ABSTRACT

From Alfred Korzybski (1937) "General Semantics Seminar 1937: Transcription of Notes From Lectures In General Semantics Given At Olivet College".  Edited by Homer J. Moore, Jr.  3rd edition, Institute Of General Semantics; "The Science of GS is the science of values - evaluation":

"The term semantics is not new. It comes from a Greek word meaning “significance”, “value”, “meaning”, It has been used many years ago, but the old semantics is now dead. I call this new discipline General Semantics to make a difference from the old use. The science of GS is the science of values – evaluation. A general science of values and evaluation. I want you to realize and evaluate this by yourselves because I cannot do that for you. In GS we deal with values and evaluation, which represent mighty problems...I want to realize that whenever you like something or when you dislike something, you love or hate, etc.; what are you inwardly doing? Evaluating! This is our most important problem and in GS “evaluation”, “evaluating”, “values” become technical terms. I will speak all through the seminars about the importance of using the term evaluation; there are endless problems involved in it. You will find that every psychological reaction is a problem of evaluation...A general theory of evaluation including all your private and public and whatnot orientations cannot disregard science and mathematics as fundamental for the science of evaluation. In GS we treat evaluation in a general way. But get this much, that mathematics gives a theory of evaluation in a narrow sense".

Following on from the above, as Bruce I Kodish (2013) has emphasized, in his "Aristotle's Non-Aristotelianism", article, concerning GS:

"The main emphasis of Korzybski's work in “general semantics” (GS) was not on 'logic' as such, but on what might be called “psycho-logics”, i.e., understanding and enhancing the entire scope of human evaluating including thinking-feeling-perceiving-doing, etc.; our evaluational reactions".

"To conclude, Korzybski was certainly NOT anti-Aristotle nor anti-aristotelian logic. Instead, he objected to aristotelianism as an orientation or system involving the basic structural assumptions about the world ('metaphysics') and human knowledge ('epistemology') that he saw underlying Aristotle's systematic views (epitomized in the view of aristotelian logic as 'the' logic). Korzybski felt the need to challenge and revise these structural assumptions in the light of later scientific investigations, since overemphasizing aristotelian logic as 'the' logic encouraged an essentialist, what he called an “intensional” orientation in science and life, involving "identification" or "confusion of orders of abstraction".

However, of further interest concerning General Semantics as a non-elementalistic (non-el) psycho-logics, Non- Aristotelian(Ā)-'logics', from Alfred Korzybski (1933) "Science And Sanity", "Supplement III: A Non-Aristotelian System And Its Necessity For Rigour In Mathematics And Physics", p.749, 1st paragragh:

"In a Ā-system, the 'logical' problems of freedom from contradiction become also semantic problems of one-valued meanings made possible only under ¥-valued, Ā, non-el general semantics, and the recognition of the Ā multiordinality of terms,. A Ā-system introduces some fundamental innovations, such as completely rejecting identity, elementalism., and becomes based on m.o structure and order, and so ultimately becomes non-el. The A, (3+1)-dimensional el,(in the main) intensional system becomes a four-dimensional, non-el, (in the main) extensional system. In such a system we cannot use the formulations of elementalistic 'logics' and 'psychologies', but must have Ā, non-el general semantics, which when generalized become an entirely general discipline applicable to all life, as well as to generalized mathematics. For the above reasons I shall use the word 'logic', in its el sense, with quotation marks; and use the term general semantics for a non-el, Ā discipline corresponding to the el, A or Ā 'logics'".

My concerns about writing this essay, while acknowledging the above quotes, involves setting the foundations of GS premises in the context of mathematico-logic, using a less complicated, but nevertheless general notation system to investigate our values in terms of GS psycho-logics evaluating.  My previous title for this essay: "Non-Aristotelian Non-Elementalistic Psycho-Logics: Coherent Evaluational (Insight-Logic) Dialectics"; intended to properly introduce GS as a insight-logic psycho-logics, however, has perhaps instead created some confusion, that whether GS represents a Ā-'logics' too.  Therefore, I have decided to clarify GS as Ā-'logics', from the very start.