[PREV - FREUDS_GARDNER] [TOP]
May 14, 2002
And the drumroll.
First, let me
repeat the
question: See: GARDNER
*Every* case Gardner cites (in "Fads & Fallacies")
as crazy pseudo-science, I'm
completely convinced that he's
called it right -- with *one*
exception -- want to guess which
one? No, it isn't chiropractors.
(It might be nice to
provide a listing, of
every crazy fad
mentioned in Fads, so
this could be a
multiple choice
test. But that would be
a *long* list.)
The one exception I have in mind:
"General Semantics"
And in fact, Gardner pretty much
admits that there may be something
of scientific value to General (At least he admits
Semantics: he knows it's not as this in my Dover
clear a case as the rest of his edition... it has
collection. the look of a patch
that he inserted
later after getting
some static.)
While I have yet to read
Korzybski's "Science and
Sanity" myself, I am
familiar with the
S.I. Hayakawa text
"Language in Thought and
Action"... and while I
don't agree with all of
the material, it clearly
doesn't deserve to be
trashed along with the
flat-earthers.
It's probably wrong,
but it isn't insane.
I think there's something
funny going on with
academic credit here:
Hayakawa (and I presume
Korzybski) was pushing
what linguists like to Specifically: the medium
call "the Sapir-Whorf of thought is language and
hypothesis" thus there is no such
thing as a non-verbal,
My problem here is that non-linguistic thought.
Korzybski published his
stuff pretty early Or "Language is thought",
(1933). I would be very as Mario Pei put it in
surprised if Sapir or "The Story of Language"
Whorf have a publication
that beats that. So why There are lots of
isn't this notion called problems with this
"the Korzybski notion.
doctrine", rather than
"the Sapir-Whorf Okay, so there's this
hypothesis"? stream of words running
through my head right
Though actually, it now, but what chooses
seems that it's more what the next word is
common to call it "the going to be? There's
strong form of the some sort of pre-verbal
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"; mental process in action,
which strikes me as a what's the point of
neat method of claiming calling it something
credit but denying besides 'thought'?
responsibility.
This is the idea behind
(I gather they a lot of the "politically
realized this correct" arguments about
idea had the need to come up with
problems names without negative
pretty early connotations. Notably
on, and the connotations tend to
started chase after the words
backing away after they've been changed.
from it.)
E.g. retarded ->
special, so special
Anyway, this is hardly the becomes an insult
scientific crime of the
century -- lifting the STUBBORN_WORDS
name of a widely discredited
idea -- but it does call
things like this into
question:
p. 286, Dover edition of "Fads":
Modern works of scientific philosophy
and psychiatry contain almost no Look for "Babel-17" in
references to the Count's theories. DELANY
The simple reason is that Korzybski
made no contributions of significance
to any of the fields about which he (( say something about
wrote with such seeming erudition. loglan/lojban? ))
Really? Well, maybe he didn't make any
contribution. But is it his fault?
ENGLEBARTS_BARD
Here I'm thinking of
Korzybski as the outsider
and Whorf as the insider.
Bardini, in his book on
Englebart, seems to regard
Whorf as an outsider of
sorts.
Hm.
--------
[NEXT - CSICOP]