Alfred Korzybski: Collected Writings, 1920-1950: Kendig, M.: 9780910780087: Amazon.com: Books (original) (raw)

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2006

Marjorie Kendig (1892-1981), Institute of General Semantics director (1950-65), after Korzybski's death in 1950, was unable to complete this work before her death; completed by friend-colleague Charlotte Schuchardt Read in 1989.
Without Korzybski's books ("Manhood Of Humantiy" (1921), "Science And Sanity" (1933)), further "General Semantics Seminar 1937", the contents include papers, forewords, reviews, letters, etc., even a transcription from audio tape, incorporated with back-ground supplementaries.
An Engineer, Alfred Korzybski's Polish family included Mathematicians, Engineers, Scientists, etc., for generations. Saddened, etc., by point-less carnage, mis-evaluating, etc., in W.W.I (serving as a Polish officer attached to General Staff Intelligence, Second Russian Army), Korzybski became (like others of his generation) resolved to create a better world. Resulting in an inter-disciplinary investigation, not attempted since Aristotle's (c. 350 B.C.) treatises.
Russell Meyers (1957), preface to 4th edition "Science And Sanity":
"In (a) sense, Korzybski's position was wholly comparable to that of Copernicus and Galileo, who had been impelled by their private inquires during the early Renaissance to change the popular ptolemaic cosmology and aristotelian mechanics of their day...In this modern world of rapid change... the continuing substantiality of Korzybski's 1933 formulations must be regarded as a tribute to his vision and integrative genius...it can hardly be doubted that he grasped, as few had done before him and certainly none had so systematically and comprehensively treated, the abiding significance of linguistic habits and the communicative processes-in-general to all Man's thinking-and-doing".
Since reading-understanding Korzybski entails familiarity of arguments, making non-elementalistic connections, etc., further because other General Semantic authors often over-simplified, mis-understood-represented, etc. These papers, etc., provide useful contextual insights, further Korzybski's evaluating development. Following Korzybski's adage, to understand a work, study the author.
Papers include for example:
"A Veterans Re-Adjustment And Extensional Methods" (1945), provides insights into Korzybski's W.W.I experiences; further how 'identifying' ('conditioning') leads to maladjustments.
"Fate And Freedom" (1923), models premises (theories, etc) have consequences ("Logical Destiny"), developed from his friend Cassius J. Keyser's (1922), "Logical Fate".
"General Semantics: Extensionalization In Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, And General Education. Paper 1" (1936), includes the three General Semantic premises (introduced in "Science And Sanity"), but as map-territory relations.
"Time-Binding: The General Theory" (1924-6), papers 1-2, introduces the Structural Differential, modelling Time-binding. While "Historical Note On The Structural Differential" (1947), transcribed from tape, explains origins, etc.
"The Role Of Language In The Perceptual Processes" (1950, posthumously), constitutes Korzybski's last General Semantics gestalt, advocating the importance of seeing afresh free from 'identifications'.
Etc.

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