WHO ARE THE FRIENDS OF SEMANTICS?
51
kawa reveals an ignorance of the authorities he cites and an
extreme technical incompetence in semantics. This does not aid his
explanation.
It
is time that a clear-cut division be made between
two groups of people avowedly engaged in this much-talked-of
discipline. On the one hand we have certain distinguished logicians
and experimental scientists like Carnap, Tarski and Philipp Frank
interested in the formal and procedural aspects of inquiry. On the
other, Count Korzybski and the authors of the latest best-sellers on
the subject. Whatever their individual attainments in the fields of
law, journalism, or accounting, Chase, Jerome Frank, and Arnold
are admittedly amateurs in semantics. (The case of Count Korzy·
bski is more difficult. He is certainly not a best-seller. However,
one should not infer from this that he is a scientist.) The second
group has offered semantics as a more or less get-rich-quick scheme
for intellectual success in the social sciences. Unfortunately, in
the general view they have succeeded. Witness the reception of
The
Folklore of Capitalism, The Tyranny of Words
and
Save America
First.
Serious exponents of the study o£ meaning are concentrated
for the most part in the Unity of Science Movement. Predominantly
anti-metaphysical, the group aims at an integration of science to
be
illustrated in the collective project of many scientists, the
Encyclopedia of Unified Science. Their work, though it may be of
great consequence for social inquiry, has so far been of an
extremely specialized character. It has been phr.ased mainly in the
notation of logistic and logical syntax, and has found its major
applications in mathematics and physics. One formal work on biol–
ogy has been done by Woodger, and there are a few programmatic
treatments of sociology and economics. As yet neither concrete
social investigations nor sound popularizations of the general
method. (Nothing like Einstein and lnfeld's
Evolution of Physics
has appeared.) These circumstances have left the door wide open
for cure-alls. The opportunity has not been lost. We have had many
peddlers of semantic panaceas, shortcuts to the analysis of
social ills.
But there are no shortcuts that successfully dispense with
careful inquiry. Exactly what control over social affairs semantics
provides is not clear. Yet the claims
have
been considerable.
Korzybski offers one of the best illustrations of this point, though
