Salt Lake Telegram | 1941-12-15 | Page 8 | What Our Readers Think

What Our Readers Think 1 Editors Editor's note Contributors to What Reader Think must sign their true names and addresses although these will not b bl be published if the writer re- re quests Short Shori will be given preference We Must Change Our Thinking to Fit Times Editor Telegram William M M. Halliday states that the study of semantics is new to Parkin Parkin- son This is true my interest is only of a few years' years standing but the science of semantics published its first treatise in 1935 However let us refrain retrain from personal reflections Human relations have b been bee e e n studied for thousands of years Socrates Plato Aristotle et al wrote so-called so classics on human human human hu hu- hu- hu man relations Euclid's works were accepted until recent times as texts in our universities universities universities ties but today we know that Euclid was not always correct and we have improved on his work We passed from the ptolemaic to the copernican and from the Newtonian to the systems In human relations we act and react as if our half- half truths or false knowledge were all there is to be known Thus we are bound to be bewildered confused obsessed with fears etc because of mistakes due to our when we orient ourselves by verbal structures structures structures tures which do not fit facts When every citizen is trained in semantics and so thinks ex- ex extensionally extensionally extensionally instead of intension- intension ally there will be no wars war w a r s amongst nations or in nations there will be sensible human relations We will have Industrial industrial indus trial peace There was no methodological general theory based on n the new developments of life and science until general semantics and a general extensional teachable and communicable non Aristote lian ian system was produced Our difficulties are and linguistic because for fon more than 2000 years our nervous nervous nerv nerv- ous systems have been canalized in the inadequate often d dt delusional l Aristotelian orientations orientations orientations ori- ori which are reflected in the structure of the language we habitually use We are still in sn the clutches of the Aristotelian system a sy tern inadequate in 1941 yet perhaps perhaps per per- haps satisfactory 2300 y yea years ears r s sago ago when conditions of Ii 11 life f were vere relatively simple and knowledge of scientific facts was practically nil In general semantics In building building building build build- ing up a non-Aristotelian non system tern tem the aims of Aristotle ar are preserved yet scientific methods methods meth met are brought up to date The passage from Aristotelian to o non-Aristotelian non systems depends depends de de- on the change of attitude from intension to extension He who learns and learns and y yet t does not know what he knows know is one who plows and plows yet y t never sows Present labor disputes are th the result of the attitude of 2300 years ago Let us not aggravate them then by such thinking Let us dispel 1941 problems by the extension al attitude of 1941 I am not a labor leader I am a laborer but buton on a few occasions have rep ri resented labor On each occasion extensional attitudes have pr prevailed pre pre- ailed thanks to Count Korzybski ski the founder of the science of semantics Charles F F. Parkinson