently (to learn from myself) and it seemed not too bad. The blurb in the Institute
of General Semantics’ Booklist called it “One of the most korzybskian of post-Korzybski exposi-
tions of general semantics.”
SCIENCE AND SANITY: PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION, 1993
BY ROBERT P. PULA
[Below is a partially revised version of the “Preface” that Bob Pula was in the midst of preparing for his
still-unpublished Selected Writings. Other than some typographical amd formatting changes and some bib-
liographical updating, the content remains as it appears in the Fifth Edition of Science and Sanity.]
Six decades have passed since this book appeared in 1933. In the interim many thousands, in
varying degrees of depth and breadth, have interacted with the formulations first presented herein.
As of these hours of writing, people in every continent (save, perhaps, Antarctica) are studying and
applying general semantics.
Those who have been attracted to and worked with Korzybski’s formulations have largely come
from the evaluationally energetic and self-selecting segment of our populations. They have tended
to be leaders or those training to be leaders in a broad range of interests and disciplines. Through
their efforts as teachers, managers, researchers, etc., Korzybski’s formulations have explicitly and
implicitly reached many thousands more.
Some aspects of general semantics have so permeated the (American) culture that behaviors
derived from it are common; e.g., wagging fingers in the air to put ‘quotes’ around spoken terms
which are deemed suspect. Original korzybskian terms are seen used without attribution, as if part
of the general vocabulary, e.g., a paragraph-long explanation of “time-binding” appearing in a high
school social studies text.
Some of Korzybski’s coinages, particularly “neuro-linguistic,” are now common coin and have
extended the subset of English with the “neuro” prefix. (The Random House Dictionary of the English
Language, 2nd Edition, p. 1291, mistakenly gives “1960-1965” as the dates for the origin for “neuro-
linguistic” and the offspring terms, “neuro-linguistics” and “neuro-linguist.”)
During the depth of the recent ‘Cold War’ an interview about Korzybski’s work was broadcast
by Harry Maynard and Wl-adyslaw Marth to Poland over Radio Free Europe. A new study by a
Polish scholar, Karol Janicki, credits Korzybski with being a precursor of what Janicki calls “non-
essentialist sociolinguistics.” 1
Science and Sanity has by now spawned a whole library of works by other time-binders. Some
of them have been listed in previous editions. Since the publication of the Fourth Edition, this
‘parenting’ has continued. Books, doctoral dissertations, masters theses, scholarly papers, essays,
and journal articles abound. The primary journals for on-going discussion and development of gen-
eral semantics are the General Semantics Bulletin, published by the Institute of General Semantics,
and ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, published by the International Society for General Se-
mantics. Other journals, popular and scholarly, publish general-semantics materials, pro and con.
For a sampling of books dealing with general semantics published since 1970, see the Biblio-
graphic Note.2 My choices do not reflect my evaluations of the books listed. They are included to
indicate the continued growth, discussion of, and influence of general semantics. Books critical of
Korzybski are included. They are tagged thus: (critique).
I consider Korzybski’s Collected Writings 1920-1950, published in 1990, perhaps the most important
publication in general semantics since Science and Sanity. This brings together all of Korzybski’s known
published writings other than his major books and a set of seminar lectures given at Olivet College in
1937.3 The 940 page book is a ‘must’ for anyone undertaking a serious study of general semantics.
SCIENCE AND SANITY: PREFACE TO THE 5TH ED. 111
The Institute of General Semantics remains the primary center for training in general seman-
tics. Seminar-workshops, weekend seminars and colloquia continue. An Advanced Studies and
Teacher Certification Program for training leaders and teachers in general semantics has been es-
tablished.
The distinguished annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture series, begun in 1952, continues
to present highly regarded speakers whose work directly reflects or complements korzybskian ori-
entations. These lecturers have been outstanding in the fields of anthropology, philosophy, phys-
ics, chemistry, biology, physiology, embryology, medicine, neurology, surgery, education, sociol-
ogy, linguistics, psychology, management, library science, law, the arts, etc.4 Their participation
bespeaks the growing regard for Korzybski’s contributions and the importance of general seman-
tics as a major twentieth century system.
The Index to this Fifth Edition has been enhanced to facilitate general study and formulation
searches. Grateful thanks are owed to Bruce I. Kodish and Milton Dawes for their work in updat-
ing the Index, and to Bruce I. Kodish and Stuart A. Mayper for creating the Index of Diagrams.
Grateful thanks also are owed to Marjorie Zelner, Executive Director of the Institute of General
Semantics, for her work as production editor of this Fifth Edition.5
This briefly reviews the activities in the field of general semantics and shows that, as with any
system that represents a challenge to its own culture, there remains much work to be done, but also
that this work proceeds vigorously.
In the sixty years since Korzybski offered the first (not the last) non-aristotelian system in Sci-
ence and Sanity, public reaction has been both enthusiastic and negatively critical. What about
Korzybski’s work continues to generate such interest and activity? If it were so, as some critics have
asserted, that ‘all’ Korzybski did was to organize scattered insights, formulations and data into a
system, that alone would have constituted a major achievement worthy of the gratitude of succeed-
ing generations of time-binders for centuries to come. Korzybski did that. He enunciated a system,
incorporating aspects of, but going beyond, its predecessors, and proposed a methodology for mak-
ing his system a living tool: general semantics (the name he selected), the first non- aristotelian
system applied and made teachable.6
In addition, I can list here the following selected formulations and points of view, emphases,
etc., which I consider to be original with Korzybski.
1. Time-binding; time-binding ethics. Rejecting both theological and zoological definitions,
Korzybski adopted a natural science, operational approach and defined humans by what they can
be observed doing which differentiates them from other classes of life; he defined them as the time-
binding class of life, able to pass on knowledge from one generation to another over ‘time’.7
Derived from this definition, which evaluates humans as a naturally cooperative class of life
(the mechanisms of time-binding are descriptively social, cooperative), Korzybski postulated time-
binding ‘ethics’—modes of behavior, choices appropriate to time-binding organisms.
2. Korzybski recognized that language (symbolizing in general) constitutes the basic tool of time-
binding. Others before him had noted that language, in the complex human sense, was one of the
distinguishing features of humans. What Korzybski fully recognized was the central, defining role
of language. No language, no time-binding. If so, then structures of languages must be determina-
tive for time-binding.
3. The neurologically focused formulation of the process of abstracting. No one before Korzybski
had so thoroughly and unflinchingly specified the process by which humans build and evolve theo-
ries, do their mundane evaluating, thrill to ‘sunsets’, etc. Korzybski’s formulating of abstracting,
particularly in the human realm, can constructively serve as a guide to on-going neuroscientific
research.
4. As a function of the above, but deserving special mention with the rigorously formulated no-
tion of orders of abstracting, is the concurrent admonition that we should not confuse (identify)
them. Given the hierarchical, sequential character of the nervous system (allowing, too, for hori-
zontally related structures and parallel processing), it is inevitable that results along the way should
manifest as (or ‘at’) differing orders or levels of abstracting. These results are inevitable. That they
would be formulated at a given historical moment by some individual nervous system/brain is not.
Korzybski did it in the 1920s, publishing his descriptions in their mature form in 1933.
5. Consciousness of abstracting. If human organisms-as-a-whole-cum- nervous systems/brains
abstract as claimed above and described in Science and Sanity (pp. 369-451 and passim) surely
consciousness of these events must be crucial for optimum human functioning. Animals (non-time-
binders) abstract; but, so far as we know, they do not know that they abstract. Indeed, many humans
don’t either—but they have the potential to do so. Korzybski recognized this, realized that con-
sciousness of abstracting is essential for “fully functioning” humans, and made it a primary goal of
general-semantics training.
6. The structure of language. Among Korzybski’s most original formulations was the
multiordinal character of many of the terms we most often use. He insisted that, with multiordinal
terms, the ‘meaning’ is strictly a function of the order or level of abstraction at which the term is
used and that its ‘meaning’ is so context-driven that it doesn’t ‘mean’ anything definite until the
context is specified or understood.
7. Structure as the only ‘content of knowledge’. This represents the height/depth of non-
elementalism; that what used to be designated as ‘form’ (structure) and ‘content’ are functions of
‘each other’. Further, and more deeply, all we ever can know expresses a set or sets of relation-
ships and, most fundamentally, a relationship (‘singular’) between the ‘known’ and the knowing
organism: the famous joint product of the observer-observed structure. “Structure is the only ‘con-
tent’ of knowledge” may qualify as Korzybski’s deepest expression of anti-essentialism. We can
not know ‘essences’, things in themselves; all we can know is what we know as abstracting ner-
vous systems. Although we can on-goingly know more, we can not ‘transcend’ ourselves as organ-
isms that abstract.
8. Semantic reactions; semantic reactions as evaluations. Growing out of his awareness of the
transactive character of human evaluating, and wishing to correct for the elementalistic splitting
involved in such terms as ‘meaning’, ‘mental’, ‘concept’, ‘idea’, and a legion of others, Korzybski
consciously, deliberately formulated the term semantic reaction. It is central to his system.
9. The mathematical notion of function as applied to the brain-language continuum. Boldly
grasping the neuro-physiology of his day, Korzybski formulated what research increasingly finds:
language is a function of (derives from, is invented by) brain; reciprocally, as a function of feed-
back mechanisms, brain is a function of (is modified by the electro-chemical structuring called)
language.
10. Neuro-semantic environments as environments. The neuro-semantic environment constitutes
a fundamental environmental issue unique to humans.
11. Non-aristotelian system as system. Korzybski had non-aristotelian predecessors, as he well
knew. What distinguishes his non-aristotelian stance is the degree of formulational consciousness
he brought to it, and the energetic courage with which he built it into a system—offered to his fel-
low humans as a better way to orient themselves.
12. The Structural Differential as a model of the abstracting process and a summary of general
semantics. Korzybski realized the importance of visualization for human understanding. He knew,
then, that to make some of the higher order, overarching relationships of his system accessible, vis-
ible, he must make a diagram, a model, a map, that people could see and touch. Thus the Structural
Differential, a device for differentiating the structures of abstracting. As far as I know, this is the
first structurally appropriate model of the abstracting process.
13. Languages, formulational systems, etc., as maps and only maps of what they purport to rep-
resent. This awareness led to the three premises (popularly expressed) of general semantics:
the map is not the territory
no map represents all of ‘its’ presumed territory
maps are self-reflexive, i.e., we can map our maps indefinitely. Also, every map is at least,
whatever else it may claim to map, a map of the map-maker: her/his assumptions, skills, world-
view, etc. (Individual brains are unique, self-mapping systems.)
By ‘maps’ we should understand everything and anything that humans formulate—including
this book and my present contributions, but also including (to take a few in alphabetical order),
biology, Buddhism(s), Catholicism, chemistry, Evangelism, Freudianism, Hinduism, Islam, Juda-
ism, Lutheranism, physics, Taoism, etc., etc., ...!
14. Allness/non-allness as clear, to be dealt with, formulations. If no map can represent all of
‘its’ presumed territory, we need to eschew habitual use of the term ‘all’ and its ancient philosophi-
cal correlates, absolutes of various kinds.8
15. Non-identity and its derivatives, correlates, etc. At every turn in Korzybski’s formulating
we encounter his forthright challenge to the heart of aristotelianism—and its non-Western, equally
essentialist counterparts. “Whatever you say a thing is, it is not.” This rejection of the ‘law of iden-
tity’ (‘everything is identical with itself’) may be Korzybski’s most controversial formulation. After
all, Korzybski’s treatment directly challenges the ‘Laws of Thought’, revered for over two thou-
sand years in the West and, differently expressed, in non-Western cultures. Korzybski’s challenge
is thus planetary. We ‘Westerners’ can’t (as some have tried) escape to the ‘East’. Identifications,
confusions of orders of abstracting, are common to all human nervous systems we know of.
16. Extension of Cassius Keyser’s “Logical Fate”: from premises, conclusions follow, inexora-
bly. Korzybski recognized that conclusions constitute behaviors, consequences, doings, and that these
are not merely logical derivatives but psycho-logical inevitabilities. If we want to change behav-
iors, we must first change the premises which give birth to the behaviors. Korzybski’s strong ver-
sion of Keyser’s restrictedly ‘logical’ formulation was first adumbrated in Korzybski’s paper “Fate
and Freedom” of 1923, and received its full expression in the “Foreword” (with M. Kendig) to A
Theory of Meaning Analyzed in 1942, both available in the Collected Writings. Both expressions
well antedate Thomas Kuhn’s “paradigm shifts” and, more pointedly than Kuhn, formulate the be-
havioral implications of logical and philosophical systems.
17. The circularity of knowledge (spiral-character-in-’time’). Korzybski noted that our most ‘ab-
stract’ formulations are actually about non-verbal processes/events, and that how we formulate about
these at a given date, how we talk to ourselves, through neural feedback mechanisms, relatively
determines how we will subsequently abstract-formulate: healthfully if our abstracting is open, non-
finalistic (non-absolute); pathologically if not.
18. Electro-colloidal (macro-molecular-biological) and related processes. Korzybski emphasized

awareness of these as fundamental for understanding neuro-linguistic systems/organisms.
19. Non-elementalism applied to human organisms-as-a-whole-in-an-environment. Some of
Korzybski’s predecessors in the study of language and human error may have pointed to what he
labeled “elementalism” (verbally splitting what cannot be split empirically) as a linguistically-
embedded human habit, but none I know of had so thoroughly built against it and recommended
replacing it with habitual non-elementalism. Korzybski’s practical insistence that adopting non-
elementalistic procedures and terms would benefit the humans (including scientists) who adopt them
is original and, for him, urgent.
20. Extensions of logics (plural) as subsets of non-aristotelian evaluating, including the limited
usefulness (but usefulness) of aristotelian logic.9
21. Epistemology as centered in neuro-linguistic, neuro-semantic issues. Korzybski built squarely
on the neuroscience of his day and affirmed the fundamental importance of epistemology (the study
of how we know what we say we know) as the sine qua non for any sound system upon which to
organize our interactions with our children, students, friends, lovers, bosses, trees, animals, gov-
ernment—the ‘universe’. Becoming conscious of abstracting constitutes applied epistemology:
general semantics.
22. The recognition of and formulation of extensional and intensional orientations as orienta-
tions. Here we see Korzybski at his most diagnostic and prognostic. Realizing that a person’s epis-
temological-evaluational style, a person’s habitual way with evaluating determines how life will
go, he recommends adoption of an extensional orientation, with its emphasis on ‘facts’. If a person
is over-committed to verbal constructs, definitions, formulae, ‘conventional wisdom’, etc., that person
may be so trapped in those a priori decisions as to be unable to appropriately respond to new data
from the non-verbal, not-yet-anticipated world. By definition, the extensionally oriented person,
while remaining as articulate as any of her/his neighbors, is habitually open to new data, is habitu-
ally able to say, “I don’t know; let’s see.” As an aid toward this more healthy orientation, Korzybski
formulated the “extensional devices” explained in his Introduction to the Second Edition of Sci-
ence and Sanity.
23. Neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic factors applied to psychotherapeutic procedures and
to the prevention of psycho-logical problems.
24. Mathematics. Korzybski’s use of mathematical formulations and point of view qualifies as
one of his most daring contributions. He recommended the adoption of mathematics-like evaluat-
ing, because he regarded mathematics as the most (not ‘totally’) thoroughgoing, consciously struc-
tural-relational language yet invented.
25. Science and mathematics as human behaviors. Perhaps showing some korzybskian influ-
ence (much of it has come to be ‘in the air’), writers on science and mathematics are increasingly
addressing the human being who does science and/or mathematics. But Korzybski seems the first,
to the degree that he did, to point to understanding these human behaviors as a necessary prerequi-
site or accompaniment to fully understanding science and mathematics as such. As Gaston Bachelard
observed, “The psychological and even physiological conditions of a non-Aristotelian logic have
been resolutely faced in the great work of Count Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity.” 10
26. Limitations of subject-predicate language (modes of representation) when employed with-
out consciousness of abstracting. Korzybski addresses this issue fully in his book.
27. Insistence on relative ‘invariance under transformation’. Korzybski was concerned that in-
variance of relations not be confused with ‘invariance’ of processes.
28. General uncertainty (all statements merely probable in various degrees) as an inevitable
derivative of korzybskian abstracting, non-identity, etc. Korzybski, drawing partly on his Polish
milieu, anticipated and exceeded Heisenberg’s mid-nineteen-twenties formulation of (restricted)
uncertainty.
29. The mechanism/machine-ism distinction. This may seem too simple to list as an ‘original’
or even major point. Yet it is vital, indicating as it does Korzybski’s strong commitment to finding
out how something works as opposed to vague, ‘spiritual’ explanations.
Korzybski and some of his Institute successors who have worked to present korzybskian gen-
eral semantics have sometimes met this resistance: “I’m not a machine!” People trained in the myriad
‘intellectual’, ‘mystical’ in varying degrees, systems/traditions that they bring to seminars often react
as if they fear to lose their ‘humanity’ by being asked to consider the mechanisms which underpin
or constitute their functioning. Korzybski took pains to explain that mechanism should not be con-
fused with ‘machine-ism’. His concern for investigations at this level was bracing and central to his
approach.
30. ‘Infinite’-valued evaluating and semantic methods of science (not ‘content’ of science or
non-professional behavior of scientists at a given date) as methods for sanity. Thus the title of his
book. General-semanticists are obliged to evaluate, to analyze, criticize, and sometimes reject some
products of ‘science’ at a given date. The approach is scientific, not scientistic.
31. Predictability as the primary measure of the value of an epistemological formulation.
Korzybski was by no means an ‘anti-aesthete’. He was deeply sensitive to (and knowledgeable about)
music, married a portrait painter, read literature (Conrad was a favorite) including poetry, and even
liked to relax with a good detective story. But he insisted that, for life issues, beauty or cleverness
or mere consistency (logical coherence, etc.) were not enough.
Korzybski offered his non-aristotelian system with general semantics as its modus operandi as
an on-going human acquisition, negentropic, ordering and self-correcting through and through, since
it provides, self-reflexively, for its own reformulation, and assigns its users responsibility to do so
should the need arise.
The above considerations have led me to the conclusion that Korzybski was not only a bold
innovator, but also a brilliant synthesizer of available data into a coherent system. This system, when
internalized and applied, can create a saner and more peaceful world, justifying the title of this book,
Science and Sanity.
Notes- Science and Sanity: Preface to the Fifth Edition

1. Janicki
2. Bibliographic Note — General-Semantics books since 1970 include: Bois 1970, Thayer 1970
(critique), Bois 1972, Youngren 1972 (critique), Washburn and Smith 1974, Kenneth G. Johnson 1974
and 1978, Drake 1983, Paulson 1984 (critique), Morain 1984 and 1986, Nierenberg 1987, Berman
1989, Janicki 1990, Korzybski 1990, Kenneth G. Johnson 1991, Bourland and Johnston 1991, Ken-
neth G. Johnson 1992, Forsberg 1993, Hoffmann 1993, Bourland, Johnston and Klein 1994, MacNeal
1994, Bois 1996, Bourland and Johnston 1997, Kodish and Holsten 1998, Roberts 1999, Pula 2000,
Kodish and Kodish 2001(1993), Kodish 2001, Levinson 2002, Caro and Read 2003 and Kodish 2003.
3. Collected Writings did not include “A Word to the Wise” by Korzybski and Fred Rodell, pub-
lished in Liberty Magazine on November 4, 1944 and reprinted in General Semantics Bulletin 64 in
1997. See Moore.
4. The following have delivered lectures in the series (listed chronologically): William Vogt, M. F.
Ashley Montagu, F. J. Roethlisberger, F. S. C. Northrop, Buckminster Fuller, Clyde Kluckhohn,
Abraham Maslow, Russell Meyers (twice), Warren S. McCulloch, Robert R. Blake, Harold G.
Cassidy, Henri Laborit, Joost A. M. Merloo, Henry Lee Smith, Jr., Alvin M. Weinberg, Jacob
Bronowski, Alistair M. Taylor, Lancelot Law White, Gregory Bateson, Henry Margenau, George
Steiner, Harley C. Shands, Roger W. Wescott, Ben Bova, Elwood Murray, Don Fabun, Barbara
Morgan, Thomas Sebeok, Robert R. Blake and Jane Srygley Mouton, Allen Walker Read, Karl H.
Pribram, George F. F. Lombard, Richard W. Paul, Jerome Bruner, William V. Haney, Warren M.
Robbins, Albert Ellis, Steve Allen, William Lutz, and, since the first printing of this Preface, Lotfi
Zadeh, Nicholas Johnson, Mihaly Czikszentmihaly, Robert Anton Wilson, Theodore Sizer, Ellen
Langer, myself (Robert P. Pula), Lou Marinoff, J. Allan Hobson, and, in 2003, Sanford I. Berman.
5. The late Marjorie Zelner, ably worked as Administrator and Executive Secretary, then Executive
Director, of the Institute of General Semantics from 1985 until her untimely death in the year 2000.
6. For Korzybski as a system-builder, see Mayper 1980. For discussion of the continuing appropri-
ateness of ‘Korzybski’s science’, see Mayper 1984; Wright 1985; Meyers 1989 and Mordkowitz
1990. For detailed updating in the neurosciences which show Korzybski’s 1933 formulations as con-
sistent with current formulations, see the works of Edelman, Churchland and Rose reviewed in my
“Neuroscience Update1995 .”
7. Korzybski 1921 (1950)
8. Dr. Allen Walker Read, Emeritus Professor of English at Columbia University has proposed EMA,
English Minus Absolutisms, with such replacements as “generalization” for ‘universal’, “general-
ized experience” for ‘intuition’, etc.
9. See Mayper 1980 and Mayper 1962.
10. Bachelard
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SOME COMMENTS ON
THE TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GENERAL SEMANTICS
BY STEVE STOCKDALE
The Spring 2004 issue of ETC: A Review of General Semantics contained a section dedicated to
the proceedings from the Oct 31-Nov 2 conference in Las Vegas, “Confronting the Challenges of
Conflicting World Views.” This special issue and the commemorative CD that contains all of the
papers in full are available for purchase from the Institute.
I offer a few comments from my perspective as an organizer, reviewer, administrator, and par-
ticipant of this conference.
I was amazed at how differently I ‘saw-and-heard’ the papers as they were presented by their
authors, as opposed to how I ‘read’ them as a member of the conference committee. In almost every
case, the impact of the paper as presented in person greatly exceeded the effectiveness of the writ-
ten paper. I suspect I will read, and listen differently, to future papers and presentations because of
this experience.
Several years ago, Charlotte Read noted that conferences like this ought to convey a “feeling of
community.” In my experience of meeting and corresponding with students of GS, this notion of
“community” is often overlooked, if not disregarded altogether. We can’t live in a vacuum, so it
seems obvious to me that we cannot “time-bind” in a vacuum. Reading books, journals, newslet-
ters, and websites only goes so far. Meeting, conversing, and socializing with others who are inter-
ested in learning and applying general semantics cannot be replicated in writing.
Bob Eddy from Pennsylvania put it this way: “I have [been a ‘lurker’]... reading all kinds of
books & materials but having no fellow enthusiasts with whom I could discuss them. For me, the
Las Vegas Conference was like finding a desert oasis after a long, parched intellectual trek.” Edryce
Reynolds from Washington State wrote afterwards, “This gathering ... satisfied my years-old urge
to meet people whose work I had long admired! Since the Institute ... will soon move ... half a con-
tinent closer to me, I hope to attend more GS offerings in the future. To those who did not attend
this 12th international gathering, you missed a special time.”
Some of the attendees expressed disappointment in what was, for them, missing from the con-
ference ... some expected more contentious debate, some wanted more workshop-like demonstra-
tions and experiential activities, some stated concerns for the discipline because we didn’t have any
(or enough) physicists, biologists, neuroscientists, and some had hoped to spend more time discussing
how to get GS introduced in elementary schools.
From my viewpoint, I think it says something about the robust ‘generality’ of our discipline that
such broadly disparate opinions could emerge from a conference ostensibly focused on one sub-
ject—”general semantics.”
SOME COMMENTS ON THE TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GS 121
Presentations to the
Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics
“Confronting the Challenges of Conflicting World Views”
Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2003
Las Vegas, Nevada
October 31
Welcome Steve Stockdale,

Jeff Mordkowitz
Comments on the 1st General Semantics Conference (1935) Lloyd Morain
The Conundrum of Knowing What I Didn’t Know Karen Van Hoof
On Time-Binding as an Instrument of Peace Nan Bialek
From the Unconscious to the Conscious Kelly Duggan
Discussion: Education as Non-Aristotelian Activity Andrea Johnson
On Belief Systems Bob Eddy
Conspiracy Theory and Sound Argumentation Jon Bouknight
Beliefs Affecting Handwriting Communications Kate Gladstone
Dreams, Nightmares and Non-Violence Allen Flagg
Workshop: Toward a Civil Society Katherine Liepe-Levinson
A GS Approach to Reducing Student Alienation Martin Levinson
Discussion: Challenging Culturally-Expected Ways of Thinking Milton Dawes
November 1
Seeking Unmediated Truths Gregg Hoffmann

Religion as a Belief System Dr. Abdul Salaam
Ramifications of Julian Jaynes’s Theory of Consciousness Phil Ardery
for Traditional General Semantics
Panel: A General-Semantics View of the Changing Rae AnnBurton, Beth
Perceptions of Christ Maryott and Megan O’Byrne
Media Ethics: Between Iraq and a Hard Place Jay Black

France - USA Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer
The Argentine Case Laura Bertone
Workshop: Rhythms Milton Dawes
November 2
The Language of Change: General Semantics and Chip Stewart
Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point
Replacing Our Patterns of Universal Discord Andy Hilgartner
Discussion: Intrapersonal Evolution Maurine Eckloff
Changing Reputations:De-marginalizing General Semantics Bruce Kodish
Discussion: The Future of General Semantics All
NEWS FROM THE INSTITUTE
(SEPTEMBER 2003 – AUGUST 2004)
In terms of the history of the Institute, these past twelve months have not been uneventful or
without significance. Some of the highlights:
September 2003
• IGS Board approved plans to: 1) merge with the International Society for General Seman-
tics; 2) consolidate the operations of both organizations in Fort Worth, Texas; 3) search for
appropriate property to purchase in Fort Worth as a new ‘permanent’ home.
October 2003
• The Board of Directors of the International Society for General Semantics formally ap-
proved the merger with the Institute at its annual meeting on October 11.
• IGS sponsored the Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics, “Confronting the
Challenges of Conflicting World Views,” held at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas,
Nevada, October 31- November 2. Mr. Laurie Cox, responsible for inspiring dozens of students
of general semantics in Australia, received the J. Talbot Winchell Award. Dr. Sanford I. Berman
presented the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, “On the Teaching of General Semantics.”
• The Institute also conducted a 5-day seminar-workshop preceding the conference.
• The commemorative CDROM from the conference that contains all the presentations is
available for purchase from the Institute.
November 2003
• Gregg Hoffmann, Andrea Johnson, Katherine Liepe-Levinson and Steve Stockdale repre-
sented the Institute at the annual convention for the National Council of Teachers of En-
glish (NCTE) held in San Francisco November 21-23. They presented a 75-minute panel
session titled, “General Semantics and Critical Literacy: Interdisciplinary Approaches That
Enable Students to Become Better Problem-Solvers and Critical Thinkers.”
• IGS also sponsored a booth in the NCTE exhibit hall, ably staffed by Gregg, Andrea, Kathy
and Steve. Approximately 250-300 visitors stopped by the booth or picked up materials in-
cluding the new IGS brochures, bookmarks, presentation handouts, complimentary copies
of ETC and the CD from the Las Vegas conference.
• IGS closed on the purchase of property in Fort Worth to serve as its new home. The 4,500 square foot
building was built in 1932 as a neighborhood Safeway store in Fort Worth’s nationally-designated
Fairmount Historic Neighborhood. The building will require extensive renovation and remodeling.
December 2003
• At its annual meeting, the IGS Board of Trustees welcomed two new Trustees, former ISGS
Directors Gregg Hoffmann and Gregory Sawin.
• An architect was retained to draw up plans for the Fort Worth building renovations.
NEWS FROM THE INSTITUTE 123
January 2004
• The International Society for General Semantics and the Institute of General Semantics officially merged
effective January 1, 2004. Steve Stockdale assumed the duties of Executive Director on a full-time basis
for the ‘new’ organization to be known as the Institute of General Semantics.
• The transition of administrative functions from both Concord, California (ISGS) and Brook-
lyn, New York (IGS) to Fort Worth was begun.
• IGS hired Jennifer Carmack as a full-time Assistant Executive Director. Her immediate
challenge was to combine the membership databases and financial accounting records of
the two organizations into a new, consolidated structure.
February 2004
• More than 400 renewal letters were sent out to “lapsed” members of the combined organi-
zation. Office practices and procedures were implemented in preparation for the complete
handover of administrative responsibilities effective February 29.
March 2004
• The IGS Board of Trustees elected Andrea Johnson, Professor of Professional Communi-
cations at Alverno College in Milwaukee, as President and Lynn Schuldt, Project Manager
with JohnsonDiversey in Racine, Wisconsin, as Treasurer.
• IGS conducted a weekend seminar in Fort Worth, “An Introduction to Time-Binding.”
• The Institute sponsored an exhibit booth at local trade show in Fort Worth, the Entrepreneur’s Expo.
• The Institute sponsored an exhibit booth at the 3-day Conference for College Composition
and Communication (CCCC) convention in San Antonio, Texas.
April 2004
• Published by the International Society since 1943, the first issue of ETC: A Review of
General Semantics (Volume 61, No. 1) to be published by the Institute was mailed to mem-
bers. This special issue contained a section devoted to the papers presented at the Las Vegas
International Conference. (Copies are available for purchase from the Institute.)
• IGS actively participated in the local non-profit community by: hosting a booth at the “Get on Board!” fair
sponsored by the Non-Profit Service Center of Tarrant County; and serving as part of a focus group con-
vened by the Center for Non-Profit Management in Dallas to discuss how to engage Boards of non-profits.
• We successfully appeared before the Fort Worth Historic and Landmarks Commission and
the Zoning Committee to obtain approvals for building renovations.
May 2004
• Based on the positive reception to our booth at the CCCC convention in March, we sub-
mitted a program proposal for the 2005 CCCC convention under the title, “Responsible
Thinking-and-Writing: A Zero-Tolerance Approach to Well-Written Nonsense.”
• We received Fort Worth City Council approval for our requested zoning change, and re-
ceived bids from contractors for the renovation work.
June 2003
• The Institute co-sponsored our summer seminar-workshop with Alverno College. Andrea
Johnson, Milton Dawes and Steve Stockdale led the week-long seminar for which Alverno
students received 3 credit-hours.
• IGS Board adopted a comprehensive Investment Policy that clearly defines roles, responsibilities,
and authorized the consolidation of our funds to be managed by a professional investment manager.
• Mr. Robert Carneiro, Ph.D., professor of Anthropology at Columbia University and for the Ameri-
can Museum of National History, accepted our invitation to speak at the 2005 Alfred Korzybski
Memorial Lecture. (Details are being finalized for the event to be held in the spring of 2005.)
July 2003
• Member John Napier completed his self-initiated project of converting the entire 37-hour cas-
sette series of Korzybski’s 1948-49 seminar to digital MP3 format. He also converted two other
cassettes to MP3, Korzybski’s “Historical Note on the Structural Differential” and Allen Walker
Read’s 1983 lecture, “Changing Attitudes Toward Korzybski’s General Semantics.”
• IGS sponsored an exhibit booth at the 3-day annual convention in Fort Worth for Sister
Cities International, an event that drew about 1,000 visitors from around the world.
August 2003
• IGS revised and published the 3rd edition of Kenneth Johnson’s General Semantics: An
Outline Survey, a 50-page comprehensive outline of general semantics that serves as a valu-
able learning resource. (Available for purchase from the Institute.)
• Construction began on the long-awaited renovation work on the building to serve as the
new home for the Institute with an estimated completion by next January.
Inevitably it seems, this past year witnessed the deaths of a number of important time-binders,
including two current Institute Trustees—Bob Pula and Greg Sawin. Robert R. Blake, Trustee from
1958-1983 and the last appointed Honorary Trustee, died in June. TomNelson, long-time Trustee,
teacher, and friend of the Institute since 1950 died in August. Mitsuko Saito-Fukunaga, a supporter
and teacher of general semantics in Japan who studied with Irving J. Lee at Northwestern Univer-
sity, and a former Director of ISGS, died early in 2004.
Projecting ahead, we look forward to again participating at the NCTE convention in Indianapo-
lis in November. Gregg, Andrea, Kathy and Steve will present their program session this year on,
“De-mythifying ‘Meaning’.” Another very special issue of ETC. will be published and distributed
in November. We expect to move into our new home in January; thiswill give us, for the first time,
a consolidated base of operations to conduct our office business, maintain the Alfred Korzybski
Research and Study Center, and our own well-equipped seminar center. We’ll embark on an ag-
gressive Capital Campaign in order to obtain funds for an array of important projects to further our
education and outreach capabilities, fully fund our endowment, and extend the advances we’ve
achieved in the past few years.
Once again, it should be quite a significant year for the Institute, thanks to the support of mem-
bers like you.
IGS Books and Other Media
Member Prices Shown, Non-Members Add 20 %
Books by Alfred Korzybski
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics by Alfred
Korzybski. 5th Edition, (1994). Preface to 5th Edition by Robert P. Pula. Revised index and new index of
illustrations. 806 pp. Hardcover. $31.96.
First published in 1933, the fundamental, irreplaceable exposition of general semantics. In this work
Korzybski developed important formulations neglected by other authors.
Manhood of Humanity by Alfred Korzybski. 2nd Edition, (1950). Foreword by Edward Kasner. 326 pp.
Hardcover. $21.56.
First published in 1921, the book introduced Korzybski’s functional definition of humanity as a time-bind-
ing class of life which provided the foundation of all of his subsequent work. This edition
in cludes three additional papers by Korzybski as well as “A Memoir: Alfred Korzybski & His Work” by M.
Kendig and “Korzybski’s Concept of Man” by Cassius J. Keyser. In the foreword, mathematician Edward
Kasner wrote that through the work of Korzybski and Keyser,“we can gain much-needed insight into a basic
cause of war.”
Alfred Korzybski, Collected Writings edited by M. Kendig (1990). 915 pp. Hardcover $44.00. Softcover
$30.00.
These formal and informal writings show much of the process of Korzybski’s evolving work that led from
Manhood of Humanity (1921) to Science and Sanity (1933), and the founding of the Institute of General
Semantics (1938). Supplementaries show that after the climactic publication of Science and Sanity, in an-
other sense, his work was just beginning. Note: Collected Writings does not include Science and Sanity or
Manhood of Humanity.
General Semantics Seminar 1937: Olivet College Lectures, 3rd Edition, by Alfred Korzybski (2002).
237 pp. Softcover. $15.96. Foreword to the 3rd Edition by Homer J. Moore.
Twelve lectures given to college students on general-semantics theory, backgrounds and applications. Retains
much of the warm anecdotal flavor of Korzybski’s platform manner. Minimal editing.
Other Authors
Art of Awareness, 4th Edition, by J. Samuel Bois (1996). 381 pp. $18.00.
Reorganized by Gary David, this edition includes a biography of Bois. Bois suggested a new term,
“epistemics,” for the work that he elaborated from Korzybski’s applied epistemology/theory of evaluation.
The book emphasizes the broad aims of general semantics as a system of guided self awareness which fo-
cuses on improving our methods of thinking-feeling.
Introductory Lectures on General Semantics, 14th printing, by Francis P. Chisholm (1983). 126 pp. $8.76.
Focuses on the important contributions general semantics can make to general education and “the gravity
of the problems involved in all science and human evaluation which arise from the necessary limitations of
human formulations.”
Language in Thought and Action, 5th Edition, by S. I. Hayakawa and Alan Hayakawa (1990). 287 pp.
$13.56.
Influential and well-written study of the role of language in human life, with over one million copies sold.
This edition features a Foreword by former PBS journalist Robert MacNeil.
General Semantics: An Outline Survey, 3rd Edition, by Kenneth G. Johnson. Edited by Steve Stockdale
(2004). 50 pp. $8.76.
The revised, 3rd Edition of Kenneth G. Johnson’s succinct and comprehensive outline of general seman-
tics. Includes reflections on Ken Johnson by Gregg Hoffmann and Andrea Johnson, updated text and ex-
amples with over 60 pertinent quotations, and a revised and expanded bibliography. A great supplement for
studying general semantics.
People in Quandaries by Wendell Johnson (1946). 532 pp. $18.36.

One of the finest and most accurate popularizations yet on the system of general semantics. Deals with the me-
chanics of disappointments, frustrations and other sources of unhappiness. It carefully examines how misevaluations
produce feelings of inadequacy and failure; how our evaluational habits can result in unreliable “maps” of our-
selves and our environments and thereby keep us in “quandaries.”
Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Revised 2nd Edition, by Susan
Presby Kodish and Bruce I. Kodish (2001). 238 pp. $14.40.
A lively, concise introduction to the system of general semantics. Drive Yourself Sane “... applies Alfred
Korzybski’s brilliant general-semantics philosophy to its readers’ everyday lives and shows them how to
live more sanely in a still highly irrational and partially insane world.” (From the “Foreword by Albert Ellis.”)
A General Semantics Glossary: Pula’s Guide for the Perplexed by Robert P. Pula (2000). 126 pp. $15.96. a-
Robert P. Pula, veteran GS writer and teacher, surveyed some of the most important terms of the field. The
result?—a useful companion to Science and Sanity for those concerned with making a careful, accurate
reading of Korzybski’s work. First written as a series for the journal ETC. the book provides some of Pula’s
original and challenging contributions to and applications of general semantics, along with a good dose of
his wit.
Levels of Knowing and Existence: Studies in General Semantics, 2nd Edition, by Harry L. Weinberg
(1973). 274 pp. $8.76.
Engaging discussion of general semantics as it pertains to epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic issues.
Contains a thorough comparison of general semantics and Abraham Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs.
Language Habits in Human Affairs, 2nd Edition, by Irving J. Lee, Ph.D. Sanford I. Berman, Ph.D, Editor
(1994). 316 pp. $17.56.
Lee reveals the problems and difficulties involved in making accurate statements about ourselves and the
world in which we live. He then shows how to change our language habits to develop more effective evalu-
ation and communication skills. Many vivid examples and pointed quotations make Lee’s presentation
memorable.
Anthologies
To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology edited by D. David Bourland, Jr. and Paul Dennithorne Johnston
(1991). Foreword by Steve Allen. 206 pp. $15.96.
Discussions related to E-Prime, Bourland’s extension of Korzybski’s concern about the “ises of identity
and predication.” E-Prime seems simple enough: just stop using all forms of the verb “to be.” A question:
Do we need to go so far? Read it and decide for yourself.
More E-Prime: To Be or Not II edited by Paul Dennithorne Johnston, D. David Bourland, Jr., and Jeremy
Klein (1994). 368 pp. $15.96.
E-Prime engenders controversy, both in and outside of general semantics, the discipline from which it
emerged. This second collection of E-Prime writing contains original articles, reprints from ETC.’s E-Prime
Symposia, and original fiction.
IGS BOOKS AND OTHER MEDIA 127
E-Prime III!: A Third Anthology edited by D. David Bourland, Jr. and Paul Dennithorne Johnston (1997).
566 + xxvi pp. $19.96.
The editors invited various authors to write about using E-Prime. From religion to epistemology, from practical to theo-
retical, from fiction to humor, this anthology reveals the many new developments in E-Prime.
Logic and General Semantics: Writings of Oliver L. Reiser and Others edited by Sanford I. Berman
(1992). 212 pp. $15.96.
Reiser, a philosopher and one of Korzybski’s early fellow workers, wrote some valuable material on the
philosophical, logical and scientific underpinnings of Korzybski’s work. This book includes Part I of Reiser’s
The Promise of Scientific Humanism and two of his other papers, as well as articles by Berman and others.
Highly recommended as a thorough, readable account of aristotelian and non-aristotelian logics and orientations.
General Semantics in Psychotherapy: Selected Writings on Methods Aiding Therapy edited by Isabel
Caro and Charlotte Schuchardt Read (2002). 371 pp. $19.96. Foreword by Dr. Albert Ellis.
Articles on applications and research in psychotherapy, including works by Isabel Caro, Albert Ellis, Ken-
neth G. Johnson, Alfred Korzybski, Susan Presby Kodish, and others. Not only for practicing therapists but
also for anyone interested in improving his or her life. With Johnson’s People in Quandaries and Weinberg’s
Levels of Knowing and Existence, this new anthology offers insight into how general semantics applies in
psychology and psychotherapy.
Thinking Crea-tically edited by Kenneth G. Johnson (1991). 325 pp. $12.76.

Based on papers delivered at a conference at Yale University in 1988, this collection exhibits a wide range of
sophistication in formulating and applying general semantics. It can be approached as a sampler of how its twenty-
two contributors have used general semantics in the trenches of teaching.
Bridging Worlds Through General Semantics edited by Mary Morain (1984). 347 pp. $15.96.
In our increasingly multicultural society, we must develop sensitivity to cultural differences. As our world “grows smaller”
and our society grows more complex, how do we understand “them” who seem so different from “us”? Leading writers
and teachers address these vital topics in the second printing of this classic general-semantics anthology.
Classroom Exercises in General Semantics, 2nd Edition, edited by Mary Morain (1996). 184 + viii pp.
$15.96.
A user-friendly teacher’s guide. This edition contains additional chapters by today’s leading general-semantics
educators, including Andrea Johnson, Associate Professor at Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI. Many new
illustrations enhance the wealth of general-semantics material from a variety of experienced authors and
teachers. Topics include perception and description, inference chaining, logic and clarity, conflict resolu-
tion, and more. A new reading list suggests many valuable resources.
Teaching General Semantics edited by Mary Morain (1969). 142 pp. $15.96.
Written by teachers, executives and trainers, this popular teacher’s guide gives you a powerful tool for giv-
ing your students power over their own lives.
Thinking & Living Skills: GS for Critical Thinking edited by Gregory Sawin (1995). 255 + xviii pp.
$15.96.
This illustrated anthology contains 37 lively and thought-provoking short articles by the world’s outstand-
ing general-semantics teachers and practitioners. By his selection and ordering of articles, his own contri-
butions scattered throughout and his delightful drawings; editor Sawin gave readers a clear sense of the
usefulness of general semantics in everyday life.
Other Books
Understanding Each Other: Improving Communication through Effective Dialogue by Catherine Bauby
(1972). 60 pp. $6.36.
Simply written and illustrated by an interpersonal-communications professional. With examples from 17
case studies, this concise guide shows us ways to overcome misunderstandings between employees and
promote more productive working relationships. Widely used by training directors and many others respon-
sible for employee education.
Enriching Professional Skills Through General Semantics edited by Mary Morain (1986). 326 pp. Hard-
cover $18.36. Softcover $15.96.
The editor selected these intriguing articles from the first 40 years of ETC for their practical applications in
teaching, management, counseling, law and other professional and personal pursuits. You learn to unmask
stereotyped thinking, discover stress-related perceptual distortions, avoid automatic responses and jumping
to conclusions. An overview introduces general-semantics principles and applications.
Words, Meaning and People by Sanford I. Berman (2001). 102 pp. $7.16.
Examines problems that arise from confusing observations (what we see) with inferences (what we conclude from
what we see). It also looks at how we can mistake judgments for conclusions. Berman shows us how to commu-
nicate more effectively and thereby create more satisfying human relationships.
Communication: The Transfer of Meaning by Don Fabun (1968). 48 pp. $7.96.

A creatively illustrated introduction to communication. Produced by an award winning editor and author,
its brevity makes it an excellent supplement to many types of courses.
Common Sense Management by Alfred Fleishman. $4.76.

Packed with information, factual material, and guidelines for improving communication between supervi-
sor and worker, used in hundreds of organizations, this easy-to-read booklet provides insights into commu-
nication problems that interfere with good morale and good work.
Mapping the Media by Gregg Hoffmann with Paul D. Johnston (1997). 44 pp. $8.76
Literacy no longer means only reading and writing. A literate person today must also understand and utilize
the biggest message sender in society—the media. Award-winning journalist Gregg Hoffmann teaches me-
dia at the university level. Now he has developed a nationally cited media literacy program for middle and
high schools. For use in the classroom or at home, this book will help young people and their teachers better
understand media messages.
Cry of the Cat: Plus Critical Thinking & Precise Communication by Lyman J. Houfek (1997). 138 pp.
$7.96.
Follow the story, which introduces principles of critical thinking and precise communication.
Dare to Inquire by Bruce I. Kodish (2003). 398 pp. $18.40. This book is about the need for adult humans
to ‘grow up’. It is not hard to denounce intolerance and fanaticism and want to uproot it. The question re-
mains, How? — How do we do it? Can we stop an apparently accelerating, world-wide movement toward
fundamentalism, despotism and despair? The author shares his main sources of personal urgency about this
question, discusses the humanistic roots of general semantics, provides a succinct overview of the GS sys-
tem, and then uses GS formulations to analyze some controversial issues in science, religion and ethics.
MacNeal’s Master Atlas of Decision Making: A New Kind of Guide to the Maps People Use In Mak-
ing Up Their Minds by Edward MacNeal (1997). Commentary by Russell Joyner and art by Vince Benedict
and Elaine Vogt. 144 pp. $15.96.
A guide to the maps people use in choosing courses of action. This book reprints ten articles that appeared
originally in ETC. in 1987-89.
Mathsemantics: Making Numbers Talk Sense by Edward MacNeal (1994). 280+ pp. $18.36.
You can add apples and oranges—despite the dire warning of your second-grade teacher—1 apple + 2 or-
anges = 3 fruit. “MacNeal pinpoints mathematical or logical errors commonly made...that he believes may
be due to the adult’s retention of the child’s tendency to confuse words with the things that words repre-
sent.” —Publishers Weekly. Appendices include recruitment quiz problems, answers, sources, and index.
Culture, Language and Behavior by Charles G. Russell (1999). 300+ pp. $23.16.
This book is not about culture and language per se. It focuses on the interactions of language, culture, per-
ceptions and behavior. An important theme of this book is that language and cognition combine with direct
experiences and contribute to ‘indirect perception’. Although written for college students and designed for
use by teachers, the book provides a strong link between some formulations of general semantics and many
subjects taught in college.
Other Media
Nothing Never Happens, Student and Teacher’s Editions, by Kenneth G. Johnson, John J. Senatore, Mark
C. Liebig, and Gene Minor, CD, $17.56. Exercises to trigger group discussions and promote self-discovery.
ETC. Electronic Archives, Volumes 1-59, 2 CDs, $69.00.

This 2-CD set contains the entire catalog of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics from Volume I No. 1 in
1943 through Volume 59 in 2003. Each issue is contained in a separate text-searchable PDF file, with the
Table of Contents bookmarked. Includes full-color scanned images of all covers and a searchable Master
Table of Contents.
GSB Electronic Archives, Nos. 1-68, CD, $39.00.

This CD contains the catalog of General Semantics Bulletin from Number 1 in 1950 to Number 68 in 2002.
Each issue is contained in a separate text-searchable PDF file, with the Table of Contents bookmarked. In-
cludes full-color scanned images of all covers and a searchable Index.
Electronic Archives Set (ETC. and GSB), 3 CDs, $99.00.

Specially-priced 3-CD set containing Volumes 1-59 of ETC and Numbers 1-68 of the General Semantics Bulle-
tin. This CD contains the catalog of General Semantics Bulletin from Number 1 in 1950 to Number 68 in 2002.
Each issue is contained in a separate text-searchable PDF file, with the Table of Contents bookmarked. Includes
full-color scanned images of all covers and searchable contents.
Works of Alfred Korzybski, CD, $39.00.

This CD contains the entire published works of Alfred Korzybski in text-searchable PDF format, including:
Science and Sanity, Manhood of Humanity, Collected Writings, and 1937 Olivet College Seminar Lectures.
As a bonus, we’ve also included the complete papers from the First and Second American Congresses on
General Semantics from 1935 and 1941, also in text-searchable PDF format. A must for serious students
and researchers.
12th International Conference CD, $10.00.

This CD contains: all of the papers from the conference; a selection of over 300 articles from ETC and the
Bulletin; over 400 photos from the archives, the GS Sampler, selected essays and articles by Milton Dawes,
Bruce Kodish and Susan Kodish, and the complete papers from the First and Second American Congresses
on General Semantics from 1935 and 1941.
Historical Note on Structural Differential by Alfred Korzybski, Audio Tape, $10.36.

An informal account and explanation by Korzybski of how he came to invent this training aid. An illumi-
nating adjunct to the Structural Differential wall chart.
Intensive Seminar, Recording of 1949 Lectures by Alfred Korzybski, Audio Tapes, $160.00.
An entire seminar showing the wide range of systematic concerns and human behaviors, including accent,
that Korzybski brought to the lecture platform.
General Semantics Seminar by Robert R. Pula, Audio Tapes, $47.96. A weekend seminar in general se-
mantics with Robert R. Pula. Lively, entertaining and rigorous. A korzybskian exposition of general seman-
tics.
Talking Sense Video Tape by Irving J. Lee. (1952), $31.96.

From the 1952 television series, Of Men and Ideas, featuring Irving J. Lee, Professor of Speech at North-
western University. VHS format, six 30-minute presentations on the basics of general semantics.
Structural Differential Wall Chart, Vinyl. 40in x 18 in. $23.00.

The central yet simple diagram by which Korzybski pictured the relations (order, structure) upon which his
system is built. Allows students to visualize the fateful relations between and among the non-verbal pro-
cesses, silent organismic responses and verbal formulations. Important for teaching and self-study .
READ HOUSE
INSTITUTE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS — FORT WORTH
In early 2005, the Institute of General Semantics will relocate to its ‘new’ home, a renovated neighbor-
hood grocery store built in 1932. The building is named to honor Allen Walker Read and Charlotte
Schuchardt Read, whose bequests provided the funds to purchase the building and served as the founda-
tion for a capital campaign recently announced by the Institute. The images on this and the next page,
reflect the architectural work of W. Mark Gunderson (computer modeling by Yu-ming Mao).

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General Semantics Bulletin No.71

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General Semantics Bulletin

Number 71, Membership Year 2004

INSTITUTE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS

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GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

150 In the Name of Skepticism: Martin Gardner’s Misrepresentations of General Semantics

164 Memorial Time-Binding:

169 In Memorium, Thomas E. Nelson

170 Thomas E. Nelson: A Biography

174 General Semantics and the Shaping of the Future

179 Kenneth G. Johnson – Teacher, Mentor, Friend:

181 Remembering Ken Johnson

182 General-Semantics Professional Activities of Kenneth G. Johnson

184 The General-Semantics Writings of Kenneth G. Johnson

188 Remembering Bob Pula:

191 From The Notebooks of Robert P. Pula

192 Writing and Teaching General Semantics: Robert P. Pula’s Legacy

195 The Annotated General-Semantics Bibliography of Robert P. Pula

110 Science and Sanity: Preface to the Fifth Edition, 1993

120 Some Comments on the Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics

122 News from the Institute (September 2003 – August 2004)

125 IGS Books and Other Media: Annotated Catalog

131 Order Form for Books and Other Media

132 Read House — Institute of General Semantics, Fort Worth

134 IGS Membership Application

THE EXTENSIONAL DEFINITION OF TIME-BINDING

11. space-flight 21. art 41. robotics

ON THE TEACHING OF GENERAL SEMANTICS

“I thought she was a very pretty girl,” I said, apologetically.

The Philosophies of Science

In prescientific thinking accurate prediction is not a particularly well-recognized objective. In a

Socrates and Plato

Aristotle and Aristotelianism

Intensional Orientation and the Birth of Science

Aristotelian and Non-Aristotelian Orientations

an objective evaluation. If ‘objective’ it must have a ‘property’ of ‘simultaneity’, a semantic pro-

Galileo and the Extensional Orientation

Common Sense and “Reality”

Isaac Newton: Non-Aristotelian, Newtonian Physics

Albert Einstein: General Semantics and Special Relativity

Einstein certainly sounded like Alfred Korzybski when he said,

General Semantics and the General Theory of Relativity

Einstein’s theoretical conclusions could be tested experimentally. According to his calculations

Niels Bohr’s Parallel Path With General Semantics

2. Cassius J. Keyser, wrote the following in “The Foundations of a Science of Man”:

———. 1950. Out of My Later Years. New York: Philosophical Library.

Schaff, Adam. 1962. Introduction to Semantics. New York: Pergamon Press.

The King of Korzybski Bashers

The Trouble with Looking for ‘Cranks’

Name-Calling and the Art of the Fascinating Irrelevancy

Korzybski and his Colleagues

With a Little Help From Korzybski’s ‘Friends’

Did Gardner Reform?

13. Gardner 1957 (1952), p. 283

44. Gardner 1993 b, pp. 106-107

CHRISTOPHER BARROWS SHELDON (1926–2002)

Read Mitsuko’s articles in GS publications to get a sense of her contributions:

GREGORY SAWIN IN HIS TIME (1950–2004)

ROBERT R. BLAKE (1918–2004)

In the following pages, you can learn more about

RACHEL LAUER: Then we’ll see you next year .

RACHEL LAUER : Yes . Do you want a minute or more? Go ahead .

RACHEL LAUER: ..is this the kind of organization that we might

TOM NELSON: Would we have to take our clothes off too?