NON-ARISTOTELIANFOUNDATIONS.-SOLID OR FLUID?

STUART A. MAYPER *

SERIous CRITICISM has been made of weaknesses in thetheoretic foundations of general-semantics .' Philosophers

of language, out of a modern logico-empirical but staunchlyaristotelian orientation, assert that Korzybski's non-aristotelianassumptions involve "logical incoherence" and "vicious circles ."If this criticism can be sustained, then whatever benefits areclaimed for general-semantics may be dismissed as due to purechance or the appeal of novelty, to become less and less de-pendable as the quarter-century-old novelty wears thin .

The first question that confronts us is that of the standardsby which this charge of logical incoherence shall be examined .We could take the position that theoretical arguments arefutile, and rest our case on empirical testing, as Anatol Rapo-port did in one special application :

The question of the applicability of general semanticmethods to psychotherapy cannot be resolved at this timeon theoretical grounds. Not enough is known . . . Thevalue of any method will be established not by argumentbut in practice . . . Only when reasonably objective cri=

*Associate professor of chemistry, University of Bridgeport,Bridgeport, Conn . Professor Mayper's last contribution to ETC., "TheZen Koan and the Lapidus Principle," appeared in the September1960 issue .

' I have asked the editors to retain the hyphen, even though it isnot ETC.'s usual style. It is my own extensional device for empha-sizing that general-semantics involves itself in generalizations beyondlanguage, and is something more than just the nonspecific aspects oflinguistic, philosophical, or "mere" semantics .

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teria of mental health are established and controlledcomparison of methods becomes . . . common . . . will itbe worthwhile to argue the relative merits of variousmethods and to seek their theoretical justification?

This might be taken to apply equally well to applications ofgeneral-semantics to education, group discussion, law, or liter-ary criticism.

But where a question of fundamental logical weakness hasbeen raised, it cannot be evaded. We can tolerate gaps inour theoretical structure, but the mere suspicion that it containsinconsistencies must have a powerful dampening effect on ourzeal in applying it to problems, and on the willingness ofothers with borderline faith in it to get involved in such anunrespectable field. In addition, we will be discouraged fromthe essential task set forth in the sharp words of Joshua A.Fishman :

Now would seem to be the time for general semanticsto sum up, map new campaigns . . . Which of the orig-inal commandments has been tested, refined, altered,abandoned, or supplemented by general semanticists sinceKorzybski? . . . Is general semantics in any way concernedwith testing the validity of its hypotheses? 8

To make further application and theorizing possible, wemust face up to these criticisms . If anything is capable ofbeing settled by argument, a matter of logical coherence oughtto be; logic is a discipline much more rigorous and productiveof definite answers than is psychotherapy .

YET we should not make the mistake of examining thesecriticisms solely in a framework of aristotelian logic ; that

would be begging the question. Edmund N. Todd, in anarticle which introduced the helpful ideas of "flat, horizontal"logical relationships and "vertical" ideas of multiordinality,warned

2 "Reply to Norman Locke," ETC., XV (1957), 37 .3 Review of Language, Meaning, and Maturity, in ETC., XIII

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It is easy now to see why an analysis of general se-mantics, or a presentation of it, in terms of a "flat" propo-sitional system must inevitably invite criticisms . For at thevery least this must result in a radically over-simplifiedview. More frequently, however, it results in fundamentalambiguities and distortions because of the "flattening"inherent in the usual forms of conventional discourse .It is indeed unfortunate that considerations of style andgeneral acceptability penalize non-aristotelian writing .Yet, unless writers on general semantics make every effortto work with and explain the full dimensionality of thediscipline, they invite ridicule or at least run the risk ofnot being taken seriously . . I seriously doubt thatKorzybski's formulations can be presented in conventional"flat" logical terms without producing the appearance ofsome degree of triviality or nonsense.4

Fishman was a little more acid : "The issue seems to bewhether members of the fraternity should be expected to applyto their own conduct those same rules which they commendto the attention of the uninitiated."

The criticisms, then, had better be examined in a non-aristotelian framework, which is taken as an assumption tobe tested. When they are considered in this light, in a notpurely logical but a logico-empirical-intuitive way, then ifthey are found to lead to inconsistencies which interfere withthe use of either general-semantic principles or of the strict logicitself (where its use is applicable), doubt will be cast on ourassumption. This won't "prove" that the aristotelian orienta-tion is "right," of course, but it will mean that something isvery wrong with ours .

The most recent forceful exposition of these allegedweaknesses is the article by Francesco Barone, Professor ofTheoretical Philosophy at the University of Pisa . 5 In it hetries to deal with theoretical aspects of general-semantics sepa-

' "Is General Semantics 'Logical'?" ETC., XI (1954), 125-129 .a "La semantica generale," in Semantica (1955, No. 3) of Archivio

di Filosofia (Rome) . I shall quote from the translation by Walter E .Stuermann, ETC., XV (1958), 255-266 .

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rately from the therapeutic aspects, about which he feels muchmore hopeful. But the two are very hard to separate, forsuccessful therapy depends on knowing why you expect it towork .

Actually we find that Barone, in attacking general-semantics, relies heavily on an earlier evaluation by MaxBlack . 6 Black is to be congratulated for taking Korzybski'swork seriously as an "influential doctrine about language"and a proper subject for detailed philosophical analysis . Toooften the fundamental issues it raises, the cultish followingit has attracted, and its outlandish verbiage have caused lesserphilosophers to sweep it under the rug somewhere betweenDianetics and Orgone Theory. As Black says in his preface,"Serious criticism may be taken as sufficient compliment." Thereturn of the compliment is long overdue .

Black has four major objections to Korzybski's theoreticfoundation. These are further amplified by Barone, but sincethe points raised are on the whole very similar I will take theliberty of considering both critics together.

1 . Modern Science as Korzybski's "Metaphysics"

BOTH Barone and Black object to Korzybski's acceptance ofscience as exalting the empirical over the logical. Barone

says : "The empiricism of general semantics is radical : it ap-peals to facts also to determine the validity of logical prin-ciples" (p. 260) . I think general-semanticists would concedethat logical principles contain their own criteria of validity,that is, conformity to the rules of logic ; what they wouldquestion is the applicability of logical principles. But thisparticular point is more aptly considered under major objec-tions 2 and 3 .

Barone complains in addition that Korzybski's view is old-fashioned . "In Korzybski's work we do not find chiefly aproper modern logico-empirical orientation and methodology,but the structure of a dogmatic scientific metaphysics of the

6 Max Black, Language and Philosophy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1949),Chapter X, "Korzybski's General Semantics ."

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nineteenth-century type" (p. 263) . On the other hand, Blacksees something more here than run-of-the-Mill positivism :

Korzybski's reliance upon the empirical sciences iscolored by his conception of the character of scientificmethod . . . . It is very characteristic of Korzybski's ap-proach . . . to stress the discontinuity rather than theuniformity of scientific method. He regards contemporaryscience as having made a sharp and revolutionary de-parture from older ways of scientific thought, especiallythose associated with the names of Aristotle, Euclid, andNewton. The theories of these three great pioneers, weare told, have by now been discredited . (p. 228)

Perhaps the two criticisms cancel each other out, but"discredited" requires clarification . Korzybski stressed thatthe older aristotelian logic, euclidean geometry, and newtonianphysics have been shown to correspond to limiting cases of themore general non-aristotelian, non-euclidean, non-newtoniansystems, but that they are still applicable in special circum-stances : aristotelian logic for mathematical reasoning, euclid-ean geometry for zero curvature of space-time, newtonianphysics for speeds much less than that of light . The prefix"non" carries the implication "beyond" rather than "anti ."As Korzybski said, the semantic danger lies in establishing"as a general principle, what represents only a limiting case,and so, as a general principle, must be unsatisfactory ." 7

That Korzybski's metaphysics involves something morethan "an amateur enthusiasm for the results of contemporaryscience" or "an unconditioned positivistic faith in the truthof 'the facts' " (Barone's phrases) might be inferred fromKorzybski's habits of dating and indexing . In Science andSanity he wrote of science,,,,,, to emphasize that its resultswere to be regarded not as final, but as the most reliable tothat date. He classified both "truth" and "fact" as multi-ordinal terms, which means his "positivistic faith" in themwas highly conditional . Barone says further, "The explana-tion of symbolism as a nervous process of reduction and ab-

TA. Konybski, Science and Sanity (Lancaster, Pa., 1933), p. 405 .(Hereinafter referred to as S&S) .

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VOL. XVIII, NO . 4straction from the extra-symbolic reality of the `scientific ob-ject' presupposes the possibility of an absolute and definitivedetermination of the structure in question" (p . 264) . Thismay be Barone's presupposition, but it was not Korzybski's,who would take as basic the impossibility of such a determina-tion, and insist on the tentative and incomplete nature of anyrepresentation of it . "Whatever you can say about it, is not it ."

2. Ideas o f the Nature and Function o f Logic

BLACK says of Korzybski:

He expressly states his objection to the view that logichas no physical content . He believes, in fact, that the cor-rectness of logical principles is established like the correct-ness of physical principles, by appeal to "the facts" . . .

This position sounds attractively empirical and freefrom rationalistic nonsense. Yet it seems to me to involvea profoundly mistaken view of the nature and functionof logic. . . .

In order to test a statement about the sun's positionin the sky, we must first understand the words used tomake the statement ; but when such words as "sun,""transit," "meridian," and the others used in the astro-nomical statements have been defined, it remains an openquestion, to be settled by appropriate observation, whetherthe prediction is true or not. Contrast this with the caseof the logical principle. Here too we must have a well-defined language in which to formulate our statement ;but this time the specification of the language alreadydetermines the logical rinciples . We have not yet de-scribed the language if we have failed to say whether"A is B" is to be understood to mean the same as "B isA" ; the so-called "laws of thought" are, therefore,already determined by our choice of language ; and thereremains nothing to test. (pp. 232-233)

Black's sole authority for his claim that Korzybski ascribesphysical content to logic is his footnote 14, referring to "footof p. 73, SOS," which reads (italics in original)

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Another reason why a non-mathematician cannot studypsychological phenomena adequately is that mathematicsis the only science which has no physical content and,therefore, when we study the performances of Smiths andBrowns when they mathematize, we study the only avail-able working of "pure mind ." Moreover, mathematicsis the only language which at present has a structuresimilar to that of the world and the nervous system . Itmust be obvious that from such a study we should learnmore than by the study of any other "mental" activity .In some quarters it is believed, I think erroneously, that"psychology" and "logic" have no "physical content.""Psychology" and "logic" have a very definite content-Smith, Brown-and we should treat these disciplines inrelation to the living organism .

Where Korzybski uses quotation marks around "logic" and"physical content," the reader must be warned-there is anexplicit caveat on pp . 30-31, S&S-to take the terms in abroad rather than a rigorous sense, and particularly in this dis-cussion of "mental" processes, not to be led by the use ofsuch terms as "logic" and "psychology" to disregard otheraspects that might be described as "emotion," "physiology,"etc . That is, any study of human reasoning cannot ignore thatit is being done by humans, who are in this sense its "physicalcontent ."

But elsewhere in his book Korzybski repeatedly makes itdear that he considers formal logic, in the narrow sense, abranch of mathematics, in which "deduction, if correct, worksabsolutely, for no particulars are left out," "all characteristicsincluded, and no physical content" (p . 69) . He reproduceson page 252 the classification from J. B. Shaw's "Philosophyof Mathematics," which includes as examples of "ordered"types of mathematics such terms as : logistic, calculus ofclasses, calculus of deduction, laws of inference, propositions,syllogisms, etc .

Since Korzybski keeps asserting that mathematics, includ-ing formal logic, has no physical content, Black's and Barone'sassault on the opposite view achieves a rather hollow victory .

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3 . Denial of the "Is" o f Identity

BLACK gives the following account of Korzybski's positionas regards the "is" of identity :

What Aristotle is alleged to have believed and taughtis that such statements as "Water is wet" and "Dewey isa philosopher" mean that water is identical with wetness,and Dewey is identical with the characteristic of being aphilosopher. . . . It should be said, as a matter of his-torical justice, that there is no evidence that Aristotle orhis followers believed anything so absurd . . . . If the"is" in "Water is wet" were the "is" of identity, asalleged, the truth of that proposition would automaticallyentail the truth of the converse proposition that all wet-ness is water. Now it is, of course, a central part of thedoctrine of Aristotelian logic that the proposition All Ais B cannot be automatically replaced by the converse,All B is A . . . . Korzybski is setting up a mere bogey . . . .(p. 230)While we are dealing historical justice, it should also be

said that nowhere, to my knowledge, does Korzybski cite"Water is wet" (or any assertion of this kind) as an exampleof the "is" of identity . He distinguished at least four usesof "is" : (1) identity : "A is A, absolute sameness in allrespects," "everything is identical with itself" (a false assump-tion over a period of time) ; (2) predication : "the leaf isgreen," "the assumption is false" ; (3) existence : "There isno such thing," "I am" ; (4) auxiliary verb : "Smith is com-ing," "one is amazed" (S&S, pp. 93, 202, 750) .

Now the operations of aristotelian logic are clear-cut ; butas soon as we get out of the area of mathematics and beginapplying logic to things which exist independently of it, wecannot divorce the uses of it from aristotelian metaphysics .The statement "Dewey is a philosopher" contains the "is" ofpredication, or is it worth while to term it a slightly different"is," that of class membership? In order for it to have meaningin the aristotelian sense there must exist the essence of agenus "philosopher" with a set of attributes, all of which arepossessed by Dewey . When we say "Plato is a philosopher"

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we mean all of these attributes are possessed equally by Plato ;he and Dewey may differ in other respects . Any individualwe can name either clearly possesses all these attributes, orelse he is lacking in one or more of them and belongs to thegenus "non-philosopher ." Whatever we say about philosophersin general refers to this set of attributes ; if we go on todraw conclusions from the statements given we must con-centrate on this set, for we can draw no logical conclusionsfrom, and hence we tend to ignore, the individual differencesbetween philosophers. This is why Korzybski says "the `is'of predication also expresses a sort of partial identity" (SOS,p. 202), and why it easily becomes the more pernicious type .

"Water is wet" clearly uses the "is" of predication ; but"water is wetness," an identity, all too easily becomes a sub-stitute for it, in spite of Professor Black's airy dismissal ofthis possibility as a "bogey ." This leads, in turn, to the mis-evaluation that all wetnesses, or at least all wet liquids, con-tain water. Such a confusion of ingredients with qualitiesbecame an essential part of the aristotelian world-view, and,it must be admitted as a matter of historical justice, hamperedthe development o f chemistry down to the seventeenth century .

WITH a scientific metaphysics we are less likely to think interms of "essences" and "forms" ; we become aware that

we develop classifications ourselves for our own purposes ;we recognize that the meaning of the word "philosopher"depends on who uses it. Hence when a statement such as"Korzybski is a philosopher" is produced, we do not plungeinto identities : "He is not! Not like Plato! Now, there's aphilosopher! Plato is the only true philosopher!" We recog-nize rather that the statement tells us as much about the uttereras about Korzybski, and that its "truth" or "falsity" is a rela-tive and conditional affair. With a general-semantics orienta-tion, our classifications become vaguer and less productiveof controversy . But this does not necessarily mean that ourevaluations are more feeble ; since they are less rigidified bylinguistic artifact, they may more adequately deal with non-verbal events .

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"A more important comment is this," Black goes on ."Korzybski's own lack of understanding of what is assertedin aristotelian logic leads him into the absurdity of supposingthe use of the auxiliary verb 'to be' is in itself deplorable"(p. 231) . This passes lightly over the crucial point. Kor-zybski was chiefly concerned not with what is asserted inaristotelian logic, but with the largely unconscious habits o fevaluating that go with the logic and the associated meta-physics. Not only may legitimate predications slip into identi-ties, but even as predications they tend to limit our perceptions,leading us to be content with objectifying rather than viewingthe world as made up of processes . To say "The leaf is green"leads us to ascribe "greenness" to the leaf as an "attribute" ;it does not suggest to us that the "greenness" is a relationbetween the leaf, the sunlight, and our nervous systems, de-pending on all three, and that for fuller understanding of itwe should know something about the energy distribution inthe sun's spectrum, and the chemical behavior of carbohydrates,chlorophyll, retinal pigments, etc .

To a greater extent than Black, Barone recognizes that "theargument against the principle of identity thus moves clearlyon a nonlogical level . . . . [Korzybski] considers, from thepoint of view of psychiatry, abnormal reactions in our nervoussystems provoked by the use of the term ['is'] . The principleof nonidentity thus leads to a central idea in the theory ofKorzybski : the idea of semantic reactions" (Barone, p . 261) .

The denial of identity led Korzybski to put his basic postu-lates in negative terms : "The word is not the object," "Themap is not all of the territory," etc., so that they may beestablished on an intuitive, empirical (nonlogical) basis bythe impossibility of producing objects (not merely statements)that deny them . Black says :

It should be plain that this argument is unsound.If the assertion of negative premises gave "unusual secur-ity of conclusion" . . . it would be easy to disprove hisown contention that the meaning of a symbol is the se-mantic reactions it produces . It would be sufficient tosay, "The meaning of a word is not the semantic reaction

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it evokes" ; and "the burden of proof" would be onKorzybski, who would be denying a denial! (p . 232)In comparing Korzybski's postulations with Black's dis-

proof, we should note that we can make these negativestatements only to someone who already agrees substantiallywith us on the uses of "word," "object," "map," etc . ; as Blacksaid earlier, to test a statement we must presuppose definitions .But the contention disproved by Black deals with a term,"meaning," on whose use we are obviously not in full agree-ment; the contention itself is an attempt to define, ratherthan an assertion capable of proof or disproof . To Black'sdenial, we would calmly propose other definitions until wereached agreement .

THE SIGNIFICANCE Of "semantic reaction" which seems tohave escaped both Black and Barone is that this is intro-

duced as a nonelementalistic term ; Korzybski, considering thehuman organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment, was trying toavoid dissipating his energies on such fruitless and pettifoggingchoices as those between "meaning" and "influence," "cogni-tive" and "affective" dispositons, "intellect" and "emotion,""thought" and "attitude ." He introduced "semantic reaction"not as an earth-shaking discovery, but simply as a neutral termthat would not precommit him to dichotomies . Much morecentral to his thought is the general idea of nonelementalism-but neither philosopher mentions this . Black continues

It ought to be obvious that a negative statement isin general no more "secure" than its logical contradictory,which of the two is true depending entirely on the natureof the situation to which the statements refer. Korzyb-ski's preference for negative statements can only beaccounted for by his supposing that whenever the word"is" occurs in a statement, it stands for identity . If itdoes not, there is no need to be more suspicious about thepositive than about the negative statement . (p. 232)Here we may revert to pure aristotelian logic and ponder

the profound difference in the relations of positive and nega-tive universal statements (which are not contradictories) .

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VOL. XVIII, NO. 4As Black has reminded us, "All A is B" does not imply theconverse, "All B is A" ; the most we can say about B is therather weak inference that "If there is any A, then some Bis A." To say any more, we must introduce another relationlike "All B is C," from which we can infer "All A is C,"and then the status of C must be further defined . For ex-ample: "A noun is a word." "But what is a word?" "A wordis a symbol." "But what is a symbol?" Eventually, of course,we shall strike some basic undefined term and come to restas Webstei s Unabridged does, defining "sign" as "token"and "token" as "sign ." The frustrating circuitousness of theprocess is what tempts us to cut it short with illegitimateidentities .

A negative statement, however, "No A is B," does implyits converse, "No B is A," and gives us immediately a usefuldifferentiation. It is therefore much easier on the nervoussystem .

But more than this, a non-aristotelian does not expect anystatement, whether negative or positive, to be completely trueor false. For example, one can produce words which are tosome extent the things they name : buzz, hiss . But since thepostulate is not a two-valued statement, it is thereby not re-futed, only limited ; and its reliability is reinforced for usby our recognition of the trivial nature of any exception we canproduce.

4. "The Vicious Circle"

B

ARONE's gravest charge is that "The neurological explana-tion of symbolism reduces to a colossal vicious circle"

(p. 264) . His sole support for this statement is this remark-able passage from Black :

We have seen that a central doctrine of general se-mantics is that of the sole reality of the so-called scientificobject, that swarm of infinitely complex submicroscopicprocesses of which the "ordinary object" and all thehigher abstractions are mere shadows . And this is wherethe difficulties of the philosophic critic begin . For surely

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the terms used in describing this alleged reality are them-selves of a very high order of abstraction. The char-acteristics ascribed to the scientific object, energy, electricand magnetic charge, and so on, are by no means ex-perienced directly at what Korzybski calls the "unspeak-able" level . They are, on the contrary, defined in termsof complicated manipulations of scientific instrumentsand calculated with the help of theoretical physics of avery high degree of abstractness . Now if we shouldassert, with Korzybski, that all abstractions are "manu-factured by the nervous system" we should be compelledto say also that the "mad dance of electrons" constitutingthe scientific object is likewise manufactured by thenervous system . . . .

But this line of reasoning leads into hopeless logicalcircularity . The reason for giving a superior status tothe scientific object . . . was its alleged independence ofwhat went on "inside our skins" ; the swarm of electrons,unlike the abstractions derived from it, was not manu-factured by the nervous system . If it be granted, however,that the scientific object, also, is a complex of abstractcharacteristics, the original basis for the differentiationbetween reality and subjective abstractions disappears.We shall have to say, if we are to continue to use thelanguage of Korzybski's account, that the common-senseobject is manufactured by the nervous system under theinfluence of stimuli from the scientific object, which itself,as a complex of abstract characteristics, is also manufac-tured by the nervous system . We are naturally left won-dering what this highly productive and creative nervoussystem is able to use as the raw material for its amazingconstruction.

And we shall have to go a stage further. For the"nervous system" itself is a physical (or physicochem-ical) object of a complex sort, whose characteristics areknown to us not directly but rather by complicated in-ferences from observation and physiological theory . Tobe consistent, therefore, we shall have to say also that thenervous system itself is manufactured by the nervoussystem. Or as Adam said in William Blake's poem, "itis all a vain delusion of the all-creative imagination ."(pp. 240-241)

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I am amused and amazed that one respected philosophercan, halfway through the twentieth century, compound such ahash of abstraction-levels, that another can garnish it withhis approval, and that the editors of ETC. can serve up thisdish without even a sly footnote . This is a wonderful ex-ample of the sort of verbal manipulation Korzybski soughtto exorcise by means of his Structural Differential . Unableto gesture in print, I will requote Black, using labels toordinalize his terms, attaching A, B, C, to terms that standfor complex events or "objects" on un-speakable levels, andD, E, F, G, H, to terms that stand for linguistic abstractionsin ascending (but not necessarily consecutive) orders .

"The characteristics (G) ascribed to the scientific object(A) . . , are by no means experienced directly . . ." but are"calculated with the help of theoretical physics of a very highdegree of abstractness (H) ." "The 'mad dance of electrons'(G, linguistic) constituting the scientific object (A!) is . . .manufactured by the nervous system (A) . . . But . . . theswarm of electrons (A, nonverbal) was not manufactured bythe nervous system (A) . If it be granted . . , that the sci-entific object (A) also is a complex (F!) of abstract character-istics (G), the original basis for the differentiation betweenreality (A?) and subjective abstractions (B - H) disappears.We shall have to say . . . that the common-sense object (C)is manufactured by the nervous system (A) under the influ-ence of stimuli (B) from the scientific object (A), whichitself (F!), as a complex of abstract characteristics (G), isalso manufactured by the nervous system (A) . . .

"The 'nervous system' (A) itself is a physical . . . object(A) of a complex sort, whose characteristics (G) are knownto us not directly but . . . from observation (C-E) andphysiological theory (H) . To be consistent, therefore, weshall have to say also that the nervous system (F, linguisticand pictorial!) is manufactured by the nervous system (A,nonverbal whitish tissue) . . . . 'It is all a vain delusion . . .' "

Now Professor Black demonstrated well, earlier in hisbook, his erudition in distinguishing between an object-language and a meta-language, or between a name and the

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thing it stands for. But in this passage, where he skips inabandon up and down the abstraction ladder, he has just notthought any of these distinctions worth the trouble . The oneset of quotation marks that he uses to distinguish a term froman object (around "nervous system") is in the wrong place .

Note what havoc is created here by identifying the objectwith its complex symbolization, at the points where I have beenunable to resist using exclamation marks . The "is" of identityis used twice, and Barone unashamedly added a third in placeof "constituting" when he quoted this passage. What Kor-zybski actually said, however, was "the 'scientific object' repre-sents an 'event,' a 'mad dance of electrons' . . . inextricablyconnected with everything else and dependent on everythingelse" (S&S, p . 387 ; italics added) . That is, the "scientificobject" is not the "sole reality," but is formed by abstractingfrom a large and complicated universe .

And higher abstractions (B - H) from the "scientificobject" (a vile phrase, the kind that Korzybski habitually putin quotation marks) are not identical to the object. No oneneed fear the bite of a "vicious circle" with such malocclusion .

Korzybski did have much to say about the importance ofcircularity in the abstracting process, referring to effects whichproceed from lower to higher levels and back again, like theegg-hen cycle . But this involves no logical incoherence ; henever tried to say that an egg is identical to a hen .

IN THE LIGHT, then, of general-semantics' own standards, theforegoing criticisms have not shown that general-semantics

possesses serious inconsistencies . The logical incoherencecharged against it is a distortion that results, as Todd cautionedus, when it is presented in a "flat" propositional system . Iwould not wish the reader to conclude that I am imputingany bad faith to Black or Barone ; rather I think it is thethoroughness of their grounding in aristotelian philosophythat makes it especially difficult for them to assimilate vitalnon-aristotelian points, like nonelementalism or the silent-leveleffects of identification .

I agree heartily with Todd's conclusion :441

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It seems to me that general semanticists have at theirdisposal a discipline rooted in and founded upon thevery substance of modern logical analysis . They possessin the work of Korzybski a rigorously consistent synthesisand extension of the most significant developments in thefield . They have, in other words, a strong theoreticalposition, but in many ways they fail to exploit it. Thereis an urgent need for more explicit discussion of funda-mentals on the one hand and for more examples of rigor-ous and fully articulated applications of the discipline onthe other. For, in the absence or impairment of its struc-tural foundations, much of general semantics deterioratesinto sheer local gossip, and many well meant writings onthe subject can easily be convicted of being not "logical ."(Todd, op. cit ., p . 129)

I can also agree with Black's conclusion, that "the theo-retical foundations of general semantics" are "in need ofthoroughgoing revision," not because he has demonstratedany weaknesses, but simply because it is now 1962, not 1933or 1949. I should like to see a series of articles in ETC.-I don't know who will write them ; surely not I-showing howour basic tenets should be revised to accommodate recentdevelopments that raise semantic issues : in physics, the ideasof time-reversal, the overthrow of parity, the latest unifiedfield theories ; in neuro-psycho-physiology, the structure ofneural pathways and feedback loops, the behavior of brain-surgery patients under direct stimulation of the exposed cor-tex, the behavior of animals instrumented to stimulate them-selves ; in mathematical logic, Godel's proof (which datesfrom 1931) ; information theory, computer behavior, the ideaof the "cyborg" ; biochemical individuality ; general systemstheory, theory of games, experimental languages like Loglan ;and a host of other things I don't expect to hear of before1968. Just keeping our foundations up to date will be anever-ending and constantly accelerating job.

Withal, I don't anticipate that very much will have to bethrown out : we will probably still need Postulates of Non-identity and Non-allness ; a hierarchy of abstraction-levels ; a

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very skeptical attitude toward categories ; and more rather thanless emphasis on mathematization, many-valued judgments,and the neurological basis of abstraction, with the realizationthat brain and computer alike do not function best whenshort-circuited.

Anyway, specialists and generalists all, there's a worldof work to be done. "Back to Aristotle!" doesn't seem to bethe answer.

THE JONGLEUREquipped with a portion of the dictionaryA voice tending toward tenor,And a fixed quantum of the world's dismay :The jongleur!

A brevity of madness, as if one blind 'manLed by the hand a boyAs perfectly as blind as heAnd cried, "The sun!"

Still, a chorus of strings struck by fistsArmed with absolute desire,Armed, also in the dark with absoluteGrief

Might, (in the presence of flutes and windPassing over lipsThat tasted honey)Do it .

LEONARD WOLFSan Francisco State College

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