Home > Alfred Korzybski

During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. Following the war he co-operated with the American and Canadian militaries. After the publication of his first book, Manhood of Humanity in 1921, Korzybski decided to remain in the United States and further develop his ideas.

Korzybski's ideas culminated in the founding of General Semantics, the basic ideas of which are outlined in Science and Sanity which was published in 1933. In 1938 he founded the Institute of General Semantics and directed it until his death in 1950. In simplified form, the essence of Korzybski's work was the claim that the structure of languageAs with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition; however, most would agree that language is a system of communication or reasoning using representation along with metaphor and some manner of logical grammar. Many langua distorts our perceptionIn psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. Methods of studying perception range from essentially biological or physiological approaches, through psychologi of realityReality in everyday usage means "everything that exists. The term "Reality," in its most liberal sense, includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable, accessible or understandable by science, philosophy, theology or any other system of anal, a failing that could be remedied by insight into that process and also by the creation of language that is structured in the same way reality is.

Ironically, The map is not the territoryAn expression coined by Eric Bell and popularized by Alfred Korzybski, and used in General Semantics and Neuro-linguistic programming, the map is not the territory recognises that individuals may mistake a metaphorical representation of a concept for the appears as the most quoted sentence of Korzybski, an unfortunate coincidence as he also wrote in many places in his work that the use of the verb "to be" was misleading (except when used as a grammatical auxiliary verb) and led to erroneous identifications that could be considered in operational terms as either true or false, depending on what was abstracted, and led to irrelevant controversies. Examples : "Man is an animal"; "man is not an animal"; "light is a wave"; "light is a particle". Korzybski insisted on using "has a" (characteristic) instead of "is a" or "is not a". Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell ( May 18, 1872 February 2, 1970) was one of the most influential mathematicians, philosophers and logicians working (mostly) in the 20th century, an important political liberal, activist and a populariser defended an arguably similar point of view at the same time and Louis de Broglie's mécanique ondulatoire already respected this idea when published in 1924Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 See also 1924 in aviation 1924 in film 1924 in literature 1924 in mu - a discovery leading shortly to the electronic microscope . So his use of the verb he blames so much is rather to be considered as shorthand.

Dr. David Bourland , a student of Korzybski's, defined and promoted E-PrimeDavid Bourland coined the term E-Prime short for English Prime in the 1965 work A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime to refer to the English language modified by prohibiting the use of the verb " to be". E-Prime arose from Alfred Korzybski's General Sema: the use of the English language without any form of the verb "to be".

Korzybski's ideas influence Neuro-linguistic programming (especially the metamodel) and Gestalt Therapy.