What is "general semantics"

Semantics \Sem*an"tics\, n. sing. or pl. [Gr. shmantikos having meaning, from sh^ma a sign.]

1. the study of the meanings of words and of the sense development of words; -- formerly called semasiology.

2. a doctrine and philosophical approach to language and its relationship to thought and behavior, developed by Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950), which holds that the capacity to express ideas and thereby improve one's interaction with others and one's environment is enhanced by training in the more critical use of words and other symbols; -- also called {general semantics}.

3. the meanings of words as they are used to achieve an effect; especially, the multiple meanings of words or the multiplicity of words having the same meaning; -- used in referring to the confusion that can be caused (intentionally or unintentionally) by multiple meanings; as, there's no real difference, it's only a matter of semantics.

n. An educational discipline based on the notion that certain techniques can enhance one's ability to evaluate and respond to the world

General semantics is a self improvement and therapy program begun in the 1920s that seeks to regulate human mental habits and behaviors. After partial launches under the names human engineering and humanology, Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) fully launched the program as general semantics in 1933 with the publication of Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.

In Science and Sanity, general semantics is presented as both a theoretical and a practical system whose adoption can reliably alter human behavior in the direction of greater sanity. In the 1947 preface to the third edition of Science and Sanity, Korzybski wrote: "We need not blind ourselves with the old dogma that 'human nature cannot be changed', for we find that it can be changed." However, in the opinion of a majority of psychiatrists, the tenets and practices of general semantics are not an effective way of treating patients with psychological or mental illnesses. While Korzybski considered his program to be empirically based and to strictly follow the scientific method, general semantics has been described as veering into the domain of pseudoscience.

Starting around 1940, university English professor S. I. Hayakawa (1906–1992), speech professor Wendell Johnson, speech professor Irving J. Lee, and others assembled elements of general semantics into a package suitable for incorporation into mainstream communications curricula. The Institute of General Semantics, which Korzybski and co-workers founded in 1938, continues today. General semantics as a movement has waned considerably since the 1950s, although many of its ideas live on in other movements, such as neuro-linguistic programming and rational emotive behavior therapy.