10 Alfred Korzybski Quotes on Semantics

Alfred Korzybski quotes on semantics

1. The word is not the thing.

4. The only link between the verbal and objective world is exclusively structural, necessitating the conclusion that the only content of all 'knowledge' is structural. Now structure can be considered as a complex of relations, and ultimately as multi-dimensional order. From this point of view, all language can be considered as names for unspeakable entities on the objective level, be it things or feelings, or as names of relations. In fact... we find that an object represents an abstraction of a low order produced by our nervous system as the result of a sub-microscopic events acting as stimuli upon the nervous system.

13. It is amusing to discover, in the twentieth century, that the quarrels between two lovers, two mathematicians, two nations, two economic systems, usually assumed insoluble in a finite period should exhibit one mechanism, the semantic mechanism of identification - the discovery of which makes universal agreement possible, in mathematics and in life.

14. Any proposition containing the word 'is' creates a linguistical structural confusion which will eventually give birth to serious fallacies.

15. If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.

16. Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.

19. In the rough, a symbol is a sign that stands for something... Before a noise, etc., may become a symbol, something must exist for the symbol to symbolize.

22. We should not be surprised that we find meaningless noises in the foundation of many old 'philosophies', and that from them arise most of the old 'philosophical' fights and arguments.

25. Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

27. [A Game:] We begin by asking the meaning of every word uttered:Then we ask the meaning of the words used in the definitions and, and this process is continued for no more than ten or fifteen minutes until the victim begins to speak in circles...