ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from September 2003

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from September 2003

Towards a non-Aristotelian epistemology of science.
September 22, 2003... "Perhaps the one point of agreement among philosophers of science lies in the consensus of belief that the traditional 'scientific method' as outlined in many introductory science textbooks seems incorrect and defective." 1. Introduction...

Medusa messages.(destroy the communication process)
September 22, 2003... Medusa messages destroy the communication process, and especially the relationship between those communicating. ********** IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY, Medusa was a young woman who dared to compete in beauty with the goddess Athena. For her...

Conscription.(Brief Article)(Poem)
September 22, 2003... In memory of my good friend and general semanticist, Gardner Gateley, whose telephone answering message was "You know what to do." these are not my words nor do I know with them what to do they have a strife of their...

Profile: Milton Dawes.(Interview)
September 22, 2003... A fascination with the stars over Jamaica led Milton Dawes to discover general semantics. "One night while engaged in my usual stargazing, I saw a star, Canopus in the constellation Carina, that I found so beautiful to look at--it was like...

"Structuring" to make sense of our world.(Referred Paper)
September 22, 2003... This map, this live picture of a portion of the ongoing world of processes, is not of the same order of existence as the territory, as the world of processes itself. It is something different, something brought into existence by our own...

Abstractions.
September 22, 2003... Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand. BARUCH SPINOZA The belief that there is only one truth and that one is in possession of it is the greatest source of evil in the world today. MAX BORN A work of art...

E-Prime, briefly: a lawyer's experiment with writing in E-Prime.
September 22, 2003... "Most lawyers (contrary to the popular view) actually understand the importance of well-developed communication skills in getting the work of a lawyer done efficiently and effectively." ********** I WORK as a lawyer. That means I work...

The Institute and the Society: a self-reflexive assessment of two organizations, one discipline.
September 22, 2003... "Almost from the beginning, confusion arose regarding the two 'official' GS organizations that operated independently out of two separate offices in Chicago. " ********** THIS YEAR marks three noteworthy anniversaries within the...

Signal problems.(in general semantics)
September 22, 2003... In general semantics, signal behavior is immediate, unconditional behavior--in other words a "knee-jerk reaction. "Alternatively, symbol behavior is conditional behavior which engages our higher brain processes, enabling us to act in a more...

General semantics: a general theory of evaluation.
September 22, 2003... "Human evaluational (or semantic) reactions provide the basic unit of study for general semantics." ********** Some people think of general semantics (GS) as being "just about words," but in fact it involves much more. Although concern...

Seeking closure.(Metaphors In Action)
September 22, 2003... THE PHRASE "seeking closure" has become widely used without being widely noticed. And the phrase is "seeking" closure, not "searching for" closure, "looking for" closure, or "finding" closure. I felt sure this is a metaphor, but didn't know...

The structural differential diagram: Part IV Korzybski's elaboration.(General Semantics Basics)(Excerpt)
September 22, 2003... Part IV KORZYBSKI'S ELABORATION IN ADDITION to the basic structural differential diagram, Korzybski created an expanded version that we can use to make distinctions concerning our abstracting processes. Korzybski's expanded diagram...

Reflections on self-reflexiveness in literature.(Education)
September 22, 2003... SELF-REFLEXIVENESS, the human ability to pay attention to what we pay attention to by moving to a higher order of abstracting, our power to develop a detached almost third-person perspective about a Cast-person perspective, I consider one of...

Publishes book, directs play.(News & Notes)(Philip Vassallo)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... ETC author and ISGS Member, Philip Vassallo, has published The Inwardness of the Outward Gaze: Learning and Teaching Through Philosophy (Publish America, 2003), a collection of 16 essays that emerged from his experiences as a college writing...

Charlotte Selver.(News & Notes)(died on August 2003)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
September 22, 2003... Charlotte Selver, influential teacher of sensory awareness training, a resident of Matin County, California, died in August 2003 at the age of 102. Selver was born in 1901 in Ruhrort, Germany, and immigrated to New York City in the fall of...

New York Society for GS.(News & Notes)
September 22, 2003... On September 25, members and guests of the New York Society for General Semantics heard Negotiate for SUCCESS, a talk by Juliet Nierenberg and Irene S. Ross, at 45 East 65th Street in New York City. Philip J. Sabatelli, Ph.D., spoke on Embedded...

Australian GS Society.(News & Notes)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... The Australian General Semantics Society holds Tuesday evening discussion meetings in the Western suburbs and fortnightly meetings on Monday evenings in the Eastern suburbs of the Sydney area, as well as monthly Saturday or Sunday Seminars....

Institute of GS.(News & Notes)(Brief Article)
September 22, 2003... The Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics is scheduled for October 31st-November 2nd at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, the International Society for General Semantics,...

San Francisco Chapter.(News & Notes)
September 22, 2003... The San Francisco Chapter of ISGS meets on the 2nd Friday of each month, starting at 7:15 p.m., at Kaiser French Campus, on Geary at 6th Ave., San Francisco, in room F-3. Parking is free in the evening. Join members beforehand for dinner at the...

David Edmonds and John Eidinow. Wittgenstein's Poker: the Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... New York: Ecco, 2001. On October 25, 1946, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper confronted each other at Cambridge University at a meeting of the Moral Science Club. They were there, along with the eminent philosopher Bertrand...

Joseph Epstein. Snobbery: the American Version.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Joseph Epstein, a university lecturer and the former editor of The American Scholar, presents in this book an informative and entertaining investigation of snobbery in American life. "A snob is in one...

John Steele Gordon. A Thread Across the Ocean: the Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable.(Book Review)
September 22, 2003... New York: Walker, 2002. In 1866 the Old and New World were united by the successful laying of a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean. According to Sir Arthur C. Clarke this feat was "the Victorian equivalent of the Apollo project."...

Fifty years ago in ETC.(Retrospect)
September 22, 2003... Philosophical controversy is a historical fact. It is a mistake to believe that philosophical differences of opinion exist only at the level of conscious and deliberate controversies waged by professional philosophers. Ideas originated by...