"Scientific language, which Korzybski used as his model of sane language, is almost exclusively extensional and denotative, or at least tries to be. The language of the mentally ill, most obviously "un-sane," is almost totally intensional and connotative. This is the language that does not correspond to anything "out there," and this is, in fact, how and perhaps even why the user is mentally ill. Korzybski's concern with keeping the conscious "connection" or correspondence between language and verifiable referents is, for all practical purposes, paralleled by the process of psychotherapy. In this process, which is largely "just talk," the purpose is to foster closer and more accurate correspondence between the patient's language and externally verifiable meanings."
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Philosophers from the United StatesPhilosophers from PolandMathematicians from the United StatesMathematicians from PolandEngineers from Poland
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Neil Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
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Alfred Korzybski
Alfred Korzybski (3 July 1879 β 1 March 1950) was a Polish engineer, mathematician, and philosopher, most famous for creating the theory of General Semantics.
16 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alfred Korzybski β
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