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From ETC.: A Review of General Semantics
Vol. 5, No. 4 (Summer 1948), 225-230

"What is Meant by Aristotelian Structure of Language"*
by S.I. Hayakawa

*Presented before Section H (Anthropology) of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, session of 'Linguistics and Culture,' Sherman
Hotel, Chicago, December 27, 1947. Also presented before the University of
Chicago Chapter of the Society for General Semantics, Kent Hall, University
of Chicago, April 8, 1948.




My purpose in this paper will be to explain briefly what I understand to be
Korzybski's position on the subject of the relationship between language
structure and 'thought,' between language structure and behavior. The
existence of such a relationship is, as he says, 'not obvious,' even to
intelligent and reasonably well-informed persons. (fn1 - A. Korzybski,
_Science and Sanity_ (1933), p. 505. Since this work is quoted frequently
in this paper, subsequent quotations will be identified simply by page
numbers given in parentheses at the end of the quotation.)

To linguistic scholars, however, this relationship has been well-known for
a long time. For example, Whorf says:

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our
native languages. The categories and types
that we isolate from the world of phenomena we
do not find there because they stare us in the
face; on the contrary, the world is presented
in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which
has to be organized by our minds--and this
means by the linguistic systems in our minds.
We cut nature up, organize it onto concepts,
and ascribe significances as we do, largely
because we are parties to an agreement to
organize it in this way--an agreement that
holds throughout our speech community and is
codified in the patterns of language. The
agreement is, of course, an implicit and
unstated one, _but its terms are absolutely
obligatory_; we cannot talk at all except
by subscribing to the organization and
classification of data which the agreement
decrees. (fn2-Benjamin Lee Whorf, "Science
and Linguistics," in Hayakawa's _Language
in Action_ (1941), pp. 311-313.


The consequences of linguistic facts such as these have been but
imperfectly investigated, at least by the linguistic profession. We are
all familiar by now with the fact that the relativity theory, the new
quantum mechanics, modern mathematics, etc., have revised not merely our
notions of the world but have revised the background structural assumptions
upon which traditional beliefs had been built. The traditional agreement
to which we had subscribed in the 'organization and classification of
data,' the structure unconsciously ascribed to the world by traditional
language habits, had proved hopelessly inadequate for modern scientific
purposes. New languages were therefore developed, involving new structural
assumptions. (fn3-For example, Philipp Frank says in _Einstein, His Life
and Times: "Einstein's _relativity of time_ is a reform in _semantics_,
not in metaphysics." See also Korzybski, op. cit., p. 55.)

It is a habit among the linguistically uninformed to objectify language as
something 'out there' which can be looked at independently of speakers or
hearers. A system of conventional signs is not, however, a 'language'
until it has been _internalized_ (as the psychiatrists say) by the members
of a social group. A language is therefore not merely the system of signs
but also the whole repertory of semantic reactions which the signs produce
in those who speak and understand the language. The structural assumptions
implicit in a language are of necessity reflected in behavioral reactions.
On this point, Korzybski is most emphatic:

"A language, any language, has at its bottom certain metaphysics,
which ascribe, consciously or unconsciously, some sort of structure to the
world. (p. 89)

"Now these structural assumptions are inside our skin when we
accept a language--_any_ language. (p. 505)

"We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an
habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves
us through the mechanism of semantic reactions and that the structure which
a language exhibits, and impresses on us unconsciously, is _automatically
projected_ upon the world around us. (p. 89)


A main contention of writers on general semantics, namely, that everyday
language and, to a large degree, scientific and technical languages
especially in fields not yet made rigorous, are permeated with
prescientific structural assumptions, is therefore no surprise to any
competently trained linguistic student. The logical consequences of this
fact, that everyday discussion, public controversy, and even scientific
discourse, are often made fruitless or meaningless by the unnoticed
intrusion of obsolete prescientific assumptions, is also a familiar notion,
vigorously argued by Lady Welby (fn4-Viola Welby, _What is Meaning?)
(1903).) and later expounded at length by Ogden and Richards (fn5-C.K.
Ogden and I.A. Richards, _The Meaning of Meaning) (3rd. ed. revised,
1930).) and by Malinowski. (fn6-B. Malinowski, "The Problem of Meaning in
Primitive Languages," Supplement I in Ogden and Richards' _The Meaning of
Meaning_.)

The respect in which Korzybski appears to me to have made his most
arresting contribution and therefore gone farther than his forerunners is
the degree to which he has analyzed human behavior, from the productive on
the one hand (in science, for example, and in mathematics) to the
unproductive and self-defeating on the other hand (in philosophical and
political dispute, in propaganda, in cases of mental illness, etc.), in the
light of such linguistic hypotheses. He has concluded that prescientific
structural assumptions, primitive metaphysics, etc., underlie the language
(and accompanying semantic reactions) of those whose labors are futile and
unproductive, and that structurally more adequate and more flexible
assumptions underlie the language (and acompanying semantic reactions) of
those who are making signal progress in their fields. The former language
habits, which involve an implicit postulate of identity, he calls
'aristotelian.' The latter, which involve an explicit rejection of
identity, he calls 'non-aristotelian.' Indeed, central to Korzybski's
thought is his revelation of the existence in our semantic reactions of an
unacknolwedged postulate of identity and his explicit framing of the
postulate of non-identity as a basis for re-education. The passage from
aristotelian to non-aristotelian language habits and semantic reactions
Korzybski regards as a generalized description of the great modern
transformation of traditional habits of thought, represented in mathematics
by the transition from euclidean to non-euclidean, in physics by the
transition from newtonian to non-newtonian (einstinian). As he writes:

"In the present non-aristotelian system, I reject Aristotle's assumed
structures, usually called 'metaphysics' (Circa 350 B.C.) and accept modern
science as my metaphysics." (p. 92)

Since practically all of us brought up in Western culture have
internalized, and therefore manifest our patterns of reaction and behavior,
the traditional Indo-European (aristotelian') language structure, and since
these patterns of reaction are demonstrably not adequate for the solution
of contemporary problems, Korzybski offers in his 'general semantics' an
educational theory and discipline whereby we may hope to overcome our most
pervasive and serious cultural lag--one that is largely responsible, as he
believes, for other cultural lags in many fields. As Einstein recently
said in his 'telegram to the people':

"Unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our
modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
(fn7-Quoted by Lilian R. Lieber in _Mits, Wits and Logic_ (1947), p.29.)

General semantics is an attempted anatomy of the old and new 'modes of
thinking,' offering methods whereby the transition may be made.

The following are some of the features of traditional IE (Indo-European)
langugae structure which Korzybski calls 'aristotelian':

I. The traditional structure of language, involving the so-called "_is_ of
identity,' tends to obscure the difference between words and things.

"An object or feeling ...is _not_ verbal, is _not_ words...Anyone
who misses that--and it is unfortunately easily missed--will miss one of
the most important psychologicl factors in all semantic reactions
underlying sanity. This omission is facilitated greatly by the older
systems, habits of thought, older semantic reactions, and, above all, by
the primitive _structure_ of our aristotelian language and the 'is' of
identity. Thus, for instance, we _handle_ what we call a pencil. Whatever
we handle is un-speakable; yet we say 'this _is_ a pencil,' which statement
is unconditionally false to facts, because the object appears as an
absolute individual and _is not_ words. Thus our semantic reactions are at
once _trained in delusional values_, which must be pathological." (pp.
34-35).



The generality and importance of this principle are made difficult to
understand by the fact that we are all accustomed, in describing other
people's misevaluations, to using elementalistic terms such as 'he doesn't
think straight,' 'his ideas are wrong,' etc. It takes patient analysis of
the mechanics of many controversies, conflicts, case-histories of the
mentally ill, etc., to appreciate fully what is meant by being trained in
delusional values as the result of the failure to distinguish in one's
semantic reactions between verbal and non-verbal levels. As Korzybski
says, our cultural tradition, which includes structure of language and
accompanying semantic reactions, helps to perpetuate this tendency. A
description of this process as it takes place throughout our culture is
given from a different point of view by Trigant Burrow:

"The organisms total or primary configuration is early deflected
into the socially constructed system of partial reflexes we know as man's
code of signs or language--a system of responses to which the organism has
become verbally conditioned. So that in the human organism its primary
process of adaptation undergoes at the outset secondary deflection...He
enters a group whose encircling, protective environment is now fashioned of
those secondarily integrated reflexes that constitute for the growing
organism the mere signs and intimations of things. In short, as a result
of his early training, the child is enveloped not so much within a
spontaneous field of total, bionomic reactions as within a field of
vicarious symbols that more and more replaces his total world of objective
actuality." (fn8-Trigant Burrow, _The Biology of Human Conflict_ (1937),
pp. 251-252.)

In further illustration of our cultural tendency toward regarding the
knowledge of words as the knowledge of things, we may cite the history of
western science, in which the traditional philosophical quest has been to
seek to 'define' the 'essences of things.' This tendency continues to show
itself in the 'natural logic' of unreflective persons who feel that when a
thing is _named_, one has discovered all he needs to know about it. An
observable tension is exhibited by many people confronted by an unnamed
object--a tension that usually disappears when a name as been given. In
terms of semantic reactions, such as behavior means at all levels a
tendency to make one's adjustment not to objects but to names. (fn9-"These
are mere names," as Trigant Burrow says (op. cit., p. xxxviii), "that have
become the be-all and the end-all of [man's] existence." A trivial but
revealing instance of this adjustment to names occurred in my own home
recently, where I have hanging an abstract painting by the late L.
Moholy-Nagy. A woman who was visiting us couldn't keep her mind on the
conversation; she kept turning to stare at the painting. Apparently it was
disturbing her a great deal. Finally, she walked up to it, found a tiny
typewritten label on the frame saying, "Space modulator, 1941." "Space
modulator, is it?" she said. "Isn't that nice!" She sat down, much
relieved. She never even glanced at it again after that.)


II. Traditional language structure (and accompanying semantic reactions)
divides the indivisible into discrete 'entities'--often obscuring or
totally concealing functional relationships. The divisions of 'substance
and 'form,' of 'body' and 'mind,' of 'cause' and 'effect,' of 'actor' and
'act,' of 'reason' and 'emotion,' of 'space' and 'time,' etc., Korzybski
calls 'elementalism." He advocates in their place 'non-elementalistic'
terms and orientations, especially in those areas of present-day thought
which are stalemated. Certainly this matter of artificial linguistic
divisions is not a novel idea to linguistic students, who are familiar,
especially in their study of non-IE languages, with the variety of ways in
which different languages abstract different categories and relationships
from the flux of experience.

The novel feature of Korzybski's thought is his proposal that we do
something about it.


What is to be done has also been suggested by Whorf:

"No individual is free to describe nature with absolute
impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even
while he thinks himself most free. The person most nearly free in such
respects would be a linguist familiar with many widely different linguistic
systems." (fn10-Op. cit., p. 313)

Here Korzybski would feel, I am sure, that a person acquainted with modern
mathematics--or at least with the methods of modern mathematics--is
already in the situation of a 'linguist familiar with many widely different
linguistic systems,' with the advantage, moreover, that these mathematical
systems are not the hap-hazard residue of primitive metaphysical notions
and animisms, but are systems of propositional functions, which, being
deliberately emptied of content, can be given any content.

An instance of elementalism can be seen in the new book, _Body and Mind_,
by Flanders Dunbar, M.D., a leader in the new, non-elementalistic field of
psychosomatic medicine. She explicitly states a non-elementalistic point
of view: "Your body is your mind and vice versa." In spite of repeated
assertions to this effect, the author constantly reverts to the division of
body and mind in her text, for example, "The patient has lost the ability
to have his mind maintain control of his body,"--a habit which seriously
affects the accuracy of her statements. (fn11-See the review by Russell
Meyers, M.D., of this work in ETC., V, 119-125 (Winter 1948).) Such
elementalism is pervasive, of course, in many disciplines--which accounts
for innumerable problems remaining 'insoluble.'

III Traditional language structure and accompanying semantic reactions
tend to be two-valued: propositions have to be either 'true' or 'false,'
specified ways of behaving are either 'right' or 'wrong,' etc.
Internalized, this language structure results in two-valued
'Black-and-white' behavior patterns: "Whoever is not for us is against
us." In place of these patterns, Korzybski proposes what he calls an
'infinite-valued orientation,' based on the internalizing of modern
probability logics.

IV. Traditional aristotelian language structure and accompanying semantic
reactions tend to ignore a fundamental fact of the functioning of the human
nervous system, namely, that we abstract at an indefinite number of
levels--by abstracting from abstractions, by abstracting from abstractions
of abstractions, etc.

In mathematics, the procedure of symbol manipulation is such that, should a
confusion of orders of abstraction occur, the system will at once make the
confusion evident by exhibiting a contradiction. The efficiency of
mathematics in this respect is shown by the way in which many traditional
logical paradoxes, in which shifts of orders of abstraction are concealed
by everyday language, are simply solved by mathematical methods. The
internalizing of mathematical language structures is the mechanism proposed
for escaping the limitations of semantic reactions governed by traditional
aristotelian language structure. Language structure and semantic reactions
that distinguish unfailingly the different orders of abstraction make
possible a fuller realization of the capacities of the human nervous system
and of the capacities of language as a tool of inquiry than has hitherto
been common except in those limited fields, such as modern science, where
such semantic reactions are already commonplace.

The foregoing are some of the features of what Korzybski has called
aristotelian language structure. Another interesting contribution is his
distillation of scientific language habits and behavior into a few simple
formulae. ('extensional devices') which can be used to impart a
'non-aristotelian' orientation to anyone, including the very young. The
value of this training in education and re-education is being investigated
today in many fields.

The term "aristotelian" as used by Korzybski can be translated
"Indo-European" for most purposes, the name of Aristotle being used largely
because he was, and remains, foremost in making explicit the structural
implications underlying our common Western linguistic heritage, and
therefore foremost also in introducing order into Western thought. This
order has been, of course, of incalculable value in the development of
Western civilizations, but it has, as the consensus of modern scientists
holds, long since reached the limits of its usefulness.

The term "non-Indo-European," however, cannot be substituted for
Korzybski's "non-aristotelian," since historic non-IE languages carry as
many (although probably different) conscious or unconscious primitive
metaphysical, prescientific, and animistic assumptions as IE
languages--possibly more. It is to be hoped, nevertheless, that
linguists, especially students of non-IE languages, might be persuaded to
examine afresh, in the light of Korzybski's theories, the relationships
between language structure and behavior with a view to increasing our
present scant knowledge of this subject (fn12-See "Linguistic Reflection of
Wintu Thought," by D. Demetracopoulou Lee, in ETC., V, 174-181 (Spring
1948) for an extremely valuable analysis of the structural assumptions
underlying one non-IE language. More similar analyses are urgently
needed.) It is a topic of obvious importance not only to education, but
the even bigger job of reeducation, which is the principal task of most
education today.

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