a non-aristotelian study of philosophy -antony m. economides

8/3/2019 A Non-Aristotelian Study of Philosophy -Antony M. Economides

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A NON -ARISTOT ELIANSTUDY OF PHILOSOPHY

byANTONY ~ ECONOMIDES


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A NON-ARISTOTELIANSTUDY OF PHILOSOPHY

byANTONY M. ECONOMIDES

(A project s ubmitted in pa rtial fulfillmentof the requirem ents for the degree ofBachelor ofArts , Th e Faculty of Arts andSci ences, The American University atCairo , Egypt; March, 1945'>

Copyright 1947Institute of General Semantics , Lakeville, Connecticut


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PHOTOI..lTHOPlUSTI:D BY G\lSlI1JlIC - I.Uo1.LOY. Dit;.Al-'" A.UOJl;, MIt;HlGJUf. u t f l T ~ ITATa Of' "-"'DUCA


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FOREWORDby M. KendIg, Educational Director and Editor

A happy turn of circumstances brings together in our publication of this f i rst NON-ARISTOTELIAN STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY the author, Antony Economides, and the teacher whointroduced him to Korzybski's work. The Insti tute and the editor are Indebted to Guthrie E.Jans s en for his informative introduction about the author and the socio-cultural background of thestudy and Cor th e painstaking work he ha s done in producing this publlcatlon.

Cables (rom Cairo ordering some dozens of copies of SCIENCE AND SANITY in 1943- 44originally put us in touch with Mr. Janssen , who was then teaching at the American University .He is, we believe, the first per-son to introduce non-aristotelian training in Egypt. The l ively and eventually world -spanning - correspondence set in motion by these orders finally broughtMr. Janssen back to the U.S.A. in 1946 fa r s tudy with Korzybski.

Guthrie Janssen was born in lllinois, where his grandfather settled when he came {rom Denmark in the 1880 's . He attended Illlnoia College and the University of il l inois. Immediately aftergra duatio n from the Universi ty, he went to Egypt , where he spen t the next s ix years teaching EngUsh in Assiut College and la te r in the American Unive rsity a t Cairo and t raveling in Europe andthe Middle East.

When he joined the National Broadcasting Company in the autumn of 1944, he was li nguis ti cally and semantically well prepared lor his post as correspondent and broadcaster in the MiddleEa.st by his knowledge of Arabic and long experience in dealing with untver stty students represent ing the diverse and tangled cultural backgrounds of the area. In 1945 he represented NBC on theround-the -world flight arranged by the Air Forces , was with the first Americans to enter Hiroshimaafter August 7, reported on the Russian evacuation of Mukden, and spent the next months broadcasting from the Philippines, Chlna, Korea, and Japan. In the summer of 1946 he resigned his post andnew in from Tokyo to attend ou r annual Seminar-Workshop. Later , Mr. Janssen was awarded theStraus Fellowship for a year's training at the Institute and began work January, 1947. One of hisfirst duties has been preparing this publication , fo r which we have been holding orders since i twas first announced for early 1946. We regret this delay due to a series of unfortunate circumstances , but chiefly the disruption of our entire program when sale of the bui ld ing the Iastttutebad long occupied in Chicago forced us to move out on short notice and wait many months beforeOur new headquarters in Lakeville were established and settled.

In the au tumn of 1945. Mr. Economides wrote a letter of apprec iation to Korzybski and enclosed a copy of his thesis. We found i t amaztngly mature , scholar ly and complete beyond expectation in an undergr aduate s tudy, and wer e charmed by the author's use of English . Almos t immediately we decided to add A NON-ARISTOTELLAN STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY to our publish ing schedule .

Mr . Economides supplies what many students of Korzybski 's non-a ri stotel ian sy s tem andGenera l Seman tics show the lack of and need fo r - a short systematic r elat ing of Korzybski'sphysico-mathematica l and enginee ring approach to the st ream of Western philosophy. He suppliesa wealth of documentation . and we believe his s tudy will be particularly welcome as supplementaryreading by teachers for beginning classes , and by study-groups and individuals. This study servesas an antidote for the twin errors, one or the other of which most commonly distort the evalua tions and verbalizations of many students when they encounter Korzybsk i 's work. Those whose'knowledge ' is over-balanced on the side of tt teratuee , philosophy, and history fall into the 'itsall been said before ' error. They see only 's imila riti es' . Those whose historical pe rspectivesare so limited they ignore the implications of time-binding see only the 'dttrerences ' , They commit the ' it' s all entirely new' e rro r and leave themselves wide open to ridicule by the 'similarityIets". Mr. Economides gives a beautifully ba lanced demonstration of proper evaluation by ' s imilarities and differences' , that fundamental characteristic of extensional method. In other words hemakes the only profitable approach to hiatorical understanding and practical use of Korzybsk! 'ssystematization and Instrumentatldn of the historic weltschmerz of creative workers - now soacutely accelerated, so much mo re acutely felt i f not r ecognized, in ou r Urnes.

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The Economides thesis appears here a s he wro te it except (or some minor changes in punctuat ion to br ing i t in line with Ins ti tute styling. I l ls unusual in our experience to lind a studentus ing the terminology of General Semantics wit h such line sens itivi ty lor the implications of lin-guistic s tructures. It is easy enough to learn the te rminology as a new se t of word s . Using themapprop ria tely in varying contexts to convey one's own formulations is not a skil l but an ac id tes tof a mas te ry of the discipline that is deeper than 'intel lec tual ' understanding.

- M. KENDIG

Ins ti tute of Genera l SemanticsLakevil le, Connecticut30 April 1947

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INTRODUCTIONby Guthrie E. Janssen

In the autum of 1943 I int rod uced a cour se in General 8emanUcs as part o[ the th ird yearEngli sh curriculum in the Amer ican Universi ty a t Ca iro , Egypt. At that ti me there were newtens ions in the Middl e East. Postwar s t ruggles for power we re beginning to bud , leading to theantt-monarctust mut iny of most of the Gr eek Ar my and Navy in the sp ring of 1944 , th e later an tiBr iti s h r iot s in Egypt. the crisis with the Soviet Union over Azerbai jan, and th e new terrorism inPa lest ine .

In thi s atmosphere my s tudents we re five Egypt ians , fiv e Gr eeks , Icu r Jews, one Brtti sher ,one Pales tin Ian Arab , and two of mixed background; nine men and nine women who ca rr ied ther eligious label s of Greek Or thodox, Coptic, Hebrew, Mos le m, and P rotestant. Most of them spoketh ree languages fluently, some four or five . All knew Engli sh we ll . All faced a proble m that American s tudents face only in di luted form - how to plan for a job and have a li fe of r elative sanity andsec ur it y in an environment where s t rong economic , socia l , and re ligious pressu r es would buffetthem a round; where every day they would be confronted with ex t reme dogmatisms and prejudices ,and s ee frequent vio lence. Without training they would sink into the racia l or religious bigotry ofOne of the many groups which ori ent themse lves by centurt es -otd ve rbalisms u.e. by intension>.With some training in be ing extensional (ori entation by ' fact s " they could swim along on the surfac e of the chaos and preserve a broade r , more mature outlook . In the past they had got thi s tr aining ineffectively, and the hard way, by tr ia l and e r ror or piecemeal learning. Consequently . whe nGeneral Semanllcs offe red a definite, precis e METHODOLOGY FOR EXTENSlONALlZATION, mystudents seized on i t as the mos t promising 'subject' they had yet been taught.

One of my s tudents was Antony M. Economides. He was born of Gr eek paren ts In Minta , inUppe r Egypt. He attended the Gr eek Community P r imary SChool and then came to Lincoln School ,the s econda ry section of the Ame rican Unive rs it y at Cairo . In both his high school and univers itywork he ma intained exceptionally high marks an d showed a ll vely interest in philosophy. At fir sthe found Genera l Semantics diffi cult, more diff icul t than for the more ' extrover t ' types for wbomi t was 's tmale' and 'natura l' . Then shortly he began to get the ' feel' of General Semantics andsoon he s urpassed his fel low s tudents in applying i t . For a Gr eek , with a so lid a risto teUan back-ground, he was s ur pri s ingly eage r t o learn a non-ar istotel ian methodology. He r ead SCIENCEAND SANITY with a persistence that few of his c lass ma tes wer e will ing to match. At the end ofthe yea r he told me that for his senio r th esis he want ed to evalua te the whole field of philosophyus ing Korzybski ' s methodology. 1 tried to discourage him and to ld him it was too heavy and toocomple x a job. Moreover , he would be on his own s ince I was Ieavtng Cairo to take up work aswar co r res pondent and broadcaster for the Nat ional Broadcasting Company . But he wen t aheadanyway. That su mmer he r ead practically everyt htng in print on General Semantics, and the fol lowing winter he wrote th is 'Non-ar istote lian Study of Philosophy'. It seems to me a remarkablymature and balanced pap er for an undergraduate only nineteen years old. Mr . Bconomtdes wentbeyond the demand s of the American Universi ty 's high s tandards and did a surp r is ing amount ofr eading. Moreov er, i t took s ome pluck to produc e this evide nce again s t 'philosophy' in a schoolwhere the traditional 'philosophy' Is emphasized . This may pa rtly explain his heavy r el iance onauthor ity and the plethora of tootn ct es .

To fully apprec ia te the revolutionary implications of a non-a ristotelian r evision in the milieufrom which Mr . Economides comes, one has to live in the Middl e East for a whUe , and in Gr eece.Lik e the Bilharz ia fluke, an in testinal pa rasite that infects close to s eventy- Itve pe r cent of thepeople of Egypt an d saps their ene rgy , a ristotel ian formulations have s tultified the neuro-semantt cr ea ctions and held back cultura l development. Probably nowhere else in the world can one find moreintense dogmatisms, a gr eate r predilection for tntenston, or a greater lack of "cc nscrousness ofab stracting' . Communic at ion in the broadest sense is at a minimum . Ccnseqcently sc ientific andt echnological development has been bloc ked . Another r esult is that politica l and economtc progTess has not come through peaceful evolution but th rough violent upheavals or foreign impositions.

In thi s tense and chaotic atmosphe re Ameri can colleges in the Middle Eas t have int roducedsome is lands c t neutra lity whe re students can affo rd to be extensional without be ing quite so open

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to the. charge of betraying their country or their religion. The tact that the mixed nationalities inthe American Univers ity at Cair o not only ge t along well together but probably have a be tter espr itde corps than most students in the U.S. is a t ribut e to the Univer sity ' s abil ity to extensional izesomewhat the individual prejudices . The fact that 1was given an entirely free hand in teaching ayear ' s cou rse in General Semantics is an indication of the University's willingness to tr y any pro gram that looks promi sing. But in general the programs of American colleges in the M.iddle Easthave not be en as successful as they might have been, because they have not used a CONSCIOUSLYFORMULATED METHODOLOGY FOR EXTENSIONALIZATION. Too often they have merely t riedto persuade students to trade one old dogma for another antiquated one. This has been especiallyt r ue of the mis siona ry schools. In almost one hundred years, for example, a very lar ge corps ofAmerican missIonar ie s has s ucceeded in converting a tota l of less than 200 Mos lems - most ofwhom r everted to Mohammedanism within a year. In these circumstances, Korzybsk i ' s theor yappa rently provides a badly needed and. wanted formulation, and my s tudents seized onto it . Ayear late r when I r eturned to Cai ro some of my students told me they thought it was the 'mostvaluable course' they had ever taken. And when I tried to buy back some copies of SCIENCE ANDSANITY not one of my students would sell - some said i t was the most precious book they owned.

A heavy r esponsibility rests on these students of American colleges in the Middle East.Their ta sk is to help their fell ow-countrymen bridge a cultu ral gap of something like 2000 yea rs .This r equ ires not just 'more learning ' but a consciously app lied GENERAL METHODOUOGY forquickly br inging or ientations up to dat e . One orten hears the r em ark , 'Look at the gr eat cultu resproduced by the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks, etc. : then they lost i t all'. People se emto feel that some thing was ' lost' whIch has to be 'regained', An extensional examination of whathappened would indicate tha t nothing was ' lost ' and consequently there is nothing to ' rega in'. Apparently what happened was that the peoples of Western Eur ope who inherited the Easte r n Mediterranean cultures USED THEIR TIME-BINDING CAPACITIES to build the newer and more Flexibleneuro-linguistic patterns which have produced our Western scie nce. Meanwhile , the Eas tern peoples simply kept repeating their old neuro-Ifngulsttc and neuro-sem anttc pat terns which wer e notadequate to handle the new s ituations. The attempt to apply the old patter ns in today' a sttuattonshas r esulted in the present chaos . Today the whole world faces s imilar alterna tives - whetherto make new formula tions to handle the implications of the liberation of nuclear energy, or to goon ltving by the old ones and end up in disaster.

Today the pr evailing formulations in the Middle East and in Greece , lik e the pr imitive plowand wate r wheel of the EgypUan FELLAH. are practjcally the same as around 500 A.D. Sma llwonder then that import a tions of cul ture and money Irom the West are r equired ju st to ma inta inthe present conditions 01 life. ApparentlyI however, it is not gene rally r eal ized that our inpouringof money is s imply sand down a ra t ho le unless i t is accompanied by some general re-educaUonin the non-aristote lian dir ecti on. American schools are doing somethi ng, but they cannot be veryeffective untll they formulate consciously and precisely just what they are try ing to do - namely,extenstcnaltze the old or ientations and build up-to-date appropr iate neu ro-aemannc r eact ions .

Considered from this point of view. Mr. Economides' paper, s ince i t deliberately introducesthe non-a ristotelian outlook, represent s more than just another B.A . thesis ; i t r ep resents a boldstep in a new di rection. - G.E.l .

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PREFACEWhile looking for some sys tem that would show me the means to answer my quest ions - theusua l questions of a young man about the universe and man - and that at the same time would giveme an adequate tool with which to att empt some cons truc tive work , I was introduced to the studyof General Seman tic s dur ing the fa ll of 1943 .I was at once s t r uck by the theory ilseU, it s systematic presentation, its comprehensiveness,the apparentl y sati sfactory manner in which i t treat ed many of my own problems and fie lds of in-

terest , as well as by the possib il ities i t offered tor application and contribution to civiliza tion.The la st- named quality seemed to me to be confi rmed by nume rous experiments a lready ca r r iedout in different field s.My tnittat enthusiasm soo n turned into a sobe r attitude. I decided to att empt to oHer so mecon tributio n to gener al knowledge and gene ral socia l r econstruct ion by way of research using Gener al Semantics as a basis and a tool. Before at tempting an y s tudy of specUic so cial fields , however,I cons idered it neces sary and profitable to a tt empt a s tudy of the vas t field oCphilosophy as so me'philosophy' appears to have exis ted at the basis oCa ll our institutions , our language included.General Semantics is intended to be the MODUS OPERANDI in the buildIng of a new civili za tion - the non-aristotelian civi lization - a civilizat ion that wUl rise fr om ' the ruins of a dying

epoch'. Now epochs always seem to be dying and new ones rising. The im portan ce of the specUiccr is is of our own day mus t b e lef t for the histor ian of the Iuture to determine .Yet our 'quest for ce rtainty' continues ; and we mus t never Cor a moment hesitate to re formour institutions and adjus t them to the new condt t tons created by that quest . A new movem en t foradjustment will, by Implication , differ I r c m a prev ious one; yet i t is nothing but a product of thepast. And it s adequacy to meet new condi tions will be poor Indeed i f it faUs to recognize its debtto the pas t. Tbe position oCan epoch and the indIviduals inc luded in it has been determin ed by thepreceding epochs in or de r to determine the futu re ones. To forget th is would be to la ck a senseor pr oportion. Therefore, befor e we destroy we must lea rn why we destroy; be fore we build wemust know on what we build.In thi s paper r have att empted to examine on the bas is of General seman tics a Iew of theCundamen la l notions and pr oblems trea ted by the men who have engaged them selves throughouthistory in the 'quest for certainty",In Part One we will pr esent an introductory chapte r an phi losophy, as well as a brief outline of non -aristotelian sys te ms and General Seman tics . Thi s we wttt us e in Part Two to studya few elements inherent In the aristotelian sys te m, with spectrte example s or our cr iticisms ana Iew philosophical them es, reaching the 'cttmax' of the ta le in a discusston an the problem oCs cience and philosophy. The 'anticlimax' occurs in Part Three where we will cctune bri eflythe 'cons tructive ' elements in General Semantic s , and gi ve a few cc nctudlng rem arks of a generalnature. Throughout the s hort (and perhaps inadequat e) pr esentation of General Semantics ther eader Is constantly referred to the MAGNUM OPUS on the s ubject: Allred Korzybskl ' s SCIENCE

AND SANITY . Many of the other sources et ted throughout the paper are intended to shaw thatvarious writers have arrived at conclusions simUar to those Iormulated in Gene ra l Semantics .The use of their mat er ia l . however, doe s not necessa rily imply that we endorse a ll thei r opinions.U any originality is to be cla imed in the present paper, i t li es in the outline and presentation ofthe argument .The detects of the paper are evi dent. In the fi rst place. time and space were insufficien tfor the unde rtaking of such a vast work; as a result , the paper appea rs mor e like a condensedoutline of the s ubject than an adequate treatmen t of i t . Moreover, the a ttempt Itself was too boldCor the abil ities of the presen t writer.Yet no ot her task has been a gr ea te r source of pleasu re [or me than the pr esent a ttempt,

imperfect as it is; moreover , i t has proved extreme ly encouraging to me for the undertaking offurther resear ch In the future . Finally, 1 hope that I have su cceeded in express ing the impor tanceof the subject I am tr eat ing that others too may be stimula ted by the issues rais ed by Korzybskl.

- Antony M. Economidesvii


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n NON ARISTOTE LIAN SYSTEMS AND GENERAL SEMANTICSA. Introductory . . . . . . . . . .B. Aim and Means . . . C. An Outline of Genera l SemanticsD. Conclusion, .

I PHILOSOPHYA. Introductory . . . . . . . . . . . . .B. Philosophy - Its Aim and CharacteristicsC. Philosophy and Other Activit ies .D. Philosophy and Ctvhtaatton E, Conclusion . . . . . . .

Chapter

CONTENTS

PART ONE . I NT ROD UCTIO N Page

I I 2 2 244 57

P ART T WO. A NON -ARIST OTEL IAN STUDY O F P H I L OSO P HYi l l ARISTOTELIAN ORIENTATIONSA. Introductory . . . . . . . . .B. Linguistic Str uctures .. ..1. The Subject-P redicate Form2. The ' Is ' of Identi ty ..C. Elemenlalislic Structures .1. The Or ganism . . . .2. Space-Time .3. IMatler', ' Space' , "I ' Ime".4. "Subs tance" . . . .5. General Remarks .D. Ar istotelian 'Logic ' , .1. The ' Laws of Thought l

2. The Two-valued ' Logic '3. ' Cause' and ' Effect' . .4. General Rema rks . . .E. Intensional and Extensional Orientations .F , General Criticism . , . . . ,1. On ' Copying' Animal s , .2. Aristotel ian St ruc tures . ,3. Identification . . . . .4. Concluding Remarks.

991010I I11121212131313141415151616161717

lV PHILOSOPHICAL THEMESA. Introductory .B. Mechanism and Te leology .

C. The 'Body M ind' Problem.D. Determ inism and Indetermin is mE. Epistemologica l Problems - The Sourc e of KnowledgeF . Epistemolog ical Problems - The Nature of KnowledgeG. Epistemological Problems - The Valid ity of Knowledge .1. Propositional Functions . . . . . . . .2. Multiord inal Terms . .. . . . ..3. The General Pr inciple of Uncertainty .4. The Neuro logy of Fa lsehood .H. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . .

191920212224252525252626

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CONTENTS

ChapterV SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHYA. Introductory .B. Hfstor ical Connection. .C. Common Characteristics

D. Apparent Differences ..E. Interrelation .F. Conclus ion - Science, Philosophy, and General Semantics .PART THREE . CONCLUSiON

Page

282828292930

VI NON-ARISTOTELIAN ORIENTATIONS. 32Vll CONCLUDING REMARKS.Footnotes . .Bibliography .

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'The tal e is the ep ic of an episode in the man ifestationo.r reason. I t tells how a particular dir ection of r easonemerges in a race by the long preparation of antecedentepochs, how after its birth it s subject-matter graduallyunfolds it s elf , how i t attains it s triumphs , how its influencemoulds the very sp r ings ot a c ti on of mankind, and finallyhow at its moment of supreme success it s limitations dis -close themselves and ca ll for a renewed exerc is e of thecr ea tive imagination. The moral of the tale is the power ofr eason, its decisive influence on the lite of humanity . Thegre at conquerors , fr om Alexande r to Caesar , and fromCaesar to Napo leon. influenced profoundly the lives of sub-sequent generations . But the total effect of this influenceshr inks to tnstgntttcance, i f compared to the entire t rans -formationof human habits and the human mentaUtyproducedby the long line of men of thought fr om Thales to the presentday, men Indtvtduat ly powerless, but ultimately the rulersof the wor ld.'

- ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

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PART ONEINTRODUCTION

Chapter r. PHILOSOPHYA. INTRODUCTORY

WE BEGIN thi s shor t dissertation by sta ting a fundamental difference between man and thelowe r animals . John Dewey expresses it in the opening s entence of his RECONSTRUCTION INPHILOSOPHY: fMan differs from the lower animal s because he preserves his past experiences . ' !By preserving some of his past experiences, man is able to discover simi larities and relations among the elements of his experience . 'A fac t is nothing except in it s re lation to otherfacts..'2 Friedrich Paulsen observes that man 'does not rest unti l he has combined them into asys tematic conception of the whole.' 3 S1r James Jeans remarks that 'i t would be a dull mind thatcould see the r ich va riety of natura l phenomena without wondering how they are inte rrelated. ,4

In th is way philosophy may be said to arise . Whether i t begins in wonder , as i t did amongthe ancient Greeks5, or in doubt and parplexttyf and dtscontent" as it did in modern t imes , in asense ' every human be ing that rises above the dull level of anlmallife has a philosophy, 'SB. PH ILOSOPHY - ITS AIM AND CHARACTERISTICS

PHILOSOPHY is a ter m whose meaning and value have varied considerably according to itsusage by different wr iters at dUIerent periods,9 In this paper we will not attempt to compressthe term ' philosophy' within the limits of a formal deIlnition. It will be profi table, however , tooutl ine its main, generally recognteed, aim and character is tics .

According to A.S. Pringle -Patt ison, the subject matt er of philos ophy is ' the nature of thereal world , as tha t world lies around us in everyday life, and lies open to observers on ever e Today, this subject matter is dealt with in grea t detail by the special s ciences . The specialis ts inthese science s , however , have tended to lose s ight cr the whole of expertence .U

There always arises the need, therefore, or some general s cience that would at tempt to combine these special sciences and co-ordinate their acti vities, as well as to examine the ir basic as sumptions12 and build general s tandards for their fur- the r- development. The s ynthesis of th e partsis more i mportant than the detat ted knowledge of the separate sci ences; and philosophy is concernedwit h this 'u ltimate s ynthes is ' ,13Thus , philosophy becomes the 'gene r al science whose business it Is to uni te the generaltruths Curn ished by the pa rticular sciences into a consistent system.' 14 'Philosophy is the integration of knowledge, the synthesis of the s ci ences.'15 It cla ims to be 't he science of the whole' .16

It attempts 'to think truly about human expe ri ence as a whole; or to make our whole experienceInteUigible .'17 It ' hopes to integrate our knowledge, to unify and interpret it . 'tB It 'atms to in -te rpr et what is common to all nerds , and to unders tand the r elations of the special sciences toeach other.'19'The ai m of philo sophy (whether fully attainable or non is to exhibit the univer se asa rational system in the harmony of a ll it s parts ; and accordingly the philosopher re fuses to cons ider the par ts out of their r elation to the whole whose parts they are.'20

Philosophy. the refore . is intended to be something more than mer ely the unutcatton of thespecial sc iences. ' I t craves some ul timate explanation of things - their fi rst cause. their movingcause. their purpose . their meaning, their value, '21 I t must satisfy not only our scientific interes ts .but also our mora l and aestheti c and rettgtous needs at every period; ' these too are facts whichany sy stem of thought mus t consider.'22Finally, to quote E. S. Brightman:'The unique contribution onpbtlosophy to human liCe is that i t furnish es a tool fQrthe interpretation of the meaning and goal of life j a background, which gives unity toour science , our a rt , our literature, our mor al s , our r eligion, indeed to our wholeciv ilization and a lso to our mos t intimate per sonal experiences . '23


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C. PHlLOSOPHY AND OTHER ACTIVITIESPHILOSOPHY, being s uch a vast Held, can hardly be separated from other fields of humaninterest.According to J. S. Mackenzie, th e val ue of philosophy Its often to be found , not so much Inany ac tua l discovery that is made as in the general ou tlook upon human l ife that is gained in itspurs uit . -24Poetry may be said 't o aim at th e same kind of ins ight as that which philosophy seeks toga in ., 2 5 Th e manner , however , in which this kind of insight is pursued is differen t in th e two

fi elds. Acco rd ing to J. S. Mackenzi e . the t ruth sought in poet ry is 'Celt' rather than


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values in personal and socia l life. Many people say that these symptoms mar k thebeginnings ot a great renaissance, but there are others who see in them the tidingsof a downfall to which our civilization is fatally destined. '37This critical s ituation in which we l ind ourselves inevitably brings to our a ttention a great

number of questions - about the reasons for the present s ta te of ou r civ ilization, about it s past,and about i ts future.

What are we to do? is the cry that rises today Ir cm every quar ter . 'Reflective thought ' answer the philosophe r s. ' Mor e science ' say the men in the laboratories. ' More rel igion! ' cry thepriests from the pulpits. And the common man, 'The Celebrated Man In The Stree t ', the her o ofour century , stands bewildered in the midst of i t aU and feels with the poet Housman, ' I, a s t r ange r and afra id, in a wor ld I never made. '

In Whatever ha nds we place ou r destinies we must keep in mind the following words of JohnDewey:' illumination or direction to our confused civilization . . can proceed only fr om

the spir it tha t is interested In realities and that faces them frankly and sympatbet-ically:38In the fo llowing pages we wil l present an ouUine of Gener al Semantics, a new methodologyformulated by AUred Kor-zybskf and will show how i t attempts to answer the questions we haveset above .

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Chapter n , NON-ARISTOTELlAN SYSTEMS AND GENERAL SEMANTICSA, INTRODUCTORY

Profe ssor Oliver L . Reiser wr ites :'Few today would contest th e obse r va tion that "modern ctvtttzatron" , " is approaching the end of its li fe cycle , , , An old world is dying; perhaps a new world 1s belngborn, . , Those of us who feel that before we try to look ahead we should glance back

and try to under stand th e wor ld that was , and why It faUed, will want to pause for amoment and retrospect. Before the pageant of Western civiUza tion sUps into somerece s s of fust orfca l archeology, let us look it over and ge t an indelible imprint ofits main features, ' 39ALFRED KORZYBSKI, in his SCIENCE AND SANITY, roughly di.vides the history oi civ i l i-zation into th ree stages, each stage ha ving gradually evolved (r om i ts predeces sor. Ouring the'p r imiti ve ' period , with "lite ra l identification' as the one-valued s tanda rd of evaluatio n, sc iencewas not possible, With th e advent of the 'a r is toteUan' pe riod40 , evaluation ca me to be ba sed ons ymmetrical relations of ' tdenttty' and a lso partial ' identi ty' (represented by our two- valued ' lawscr thought ') ; during th is pertod the beginnings of sc ie nce became pos s ible . Lately, however , s ci

entists found that th ey invariably had to build new st andards of evaluation of a di stinctly I althoughas yet unreal ized , 'non-a ri s totelian ' charact er , bas ed on asymmetrical re la tions and other relations of an infi nit e-valued na ture, as will be shown la te r in the pape r.41Korzybski then proceeds to demonst rate that our individual and social maladjustment is dueto the chasm created between human affairs and sc ience. Wherea s science has already ente r edthe non-aristotelian s tage, we, in our pe rsonal lives , da ily language, and soc ta l institutions , s t il lpresecve ar is totelian s tandards of evaluation c reated thousands of years ago . These s tanda rdsKorzybsk i proves to be out of co njunction with our knowledge of the world and ouraetves (today)as given to us by the la te s t deve lopments in th e Itelds of the natural sc iences and psychiatry .Furthermore , he demonstrates that th ese s tandards actua lly impede the development of thescience s ,42In his MANHOOD OF HUMANITY Korzybsk i had defined progres s as 'a cumulative proces sof co-ordinating " tdeas " with " reanty" '. 43 He de monst ra tes that at present we lind a mea sure of

exactness in the se co r re lations in the physica.l sc iences. He ag rees with Spengler in that 'al lforms of human ac tivities a re tnte rconnected'c'l'l For 'san ity' a nd progres s , howeve r . there mustbe full coo rdination of al l human ac tivities , includlng the physica l t 'exact ' I sc iences as well asthe socia l sciences and dai ly language, and their unceas ing adjust ment to ' rea lity' , t.e. to ' theconditions and pos sibilities inheren t in the s tructure of the world ' , ours e lves included . According to Korzybsk i , the social sciences (and human affair s in general> have lagged behind tadvanc-tng only at an a r ithmetic rate , as compared to the geomet r ic rate in t he development of the physi cal s ciences ), hampered by primitiv e s tandards of evaluation, lnIantile, affective identUications,and the use of our dai ly language whos e st ructur e proves to be dis similar to the s tructure of th ewor ld and ours e lves


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that. in the rough, 'each gene ration of humans , a t l east potentially, can start where the formergene ration left oH' and 'collect all known experiences of different individuals.'48 Emphasizingthis functional definition of man as a time -binder, Dr. Keyser remarks:

'No science of man can be erected upon the biological conception of man as ananimal nor on the theological conception oI man as a degenerate o r fallen creaturedependent for well-being upon some mi racle of r edempl1ve grace.'49The achievement of the above aim necessitated investigation 01 the mechanism of time -b ind -ing . Thi s enquiry, embodied in SCIENCE AND SANITY, rep resents' . . . a fur t he r analys is of the sharp diff erences between the r ea ct ions of animal s andhumans , which became the psycho-phys io logical foundation of a non-a ristote li an sy stemand a theory of sanity. ' 50The ta sk involved years of hard labor in al l Ite tds of science, and especia lly in t he study ofmathematics (which accord ing to Korzybski represents human behavior at its besn, and in the s tudyof 'insanity' (human behavior at it s warsO.5lThe outcome of this work is described by Korzybsld in the Iollowtng passage:

'The result oI this enquiry turned out to be a non-aristotelian system , the first tobe formu lated, as fa r as I know, and the first to express the ve ry scientUic tendencyof our epoch, which produced the non-euclidean and non-newtonian (Einste in 's and thenewer quantum theor lesl systems . I t seems that these th r ee, the non-aris totelian,non-euc l idean. and non-newtonian sy ste ms are as much interwoven and Interdependentas were the co r responding olde r sy ste ms. The ar is totelian and the non-a r istoteliansys te ms a re the more general, the othe rs being only spec ial and technica l consequencesa rising fr om them . '52

C. AN OUTLINE OF GENERAL SEMANTICSKo rz ybski writes:

'In the rough, al l science Is developing in the non-aristotelian direction . . . Ourhuman relations at present are still mosUy based on the aristotelian system. ,53Ther ef or e , in order to build a science of man, Korzybski undertakes in his SCIENCE AND

SANITY a ge ne ral formula tion of the non-a ri stotelian systems now in the process of development,basing himseU on the latest discover ies of sc ience Uncluding mathematics and psychia try) aboutthe s tructu re of the wor ld (our nervous syste ms included) .

General Seman tics54 becomes the modu s ope randi of such a non-aristotel ian sys tem, ' theformulat ion of a new, non-aristotel ian sys te m 01 or ientation which a ffects ever y branch of sc ienceand Ufe '.55 'I t is a new extensional discipline which explains and t ra ins us how to us e our nervoussystems most effic ien tly.'56 fIt r ecognizes neuro -linguistic and neuro -semanttc environments asunavoidable conditioning environmen ts, and considers "mental" illne s s , science and mathematicsas types of human reactions. '57 it 'formulates a new experimental branch of na tural sc ience,unde rlying an empirical theory of HUMAN EVALUATIONS AND ORIENTATIONS (bas ed on theaction and reaction of the human nervous-system-in-an-envlronment) 58; involving definite neuro logical mechanisms , present in al l humans' .59

1. A non-a rts toteUan s ystem, to be of any semantic value at all, mus t be based on, and startwith, the struc tural metaphys ics or structural assumptions as given by the science of our day.The I1rst step in the building of such a system, the refo re, wil l be to study the science of today,including mathematics and psychiatry, and so determine these struct ur al data (and assumptio nswhere data a re lacking).60

2. The non-ar is tote li an system is ba sed on fundamental NEGATIVE premises; namely, thecomp lete den ial of 'identity ' . and the denia l of 'isolation '. 61a . NON-IDENTITY. Identity u.e. 'a bsolute sameness in a ll r espects ') is nowhe reto be found; and i t appears as a structural impossibility in a world of ever -changingprocesses and a human world of indefinitely many orders of abstractions.62 Thus aword IS NOT the object spoken about.63

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b. NON-ISOLATION. According to the modern theory of materials, the mutualinterdependence and Inter re la tion, the mutual action and r eaction of ever ything inthe wor ld upon everything else appears as a s tructural fact and a necessity. Therefore , there is NO such thing as an object in absol ute isolation.64These assertions a re NEGATIVE and EXPERIMENTAL, and CANNOT BE DENIED;moreover , being negative, they are of much se cur ity and give us perhaps the safes t positive knowledge.65 (The negative judgment is the peak of mentality ' , wrote A. N.Whitehead. 66

3. All human statements involve a STRUCTURAL METAPHYSICS. We cannot define al l ourterm s . In General Semantics we sta r t with UNDEFINED TERMS which we deliberately and expli ct tly sta te . We assume the MINlMUM , although no s et of undefined terms ts 'ultimate' . Themost Important undettned term we use Is ORDER un the sense of 'betweenness' ); we also empl oythe terms RELATION and STRUCTURE


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out ', etc . , always leaving out charac ter isUcs77, since our nervous sys tems cannot r egis te r ALL(physical) vibrat ions 78 tnon- al tnes s r. Established by SURVIVAL, and for SURVIVAL, the NATURALORDER of abstracting appears as follows: the OBJECT (with a large , but FINITE number of cha racteristics) represents an abstraction or our nervous system from the EVENT (ever - changingPROCESS with infinite numbers of cha racteristics); the VERBAL level rcresenls a still higherabstraction from the event, (with fewer character istics than the OBJECT). 9 Thus the natura l di rection of the process of abstraction proceeds from lower to higher abstracttcne.Btl The numberof orders of abstractions that a man can produce is , in principle, UNLiMl'IED (mechanism oftime-binding); whe r eas the number of ord ers of abstractions that an animal can produce is LIMITED.81 The differentiation between lower and higher abstractions appears fundamental, althoughthey cannot be comp letely separated.82 'Consciousness ' is thus established as 'consciousness of ab stracting' (exis ting only among humans), Le . 'AWARENESS that In our process of abstracting wehave LEFT OUT characteristics . '83

12. DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES. We start s tructural ly CLOSER TO NATURE 00 theun-speakable levels and MAKE DIFFERENCES FUNDAMENTAL. SIMILARITIES appear only asa resu lt of the action of our nervous system, which cannot r egi s ter absolute diffe rences . ' intelligence ' of any kind is connected with ABSTRACTING fnon-allnes s ), a characte ristic of all protoplasmic response. In a world of only absolute differences without s imilar it ies , recognition, andtherefore, 'mtetugence' would be impossible . SIMlLARITIES are thus structurally less fundamen ta l than DIFFERENCES, but no less impor tant.84

13. m TENSIONAL orientations are based on 'a priori ' verbal definitions, associations Idle cove rable by ' logica l ' analysis ) , etc. , largely dis regarding empirical observatio ns . EXTENSIONALor ientations (employed in modern mathematics , physics , etc.t are based on or der ing observations,investigations, etc., FmST, and verbalization af terward . The EXTENSIONA L method is the onlyone which Is in accordance with the structure of our nervous system as established by survival;whil e the intensional method involves the reversal of the natur al order, and therefore mus t leadto pathologicai semanUc re actions and non-survival.8514. The SEMANTIC REACTIONS of the organism-as-a-whole can be described as


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The field covered by Korzybski 's non-a r is toteli an r evision Is neces sarily very wide andsome of it s consequences are unexpe cted. To mention a few of those a lready observed:91 (I)the formulation of the non- aristotelian system supp lies the sc ienti s ts as well as the laymenwith 'a general mode rn method of orientation, which eliminate s the older psycho-logical blockages and r eveals the mechanism of adjustmenl' ;92 (2) phys icians and psyc biatrists a re given adefinit e PSYCHOPHYSIOLOOICAL mechanism, and cease di s regarding each othe r 's wor k;93(3) a physiologica l foundation for "mental' hygiene is formulated, "which turns out to be a mostgeneral PREVENTIVE psychophysiological expe rimental method' ;94 (4) on the above groundsit points out the 'childhood of humanity' indicated by the INFANTILISM in our present pr ivate,public , and international s ituations ;95 (5) the MULTIORDINALITY of our most important termsis discovered , thus r emoving ps ycho-logical blockages and es tabli shing a basis for ag reement;96(6) i t es tabl1shes STRUCTURE as ' the only possible conte nt of knowledge';97 (7) our language,and our socia l institutions dependent on it , a re r evised through non-aristotelian ori entations andbrought to the Level where they can follow the advances of, and co-ordinate thei r activities with,the natural sc iences ; (8) the results of science become available for the benefit of al l mankindfor 'constructive ' purposes; (9) definite methods are ~ o v i d e for the non-ari stotelian trainingof children and adults for gene ral sanity and s urvival . 8 This last point is of huge importance,because , to quote Korzybskt:' (1) The majority of avoidable human pr ivat e, social, economic, national, internat ional , and even sc ientific difficulties depend on the misuse of the human nervoussys tem, (2) All exis ting home , school and univer sity educa tions involve thos e patho

logical factors , and so we ACTUALLY train our children toward the r elevant andgene ral un_san ity,' 99For sanity and surv ival i t is es senti a l to do mainly two things. First , to r evise the languageof daily us e in order tha t its s tructure may be similar to the structure of the world as we know i ttoday through s cience; and second, to tra in children and adults in the CONSCIOUSNESS of abstracting, involving the avoidance of identification and confusion of orders of abs t ractions.100The EXPERIMENTAL value of the system (on which KorzybskJ tnsts ts I is demonstrat ed inthe proceed ings of the two American Congresses on General Semantics held already. Hundredsof reports presented indicate the vast applicabtlity of the theory in Wdely sepa rated fields, andespec La lly in ps ychiatry and education.101With this short


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PART TWOA NON-ARISTOTELIAN STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY

Chapter i l l . ARISTOTELIAN ORIENTATIONSA. INTRODUCTORY

Alfred Korzybsk i writes:tBoth the aris totelian and the non-arfstoteltan sy stems affect our lives deeply, becauseof psycho-logica l factors and the immediacy of their application. Each is the expression

of the psycho-logical tendencies of its period. '102FOLLOWING the s hor t outl ine of General Semantics presented in Chap ter II , we begin thi spart by s tating a fundamental r equiremen t for our subject: for sanit y, any sys tem or language, tobe of maximum usefulnes s, s hould in s tructu re be s imiliar to the s tructur e of the empir ica l wor ldttncludfng our nervous sys tem) as we know i t today. L03Korzybski undertakes to prove in SCIENCE AND SANITY that' . . . the ar istotel ian system and language which we inhe rited from our primitive ancestorsDIFFER ENTIRELY IN STRUCTURE from the well-known and established s t ructureof the world (todayL'104The language of daily us e gives us a form of repres en tat ion of great ant iquity , and s cientis tsdi scovered long ago that i t is of little value in sc ience."roo little do we realize what a hindrance a language of antiquated s tr uctur e is .Such a language does not help, but actual ly prevents, correct analysis th rough thesemanti c habits and s tructura l lmpUca tions embodied in It .'lOS

Before beginning our study, however, it is important to observe the Icltowtng r emarks ofBertrand Russell:'Every lan guage has, as Mr. Wittgenstein says , a s t r ucture concerning which , INTHE LANGUAGE, nothing can be said, but that there may be another language deal ing with the s tructure of the fi rst language, and having its eU a new str uctur e, andthat to thi s hierarchy of languages the re may be no li mil. ' 106

As i t appears impos sible to ana lyse th e structur e of our dally language by using the sa melanguage of aristotelian s tructure,107 Korzybski has formulated a non-aristotel ian sys tem in orderto examine profitably the aristote lian sys tem.B. LINGUISTIC STRUCTURES

Our prob lem is to determine whether th e stru ctu re of our a r is to te lian language is s imil arto the s tr uctu re of the world as revealed to us by t he s cience of our day.The ma in s emantic factors that we tind in the aristo te lian system and in need of re visionare, acco rding to Korzybski, the subject-predicate fo rm, the ' is ' of identity , and the elem entalIettc s tr uctures. These are found to beI , , the foundation of the insuffiCiency of th is system and represent the mech an ismof semantic disturbances, making genera l adjustment and sanity impossible / l OaThes e doct rines, according to Korzybski,' . . . have come down to us , and through the mechanism of language the s emanticdi stu rbing fac tors are for ced upon our children. A whole procedure of training indetustonal va lues was thus s ta r ted for futur e ge neraUons.' 109Our primi tive ancesto rs PROJECTED their own 'fee lings' into the outs ide world and identi fied them with tbe outs tde events , mos t of which were personified (anth ropomorphism). In dealingwith particular OBJECTS they had to invent na mes for them, or 'subs tantiv es' . Even such 'teennga'

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as 'color', 'heat ', 'sou!', etc ., which actually were not 'substantives' became 'substantives'. grammatically speaking. As the s tatements of our primitive ance sto rs involved some kind of s t r uctural metaphysi cs (however simple) , it is those 'feelings ' and savage speculations which formedthe bas is oC'this most important tool of da ily use' - language. And 'once the language was buill,and, particula rly, systema tized/ says Korzybski,

'these primitive s tr uctural me taphysics and semanti c reactions had to be proje ctedor reflected on th e outs ide worl d - a procedure which bec ame habitual and automat ic. '1101. THE SUBJECT-PREDICATE FORM. According to A. N. Whit ehead,

' . , the subject-predicate habits of thought . . . had been imp ressed on the Europeanmind by the ove remphasis on Aristotle' s logic during the long mediaeval per iod . ' l l lAccord ing to Korzybski , a fundamental structu ra l defect and insufficiency of the a r istoteliansy stem was that ' it had no p lace for "retanon", since it assumed that everything could be expressedin a s ubject-p redicate form' .112 In a system without RELATIONS we are depr ived of one of themost important structura l means for representing the world and ourselves.The sub\ect-predtcate farm - 'a trap set for philosophers by the syntax of language' as White

head calls i t l 3_ is perhaps adequate in expressing symmetr ical r elations (such as equal, s imilar ,dissimilar , etc .) in te r ms of a common 'property'; but it fai ls to exp ress adequately asymme t r icalr e lations (such as before , alter , greater. more, above , part , etc .t which ar e the mos t importantr elations we employ (ORDER being fundamentaU.114 Moreover, we cannot account adequa te ly forasymmetr ical relations in term s of 'p roperties ' because, genera lly , only th e difference in th emagn itude DCthe 'p roperty' is stated, without designating the greater. U, for examp le , A is grea te rthan B (asymmetrical) , and we mere ly state that they are unequal tsymmetr-lcau , we do (not gi vean adequate ac count of the struc tural facta at hand' , since we imply the possibil ity thaL B is grea terthan A, 'which is false to facts , .U5To il lustrate the above, we will mention an example gtven by Korzybski: The rela tion between'observer ' and 'obser ved' is obviously asymmetrical. This re la tion, however. is inadequately expressed by the subject-predicate form in such a sentence as 'The leaf appea rs green to me. ' Beingexp ressed as a symmetrica l relation i t implies the possibil ity that '1 appear green to the lea f. 'which is ce r ta inly 'Iatse to facts ' , since i t disregards ORDER.1l6Concerning the s ubject-predicate form Bertrand Russell writes :'The belief or unconscious eo nvtctjon that all propositions are of the subject-p redica te

form - in other words : that every fact consists in some thing having some quality -has r endered most philosophers incapable of gfvtng any account of the world of sc ienceand dal ly li fe. ,117Finally, to quote A. N. Whitehead again:

'All modern philosophy hinges around the difficulty of describing the world in termsof subject and pre dicate , substance and quality, particular and untve raal . The r es ul talways does violence to that immedia te experience which we express in our ac tions,our hopes, our aympathies, our purposes, and which we en joy in spite of ou r lack ofphrases for its ve rba l analysis . ' 1182. THE ' IS' OF IDENTITY. To quote Augustus de Morgan:'The comple te attempt to deal with the term IS would go to th e form and matter

of everything in EXISTENCE, at least , i t not to the possible form and matter of a llthat does not exist, but m ight.'U9We have already s tated Korzybskt's principle of NON- IDENTITY; every asse r ti on of identityis false-t.o-facts.120 Consequen tly, he emphasizes tha t the ' is' of identi ty mus t be ent ire ly abandoned.12lAccord ing to Korzybski , through the ' is ' of identity we unconsciously identify diff er ent or dersof abs t ractions. lin obvious contradiction to empir ical facts ' .122 and this leads us inevitably Into

(semantic distur bances of wrong evaluation' and 'p athological r esutts',123

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For instance, as an answer to the quest ion, 'What IS an object? ' we can only say , IAn obje ctIS an objec t ' - a s tatement which obviously tel ls us nothing. However , the question it self involvesthe identity of the objeclive (un-speakable) level with words , 'whtcb once stated , becomes obviouslyfal se - lo-facts , '124 tor what ever we may SAY an object 'IS ' , IT IS NOT; ' the s ta tement is verbal ,and the facts are not . '125 Also, in using the 'i s' of identity in defin it ions or cjasstncauone, suchas ' john Smith IS a man' we express the IDENTITY of a proper name flower order abstraction)with a cla ss name


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medicine, interested in the 'body' (somal , and psychiatry, Interested in the 'soul' t' psyc he 'j . ' Thenet result, ' he writes, 'was that general medicine was a glorllied form of vete rinary science,while psychiatry remained metaphysical. ' Only a few years ago was PSYCHOSOMATIC medicineformulated.H I

Moreover , it is imperative to note tha t the organism is not found to be isolated from the enV ronment; a fundamental relationship exi ts between the two.142 To use the words of Charles M.ChUd'

'The organism is inexplicable without environment. Eve ry characteristi c of ithas so me re lation to environmenta l facto rs. And particularly the organism as awhole, t. e., the unit y and order. the phys iological dUferences , r elations and har monies between its par ts, are entire ly meaningless except in r elation to an exte rnal world . '143Thus i t is a fal lacy to separate the 'observer' from the 'observed' . 'All that man can knowis a joint phenomenon of the observer and the observed. ' 1442. SPACE-TIME. Until the beginning of this century, ' space ' and 'time ' were considered asseparate entities . It was Einstein who realized that:' . . . the empirical structure of "space" and "ttme" with which the physicist and theaverage man deals is such that i t cannot be empirically divided, and that we actuallydeal with a blend which we have spli t only elementalisUcally and verbally Into thesefictiUous enti ties. -145Wit h the help of the mathematician Minkowski, he fo rmula ted a system closer in s tructureto the fa cts of exper ience which employed A NON - ELEMENTALISTIC LANGUAGE of SPACE

TIME.To quote H. Minkowskl:'Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mereshadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent r eality. '146

With the introduction of the fourth dimension as inseparable from the spatial dimensions con siderable dogmatism is exploded. 'Eternal verities' become valid only at a certain DATE; otherwise they remain meaningless noises , as the individual who utters them is never Identical withhimseU. l47

3. 'MATTER ' , 'SPACE ' , 'TIME'. Until recently the tre nd had been to treat each of th es eterms (of gre at antiquity) as a separate ' entity' , generally DISREGARDING THE OTHER TWO.For instance, 'matter' was t reated as 'something', regardless of it s pos ition or date. Thi s wasto a large extent due to the identification of the macroscopic object with the sub-mic ro scopicprocess tevenn , caused by the disregard of space-time.148'Space' another of those 'substantives' which has probably come down to us fro m ape -likeances to rs149, was treated as 'absolute emptiness' or 'absolute noth ingness' , thus disregarding'matter' and 'Ume'.150 To use the words of H. Poincare, 'Space is only a word that we havebelieved a thing.'151 The noUon of 'walls' around 'space ' soon arose among the primitives , with

endless discussions throughout history concerning what there is supposed to be beyond the 'walls',leading to the notion of the'supernatural' to account for such 'nature against human nature'.152The notion of 'ttme '


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We r ecal l Descartes ' definition of I substance' as something r equiring nothing bulilsell in orderto exist' .156 The notion of ' substance' (so important in the histor y of moder n philosophy) hasbeen abandoned in modern phys ics, because i t la rgely disregarded the fourth dimension ; It stoodfor 'pe rs istence through time' . Moreover. i t has now become familiar that:' . . the theory or relativity and the Hetsenberg-Schrodtnger theories of atomics t ruc ture have reduced "matter" to a system o! events, each of which lasts only[or a very shart time .'157

and is necessarily connected with other events . Considering the differentiation of levels of abs traction, we may say that 'substance ' on the macroscopic level is nothing but ' Invarfance offunction ' on the sub-mtcroacoptc level. I 5S

5. GENERAL REMARKS. A. N. Whitehead in one of his Gifford lectu res (1928) raised 'aprotest again st the "bifurcation" of nature . . . fatal to a sati sfactory cosmology' .159

The elementallstic structural charact er istics or our language which we outli ned in the foregoing paragraphs appear to be firm ly rooted in our semantic r ea ctions through the training in thear istotelian system.'They result and lead to identifications and to blinding semantic disturbances,which, in turn , prevent clear vision and unbia sed creative Creedoro.160lUhis training) . . . built for US a FICTITIOUS AND ISTIC WORLD not muchmore advanced than that of the pr imitives, a wor ld in which unde r present con

ditions an opti mum adjustment is in principle impossible/1 6iSome of the non-elementaltsttc st ruc tur es were unders tood and emphasized in the past , butthey were never applied . Once they ARE APPLIED, then we have to build a NEW LANGUAGE,'of diffe rent s tructure and, THEREFORE, NEW IMPLICATIONS, which s uggest a long ser ie s o!new experiments '.162For example , in applying the non-etementalts tt c princ iple , any human 'psychology ' mustbecome PSYCHO-LOGICS. The ter-m'psyebotogy' , or ' theory of the mind ' , is elementalis tic,

treating the 'mind' as a separate 'enti ty ' . Korzybsk i suggests that the term ' psychology' can beretained las applying to antmal r es earches only' .163 Among the other non-elementaltst tc termsthat he introduces are 'semantic reactions' , 'psychosomatic integrat ion' , 'orders of abstraction',etc ., that DO NOT SPLIT the organism-as-a-whole on the verbal level.

As 'i t is dillicult to r epres s irrelevant ideas ' - to us e the words of Sir Arthur Eddington164 -Korzybski s uggests thal the terms ' matter ', 's ubstance', ' space' , and 'time ' 'should be completelyeli minated fr om science' J and, instead, we shou.ld us e the term s 'events ' , "s pace- rime", 'mate ri al ' ,'p lenum' 'Iulness" 'spr eads' 'Urnes ' et c 165, , ' -"

Finally , as Korzybski points out , the introduction o! str uctu rally important new terms mightaffect the whole structure of the language in the given field and l ead to its r -e-pcstulatfon. And,by psycho-logical necessity , 'All our human institutions follow the structure of the languageused , .166D. ARISTOTELIAN 'LOGIC'

The traditional ar istotelian 'logic ' , defined as the 'science of the laws of thought", did Dot ,according to Korzybsk l , include 'ALL forms of human bebavto'r connected directly with mentation'.I t especial ly disr egarded the st udy ot Our mentations whe nwe use our ' mind ' at its worst r'insane' ,'mentally' ut, etc .), and at Us best (as in science, mathematics, ete. r.

'What has passed under the name of "togte" . , . is not logic" according to its owndeOnltion, but r epresents a philosophical grammar of a pr imitive- made l n g u aof a s tr uctur e diCferent fr om the st ructure of the wor ld, unfit for se r i ous use .J 671. The 'LAWS OF THOUGHT'. Korzybsk i emphasizes the fact that the traditional aristotelian' log ic ' was essential ly TWO-VALUED and was based on IDENTITY. As an example , he Irequentlycues the famous ' laws of thought' .168

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'a . The law or identity: whatever is , is ; or, A is A.' b. The law of contradiction: nothing can both be and not be; or, A is not not-A.' c. The law oC the excluded middle : everything must either be or not bej or, everything is either A or not-A.'The 'Is' of identity (which Korzybsk i entire ly abandons) plays a fundamental role in thesethree interconnected laws.l69 Having re jec ted identity al together , Korzybsld finds the law ofidentity fa lse to fac ts, neve r appli cable to dynamic processes.l 70

'In an ac t ua l world of Cour -dimensional processes and the indefinitely many"aspects" manufactured by ourse lves, adjustment in principle is impossible, or,at bes t, on ly accidenta l, i f we retain "identity" .'171

Moreover, the notion 'A thing is what i t is ' r e sts on the assumption that the world is made up ofs ta tic , independent. iso la ted object s - which does not happen to be the case. 172The second and third 'laws of thought ' give tile TWO-VALUED, ' either -or ' character toar is tote li an 'logic'. They es tabltsh 'as a general principle, what rep resent s only a limiting caseand so , AS A GENERAL PRINCIPLE, mus t be unsatisCactory !1732. The TWO-VALUED 'LOGIC'. According to KorzybsJd, the primitives


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It is in teresting to notice that one of the many fa llac ie s crea.ted by the two-valu ed 'c ausality'is, to adapt the words of H. S. Jennings, that 'of attributing to one cause what may be due to manycauses'. HI64. GENERAL REMARKS. Korzybski has undertaken Ito formulate a non -a r istote lian, infinitevalued, NON-ELEMENTALISTIC semantics s tructurally simila r to the world and our nervous

system.On the objective , un -speakable levels we deal exclusively with absolute tnon- tdentt can individuals and individual situations . All statements, however, necessarily represent mGHER orde r ab

s t rac tions. t. e ., we speak in more or less general terms, and , consequently. they r epresent onlyPROBABLE sta tements (in dif ferent degrees of probability). 'Thus, we are led to infinite-valueds emantics of probability, which Introduces and inhe ren t and general pr inc iple of unce rtainty ' in a ll sta tement5 .187To conclude, Korzybski observes that in a non-ar istote lian system. the older ELEMENTALISTIC'PSYCHOLOGIES' AND 'LOGICS' must be t r ansformed into unified NON-ELEMENTALlSTIC PSYCRO-LOGICS and GENERAL SEMANTICS, 'poss ible only alte r studying all forms of human behavior ,mathemati cs Included", and which 'when generalized become an entirely general discipline appli

cable to aU IUe, as well as to GENERALIZED mathematics' .1 88 Once we realize that our ar istotelian two- or few-valued 'logic' is applicable only to particular instances , but not to others, thenman y of our difficulties and problems disappear.

E. INTENSIONAL AND EXTENSIONAL ORIENTATIONSThe problem of INTENSION and EXTENSION, a ccording to Korzybsk i , in many ways summarizes the fundamenta l differences between the aristotelian a nd the non-aristotelian syste ms. Thedifference between intension and extension had been r ecognized Ir om the time of Aristotl e and hisfollowers but they never APPLIED it to 'human LIVING REACTIONS as LIVING REACTIONS,which ca n be predominantly intens ional or predomlnanUy extens ional' .189Korzybsk i illustrates the difference between thes e two types of or ientatio n by giving examplesof 'deftrrtttona ' :A 'defini ti on' by INTENSION is given in te rms of ar istote lia n 'properties' . For example , wemay verbally 'deflne ' 'man' as a 'r a tional a nimal ' , or - to use an expressio n by the poet Dryden

as an ' unreathered two-legged thing' , etc . , 'which EVENTUALLY might apply to EVERYBODY andCOVERS NOBODY ' ,190 Actually i t makes no difference which of lhese 'definitions ' we may choose.becaus e 'no listing of "propert ies " could possibly cover "aU" lhe characterist ics of Smtthj , Smith2 ,et c ., and their inter- re laUons, .191 By intension, or me re verbalism, 'we have on ly ONE "'man" ' ,while the world is made up of many absolute indiv iduals; and so our STANDARD INTENSIONALLANGUAGE FALSIFIES FACTS.'192

By EXTENSION we 'define' man' by exhibiting a class of individuals composed oi Smttb j ,Smlth2, Smilh3, etc., thus us ing a language of a structure similar to the structure of the world. 193We hav e already mentioned the natural survival order followed by lhe nerv ous impulses:' In neurological term s , the nervous impulses should be received first in the lowercente rs and pas s on through the sub-cortical layers to the cortex, be influencedthere and be t ransfo rmed in the co rtex by the effect of past expe riences. In thistransfor med state the y should then proceed to different destinations , as predeter-mined by the st ructure established by survival values.'J94Thus, EXTENSION, by s ta rt ing with absolute individuals, is in conformity with the propers urvival orde r.' Extension r ecognizes the uniqueness, with corresponding one-value, of the ind i-vidual by giving each individual a unique nam e, and so makes confusion imposs ible . '195

INTENSION, on the othe r hand, r epres ents the reve rsal of the su rvival order:t i t sta rts with undifferentiated infinite-va lued higher abstractions and di s tortsor dis regards the essential one -values of the individuals and reads into them asUNIQUELY important, undillerenUated infin ite-valued characteristics. 196

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Therefore, Kor zybsk i concludes:tThe extensional method is the only method which is in accordance with the s tructu reof our nervous system as established by survival. Reve rsed intensional methodsdisorganize this normal mode of activity of the nervous system, and so lead towardnervous and "menta!" illnesses .'197To illustrate the above conclusions , Korzybskl demonstrates that the progress of modernMATHEMATICS and mathematical 'logic' has been possible because ot the us e of the EXTEN

SIONAL method,f which starts with unique individuals, labels them by unique names and only then generalizes or passes to infinite-valued higher order abstractions like "numbers", etc.' 198We have mentioned before that chronologically (in the evolution of the human r ace and Ianguage), life facts came first and labels (words) next In importance. Korzybski points out that

today, Irom childhood, 'under the spell of intensional and ignorant "ph ilosophe rs " " we teachwords and language first, presenting the facts next in va lue .

'The existing sys tems and educational methods ar e , . . largely following the r eversal of the s urv ival order of our ne r vous processes, , . unaware of the heavyneurological consequences. '1 99F . GENERAL CRITICISM

In this section we will note some of the general consequences ar ising fr om our living by , andtraining In, the artstctehan system. Korzybski says:

'I f we use languages of a structure non-similar to the worl d and our nervous system.our ve rbal predictions are not verified empirically, we cannot be "rattonal" or adjusted,et c . We would have to copy the animals in their wasteful and painful "trial and error"performances, as we have done all through human history. In science we would behandicapped by semantic blockages, lack of creativeness, la ck of understanding, lackof vision, dis tu rbed by inconsistencies, paradoxes , etc. J20G1. ON 'COPYING' ANIMALS. With the formulation of the theory of TIME-BINDING and the

elaboration of the mechanism of time-binding, Korzybski has established a SHARP DIFFERENCEbetween the nervous r eactions of animal and man.201 With th is observation as a c riterion, Korzybsk i has demons trated that 'near ly all of us , even now, COpy anima ls in our ne rvous .r esponses ,.20The reason fo r this is tha t 'copying' of paren ts u.e., 'reproducing afte r a moden, in many r espects'began long be fore the appea rance of man, who has na turally cont tnued this pract ice until the presen t day' .203 Thus , a grea t part of our se mantic reac tions appears to be (intimately connectedwith reactions of a pre -h uman s tage, transmuted fr om genera tion to genera tion'. The mos l lmporta nt fo rm that our copying of animals takes is r epres ented, acco rding to Korzybsk1, by

' . . . the copying of the comparative unconditionality of their cond itional r-eftexes, orlowe r condtttonaltty; the animalistic identification or confusion of orde rs of abs tractions ,and the lack of Consc iousness of abstracting , which. while natu ra l, normal, and necessary with animals, becomes a source of endless semantic di sturbances fo r humans.'204It is lhis 'copying' of animals in our nervous responses which , according to Korzybski. leads

to 't he general state of un-santty reflected in our private and public lives, institutions, and systems '.205

2. ARISTOTE LIAN STRUCTURES. We have noted how the aristotelian system was strictlyinterconnected with 'p rimitive-made structural assumptions or metaphysics'. Lately, i t was necessary fo r every science to depart 'structurally and semantically ' from arlstotelianism and buildits own language. This fact , acco rding to Korzybski, ' completely condemns the a ristotelian lan-guage, which, i t is shocking to notice, we continue to preserve in our daily life' .206

For example , the existing 'logics' and 'psychologies' are, in gene ra l, 's tructu ra ll y misl eading', s ince they r emain elementalistic in nature, and aristote lian or even pre-aristotelian. Thes every condi tions , according to Ko rz ybski,

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' . . . necess itate the e limination of them , as wel l as other dep endent disciplines. toprevent their being accepted as s tructura lly fundamental .'207In the aris tote lian sy stem, language, and 'psychology', for instance , i t was assumed that the ve locity of ne rvous impulses was infinite . t .e . , s pread ' instantaneous ly ' ('in no time ' , to use an expression from ALICE [N WONDERLAND). Thus we hav e had pe rplexing philosophica l problemsand arguments conce rning 'emotions', ' inte llect ', etc . which were taken as independen t, separate'enu t tes". In introducing explicitly the Unite ve locity of ne rvous impu ls es H20 meters per second,on the average, in the human nervous sy stem) , we are able , Korzybskl says, 't o rea ch a perfect lyclear under standing, IN TERMS OF ORDER, of the spre ad of impulses' . Here we r eal ize thes tructura l importance of ORDER. 'Some W in ite veloci ty" doe s not involve ORDER. Conve rsely,by conside ring the order of eve nts, we in troduce Unite velocities . '208

3. IDENTIFICATION. At this point it seems importan t to note the following fundamental observation made by Korzybskl:' (today) i t s eems, beyond doubt, that IF any s tngle SEMANTIC characteristiccould be selected to account for the primitive s tate of the individua ls and their

SOCieties , we could say, without making too gr eat a mistake, tha t it would be foundin IDENTIFICATION , understood in the more general sens e as It 15 used In thepr es ent work (identificat ion of different levels of abstractions). ' 209We have seen tha t the LOWER ORDER ABSTRACTIONS are supplied by the lowe r nervece nters . They are DYNAMIC, 'continuous', non-per manent, non-stable , s hlfti ng, changing, unre

liable, and above al l un-speakabl e. Moreover , 'they have a charac te r of immediacy, because,structu ra lly in terms of orde r, th ey a re clos est to outs ide even ts'. 210 The HIGHER ORDER ABSTRACTIONS, on the othe r hand, are pr oduct s of the funct ioning of the higher nerve cente rs , 'furthe r removed fr om the externa l events and lacking, therefore , in immediacy' . Thes e higher abs tracUons are STATIC , 'pe r manent ', and so may be analyzed . ' They a re , i f proper ly t reated,r el iab le and a re uniquely r espons ible for our being lime-b inders . '211By 'the s tr uctura l necessity of our nervous sys tem' , the NATURAL ORDER, established bys urvival, appears to be lower order abstractroas fi rst , and higher next. We must note that NOONE CAN AVOID THIS ('unless he is depr ived or the higher nerv e centers'). According to Kor zyb

ski, 'the lack oCtheories (of the proper funct ioning of our nervous sy stem) . . . leads to, and mustr es ult in, identification o r confus ion of orde rs oCabst ractions . ' We have the tendency ot ascribingthe cha racte ristics of t he higher order abst rac tions to the lower , as , for example, permanence ,immutability, et c. Th is usually results in semantic di sturbances suc h as fanatacism , absolutism,dogm at ism, Unalism , et c . , which 'oft en become morbid semantic s ta te s ' . Similarly, the ascribingof the character istics of the lower order abstract ions to the higher , s uch as fluidity, shUtiness ,non-permanence, 'non-knowabtttty", erc ., usually r esults in such vicious semantic disturbancesas pessimism, cynicism , dis r egard for scie nce , bitterness , fr ight , hopeles snes s, mysti cism , et c.And we must not forget that ' these in lurn affect by s tructura l nec essity the proper working ofthe enUre organ ism. which always works as-a-whole' ,212

Korzybski poin ts out that it is pra ctically impossible to avoid identification under the ar fstoteuan s ys tem; a s the tat ter is bas ed on 'identtty ' and s ymmet rical r elations . IdenUficatlon in-volves a 'seman tic proc es s of wrong evaluation'. In orde r to follow the 'na tural orde r of evaluation ' , we must abandon identificatlon .213 To this effect, a special tra in ing in the CONSCIOUSNESSOF ABSTRACTING is requtred . Korz ybsk i has outl ined a definite technique , on the basis oCwhichextremely encourag ing experiments have already been co nducted. 214'I. . CONCLUDING REMARKS. The a ristote lian and other r e lated systems were bullt beforemany of the above [acts became structura lly known. Moreover, according to Korzybski. thes eolder sys tems were 'actua.lly based on s uch confus ion' which they 'perpetuated and made effectiveMECHANICALLY th rough the s t ructure of language' .2l 5A. N. wbttehead has sa id that ' Eve ry science devises it s own instrumen ts. The tool required

Cor philosophy is language . '216 However , i f t he language which we employ in phi los ophy is roundto have a structure non- similar to the s tructure of the world and of our nervous s ys tem, then thi slanguage, to use Korzybski 's words , 'is wor se than us eless , as i t misinforms and leads a stray ' .217

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Finally, Korzybski has demonst rated that the structu re of our aristotelian language has beenautomatical ly and necessarily reflected in our doctrines , creeds, habits, s emantic reactions, aswell as in all our institutions based on this language. These, in tu rn, (shape furt her seman tic re-ac tions and , as long as they last , control our desttntes' .218In the following chapter we will illust rat e our cr iti cism of the aristotelian system by s tudying a few of the traditional 'philosophical themes ' on the basts of the new non-aristotelian system

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Chapter IV. PHILOSOPHICAL THEMESA. INTRODUCTORY

WITH OUR criticism of aris totelian orien tations as a basi s , we will now proceed to studya few philosophicallhemes. Th roughout the present chapter we wil l roughly fol low the outlineof G. T . W. Pa trick 's INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHy.2I9In dea ling with the 'Cosmological' enquir ies , we will limi t our study to the problem of'Mechani sm and Teleology'. As for the enquirie s conce r ning the Universe, et c. , the reader is

r eferred to Korzybs kl's dtsousston on the 'world' of Minkowski , the Einste in theory, et c., inPar t IX orhi s SCIENCE AND SANITY.We will have nothtng to say about the so-ca tted 'ontological' enquiries. An exce llent summa r y of the recent discoveri es on the s tructure of 'matt er ' will be found i n Par t X of SCIENCEAND SANITY. Here we simply need to point out that both 'mater ialism' and 'idealism' representELEMENTALISTIC attitudes . 220 Bertrand Russell bel ieves that between tmind' and 'ma tt er '

'there is not a shar p line , but a difference of degree'.221 In fact. the t wo term s s plit ve rballywhat cannot be spli t empi rically.In the so-ca ll ed 'Philosophy of Mind ' it will be necessary to examine the 'Body- mind' problem , as wel l as the probl em of 'Deter minism and Indetermini sm ' .We will then proceed to the problems of Epistemology, which we wil l deal with in greater

detail, cons ide r ing their i mportance in the histo ry of modern philosophy.B. MECRANISM AND TELEOLOGY

We wil l not at tempt to recount the va rious a rguments r egarding the problem of ' mechanismand teleology', as they may be found in any s tandard textbook in philosophy.222Korzybsk i dismis s es ' te leology' by describing i t a s one of those phHosop hies which 'c lear lydisplay (such) infantile characterist ics ' as s e tnsbness, might. bru ta l competition, acquis itiveness,etc., and which belong to an infanti le leve l in our civilization.223 Her e our knowledge from psy chia try becomes useful. It appears that the notion of ' purpose in nature ' r epresents a PROJECTIONof our own feelings, moods, desires , e lc., on the outside world. 224 In such a case , therefo re, ' teleology' would repre sent - to use an exp ression by Korzybsk i - a 'meaningless noise '. And weknow that :" . . arguments about the "truth" o.r "Ialsehood" of statements conta ining noises ar euseless , as the te r ms "t r-uth" or "falsehood" do not apply to them . . . In cases wherewe make noises, and treat them as words, and this fa ct is exposed, the n the "p roblems"are cor rec tly r ecognized at once as ....no-problems", and such solutions r emain valid,' 225

In general, a rguments for 'teleology' may be said to involve the identifica tion of what BertrandRussel l ca ll s ' the philosophy of nature ' with the 'ph llcaophy of value ' . To use Russell ' s own words :'Nothing but harm can come of confusing them. '" In the philosophy of nat ur e , weare subordinated to natu re , the outcome of natural Jaws , a nd the ir vic tims in th elong run . . . . Vitalism as a phtlosop hy, and evolutionism, s how, In thIs respect, alack of sense of proportion and logica l r elevance . . . . But in the philosophy ofvalue . we are ourselves the ultimate and Ir refutable arbit ers of value, and inthe world of va lue Nature is only a pa rt . . . . It Is we who create value and ourdes ir es which confer value. '226Moreover , it appears to us that ' teleology' itseU is notht ng but a {mechanis tic' doctrtne. Inthis resp ect, i t w11l be in teresting to recall the remarks of Oswald Spengler:' TELEOLOGY, that nonsense of al l nonsenses within s cience, is a mis directedat tempt to deal MECHANICALLY with the LlVlNG content of sc ientiJic knowledge(for knowledge implies someone to know. and though the substance of thought maybe Nature" the ACT of thought is history) , and so with li fe ttseu as an invertedca usa li ty. Teleology is a caricature of the Destiny-idea . . . . ,227

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We must never forget that once WE establish ce rtain principles, or postulates (such as 'purposein nature') , then in our behavior (religion included), as Cassius J, Keys er has well put it ,

, . . , the die is cas t - all els e follows wit h a necessity, a compulsion, an inev ita-bil ity that are absolute - we are at once s ubject to a destiny of consequenceswhich no man nor any he ro nor Zeus nor Yahweh nor any god can halt, annul, orcircumvent. '228The age -o ld problem as to 'whether or not the " mechanistic" point of view of the world andourselves is legitimate, or adequate ' is, as we have already pointed out above, an example of

'identification of dillerent levels of abstractions ' . Korzybski points out that thr oughout historythe term ' mechanist ic' has been identIfied with 'machinlstlc ',229 As an example of this identificat ion, we will quote W. K, Wright:' In this connection, s ome te leo logists ca ll attention to the fact that the very word"mecbantcal" etymologically r elated as it is to "machine" implies a tool manufacturedfor a practical purpose . The mechanical methods of explanation used in the s ciencesa re s imply a rtificial dev ices - too ls or machines as it were - invented by man toca r r y out his purposes. In othe r words , mechanis m itself , 1n the v1ew of some philosophical teteologtsts , Is a teleolog1cal device,' 230

Korzybski, however , emphasizes the fundamenta l dUferences between 'mechantst tc' und 'machtntsuc'Roughly, mechanics Is a name for a sctence which deals with dynamic mani

festat ions on al l levels (of abs t ractions) j thus , we have macroscopic class icalmechanics , colloidal mechanics now being formulated, and the sub- microscop icquantum mec hanics already being well-developed disciplines. In the r ough,"machine" 1s a labe l appUed to a man-made apparatus fo r the application ortrans tormat ton of power. '231The machinistic point of view of the world and ourse lves appears unjustified and grosslyinadequate, and should be enti re ly abandoned . We mus t retain , however , the mechanistic point ofView, 'understood in it s modern sense and including the quantum mechanics point of view, whichis entirely STRUCTURAL' . Today we know positively that the gross mac roscopic characteris ti cswith which we a re dealing in everyday Ufe depend on the sub- mic roscopic STRUCTURE; and aswe know that STRUCTURE is the only pos sible content of 'knowledge" the above pr inciple, ac cording to Kor zybski , becomes ' irreversibly establis hed' ,'We may go further and say that the quantum mechanics point of view becomes thefirst structurally correct point of view and, as SUCh , should be accepted fully inany sane or ienta tlon. '232Once we s top identifying dillerent levels of abs tractions, then the 'p roblem' ceases to be one .

C. THE 'BODY-MIND' PROBLEM'The mind-body problem', Pat rick reminds us, ' Is almost as old as the histo ry of phllosophy.'233 P lato began, in the 'Doctrine or Ideas ' , to spli t human beings Into 'body' AND 'mind'; andsince the ti me of Des car tes, the pro blem . . . has caused great anguish among both philosophers and psychologists and isone of the "seven world - riddles ", which have been said to be incapable of solution . '234We have repeatedly emphas ized above the fac t that the organism works as-a -whole. Mor eover , the structur e or our nervous sys tem appea rs to be in ORDERED LEVELS, and 'a ll levelsgo through the process of abst racting trom other levels '. PRACTICALLY, 'abstracUons of lowerorder ' may be said to cor respond roughly to ' senses', or immediate ' feelings' , Le., 'body'; and'abs tractions of higher order ' may be said to correspond roughly to 'mind' and 'mental' proc

esses . It should be understood, however , tha t by implicat ion NEITHER EXPRESSION ELIMINATES THE OTHER .235 To use the words of C. Judson Herrick, ' mind' and 'body' 'form anorgani c unity ',236 The elementaUstic attitude, the refore , of spli tti ng VERBALLY 'mind ' AND'body' does Dot cor-respondent to r eal ity, according to the best information available today.

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In connecti on with the 'body- mind' problem, we nee d to ment ion the 'plus ' feeling, which,as Korzybski points out, r ep resen ts 'a n ingrained psychologica l tendency' built up by primitivemythology. Thus we have such expressions as ' "body" PLUS "mind" '; 'man "is" an animalPLUS "reason" ' : etc . Ko rzybski empha size s the fact that the organism is not a me re algebraicSUM of it s parts , but can only be represented by a 'non- linear ' mathemati cal equatio n of 'higherdeg ree', Her ein lies the advantage of the language of 'abs tra ctions of dlf ie rent or der s' . which isNON-ELEMENTALISTIC, s ince it does not discr iminat e between 'body ' and 'mind' .237

Korzybsk i p-oint s out a so lution of the hitherto baffling 'body- mind' problem in the COLLOIDALstructure of IUe.238 He explains how th e bridge between tne 'pnyai ca t ' and th e 'menta l' Is to befound in tlte colloidal p roc esses , where ' lhe mutual link seems mainly electr icity' .239 In fact:'As all lif e is found in the coll oida l form and has many character is ti cs found alsoin tnorgantc col loids , i t appear s that co lloids supply us with the most importantknown link between the inorganic and the org anic . ' 240

KorzybskI empbastses that 'by stru ctura l necessi ty, every express ion of ce llular ac ttvtty involvessome so rt of colloidal behavio r ' ; tha t is , any factor which a ffects the co lloidal s tructure must af-fect th e org anism as - a-whole, and vic e ver sa .241Fi nal ly, to quote Ko rzybs k:1 again :'Le t me emphasize once more that from the colloida l point of view fre e fromidentificat ion, the "body-mind" problem ceases to be a puzz le , as we have a welles tabli shed. electro - dynamic, s tructu ral coli oLdal backg rourd which ca n account

perfectly for the experimental facts of "'mlnd" .' 242D. DETERMINlSM AND INDETERMINISM

The problem of 'Determinism and Indeterminism ' has bee n one of the most inte res ting pr ob lems in the history of phllosophy, and th e arguments today a re as li vely as eve r .243 In th is section,we will outline br iefly Ko rzybski ' s approac h to th is p roblem, again on the bas is of our ' conscious ness of abstracting' ,

Firs t of at l , we must note that what APPEARS TO US as a 'chance' event may ve ry well be a' law' on th e objective levels.244'An event that appears , from our human, limited, anthropomorphtc point of view as"rare ", or as "chance", when transposed from the level of finite processes, arrays ,etc. , to that of infinUe processes , a r rays , etc. is as "'r egula r ", as much a "law",involving "orde r", as anything els e. '245Korzybsk i emphasizes that , 'Fo r scientUic purposes , we mus t ac cept .INFIN ITE-VALUEDDETERMINISM on the SCIENTIFIC LEVEL as IT IS THE TEST FOR STRUCTURE' .246 This ,however , is totally different fr om the appa re nt , most ly two-valued indeter m inism in daily life ,We mus t not forget that we lack knowledge; many of our 'unknowns' s til l remain undetermined.

I t is thi s impos sJbility (at p resent) to discover value s In al l cases that give s us the appearanceof two-valued indet erminism .247 It is tmpe rattve to understand th at 's c ience employs determinism beca us e of the s tructur e and funct ion of our ne rvous sys tem' , We mus t pr es er ve INFINITE-VALUED DETERMmISM and s tep by ste p supply the missing links in our s tructuraldata, at th e s ame ti me adjusting our language to the new empirical discove ries about the worldand our ne rvous system. 'Such det erm in ism is a vita l condition in th e search fo r st ructure ,and cannot be abandoned.'248Determ inism , therefore, appea rs a s a more fundamental and more gene ra l point of view;whe reas indeterminism appears only as '3 particular ca se and does not all ow of the st r ucturaltes t ' .249 In other word s , in a non -a ri stotelian, infinite-valued, mo re genera l s ystem, the two-,and thre e-valued aspec ts are only pa rti cular cases , which apply to some ins tances and not toothers .250At this point, i t wl1lbe interesting to r ecal l so me of th e conclusions reached by H. G. Wel lsa few years ago (although the details of course du rer fr om our standpoint>:

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IThe personal li fe is not a freedom , though i t seems to us to be a freedom; it is as mall subjective pattern of fr eedom in an unchanging all. There is no conflict be tween fate and fr ee wi1l; they a re MAJOR and MINOR aspects of existence. Themajor aspect of lile is Destiny; the minor is tha t we do not know our destiny.'251

Mr . Wells 's 'major' and 'minor' aspects of ex istence may well be compared to Our sub-microscopic and macroscoptc revere, respectively .

The problems of determinism and indeterminism errect , to a la rge extent, our behavior andtheories. It is well -known today, lor instance, that the newer quantum mcchantcs bas proved theinadequacy of the two- or few-valued determinism of the nineteenth centu ry science (which wasbased On the two-valued aristotelian ' logic' of 'cause' and 'eUecn .252 This was interpreted byalllhose whose s tandards of evalua

a non-aristotelian study of philosophy -antony m. economides

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