"That's a crazy book " Albert Einstein said in the early 1950s,
when asked his impression of Alfred Korzybski's 1933 work "Science
and Sanity." More than a decade later, Richard Feynman found
Korzybski's notion of "time-binding" crucial for answering the
question "What is science?."
Feynman didn't know that it was Alfred Korzybski who had coined
the term "time-binding" in his first, 1921, book "Manhood of
Humanity" to label what he considered the defining characteristic
of humans: the potential of each generation to start where the
former leaves off and thus to accumulate useful knowledge at an
ever-accelerating rate. In the exact sciences and technology,
time-binding seems to work reasonably well. In the rest of human
life, not so much. Korzybski, a patriotic Polish nobleman and an
engineer who had lived under Tsarist tyranny and had seen the
horrors of World War I on the Eastern Front before coming to the
United States, realized the results of the disparity between rapid
but narrow scientific-technological advancement and broader but
snail-paced ethical-social development: a seemingly endless cycle
of crises, revolutions and wars. Seeking a way out, he studied a
broad range of disciplines from physics to psychiatry-fields that
others felt had little to do with each other-and discovered factors
of sanity in physico-mathematical methods. Comparing the ways of
thinking that scientists and mathematicians exemplify when working
at their best and the ways of thinking that they and other people
unsanely or insanely tend to use the rest of the time, Korzybski
linked science and sanity in a new world outlook with an
accompanying methodology (labeled 'general semantics')-simple
enough to teach children.
Traces of Korzybski's pioneering work can be found today in a
variety of fields such as cognitive science, cognitive-behavioral
psychotherapy, communication, media ecology, medicine,
organizational development, philosophical counseling and
philosophy, etc. In spite of this, Korzybski's radically
interdisciplinary work remains relatively unassimilated into
standard academic fields and hard to accurately fit into familiar
popular categories. Thus, Korzybski, who originated the saying "The
map is not the territory," remains a relatively neglected and
misunderstood figure, shrouded in controversy: some people have
considered him a genius while others have called him a crank.
Drawing on an array of sources including Korzybski's personal
correspondence, notes, scrapbooks, and both published and
unpublished writings, as well as personal discussions and
interviews with some of Korzybski's closest co-workers, Bruce I.
Kodish situates Korzybski's contributions in the context of his
times and provides surprising insights into his work as a whole.
Kodish's clear prose provides a compellingly readable narrative of
Korzybski's very busy, sometimes too busy, exciting and exhausting
life while making accessible some of the most complex areas of
Korzybski's thought. For years to come, this outstanding biography
will remain the standard work on Alfred Korzybski's extraordinarily
adventurous and significant life and work.
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