Thursday, May 29, 2008

General Semantics

*started on May 9*

Pete Takeshi mentioned he had been doing some reading on General Semantics and the writings of Hayakawa. I don't know anything about it; I did take a look at the wikipedia article, and I wonder if the founders of General Semantics really have a grasp of Aristotle, and aren't setting up strawmen arguments. I wish I could get my hands on this paper. Still, the school doesn't look like it's of much importance, and I don't think it has many followers in academic philosophy. At least I haven't come across any followers when browsing through department pages and the like.

Is it really anti-essentialist? And while I might agree with its goal of enabling 'clear thinking,' does it supply us with a good account of the difference between sensation and knowing, and how we use names? Aristotelians acknowledge that our use of a name does not mean that we automatically or necessarily have an adequate definition of the thing being named, and that all sorts of other things can be associated with the thing named, though their relationship to it may be contingent or necessary in different respects. Is General Semantics just trying to reinvent Aristotelian logic?

wiki

Alfred Korzybski - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
S. I. Hayakawa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
General Semantics
General Semantics -- Korzybski
general semantics
Institute of General Semantics
Institute of General Semantics
The New York Society for General Semantics
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems ... - Google Books Result
DFW Center for General Semantics: Korzybski and Hayakawa
Bibliography of General Semantics Papers by Ralph Kenyon
General Semantics

Amazon.com: Language in Thought and Action: Fifth Edition: S. I. ...
SOME NOTES ON "Language in Thought and Action" by S I Hayakawa

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