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This collection of papers includes a restatement of Count Korzybski's theory of general semantics, which was extensively expounded in his book, Science and Sanity (reviewed in this QUARTERLY, III, p. 641 by M. Reiner), and numerous essays intended to show how this theory has affected workers in the fields of mathematics, logic, psychology, linguistics, education, sociology, biology, psychiatry, business, journalism, etc.
The general idea of this school is well known: a denial of the aristotelian principle of identity, a practical technique for avoiding the error of using this principle in thinking, and the hope that through retraining and education this error will be eliminated and numerous beneficial consequences ensue. Among such consequences are the advancement of science and the relief of neurosis. The papers in this present volume leave the issue of therapy and the psychoses generally rather vague, as are some of the conclusions reached in the other practical fields heterogeneously brought together here. But this reviewer agrees with Reiner's first impression that Count Korzybski has raised several extremely interesting problems and made many interesting suggestions. For example, psychoanalysts will surely appreciate his feeling that our very best present logical theory and practice leaves much to be desired in the correct handling of the world, and his suggestion that ordinary thinking is 'unsane' and capable of replacement by better methods as they are invented, will find a willing ear. Interesting too is his idea that the three strictly human functions of the human brain, not to be found in animals, are the ability to 'scientize', to 'mathematize', and the capacity for insanity.