From What is Semantics? January 1952 by Anatol Rapoport

To answer the question, let us go to the writings of those who make frequent references to semantics or to equivalent* terms which have to do with the study of meaning. We find that a number of prominent thinkers have occupied themselves with this study. In England these included Whitehead, Russell, Ogden, Richards, Ayer, and others; in Austria (later scattered, fleeing from fascism), a group of writers who called themselves the Vienna Circle, which included Carnap and Frank (now in the United States), Wittgenstein (now in England), and Neurath (deceased); the United States is represented by Charles Morris, and Poland by Korzybski (deceased) and Tarski, both of whom emigrated to the United States. [end quotation]

* Comment the 'equivalent terms' were hardly equivalent.

AUTHORS MORE OR LESS CORRECTLY NAMED by A. Rapoport

Carnap (a fraud) ; Morris (I am not certain), Tarski (suspect) -- under 'semantics'.

INCORRECTLY INCLUDED AUTHORS

Whitehead, Russell, Ogden, Richards, Wittgenstein ; none of these had written on any 'semantics'. On the other hand, to include any and every important author who had to do with some 'study of meaning' would imply tens if not hundreds of other names (eg. Breal, Lady Welby — if not the Buddha and Socrates and Aristotle etc.).

One does note, by the way, that 'study of meaning' does not in fact mean anything at all : 'meaning' is not sorts of independently existent entities. The meaning of What ? one is compelled to ask.

This point had escaped the authors of the famous Meaning of Meaning -- which title is in actuality perfectly meaningless — but what could be forgiven (and, as was in fact to a large extent done by Korzybski) corrected in the 1920's would not be acceptable in the 1950's.

(1) Wittgenstein had vehemently disagreed with B. Russell over the introduction by the latter to the "Tractatus". This little known fact has apparently been covered up by some kind of semi-criminal cult centered round the figure of Mr. Russell as its patron-saint of sorts.

One collection of the letters by Ludwig Wittgenstein, containing some very unfavorable remarks by W. on Russell, has simply disappeared, somehow, from the catalogues of the libraries.

Please note that the communist agents in the U. S. A. have been reported to steal books from the libraries ; and the disappearance of some of the letters by Wittgenstein may have something to do with the communist infiltration of the West.

(2) Ogden was no part of Russell's coterie. This broad range of authors included by A. Rapoport in this article contained most widely divergent attitudes. That this was not mere sloppiness on the part of Mr. Rapoport is being suggested by other inaccuracies in his writings, some of them blatant.

INCORRECTLY EXCLUDED AUTHORS

S. Lesniewski ('semantic categories' in 1922 or so). This datum might be unknown to A. Rapoport but could not have been unknown to Tarski.

Leon Chwistek ('restricted semantic' school). This could not have been unknown to A. Rapoport since R. Carnap in his 'Semantics' of 1942 (grossly inaccurate) does mention Chwistek, and often. So do Korzybski in Science and Sanity, A. F. Bentley in "The Language of Mathematics" and Max Black in "The Nature of Mathematics".

Arthur Fisher Bentley, "The Language of Mathematics". Bentley had in the 1950's distanced himself from 'semantics', presumably because of the activities by the likes of A. Rapoport (and the hoaxed Hayakawa to boot).

Henry Head, 'semantic aphasia'; mentioned by Korzybski in Science and Sanity ; also known to Langer.

WPT, September 2004, rev. 28 Oct 04

[A. Rapoport, ibidem] Thus, there is resistance both among the "academicians" and among the Korzybski-ites against treating as part of the same intellectual current both the semantics of Whitehead, Russell, Tarski, Carnap, etc., on the one hand and the general semantics of Korzybski on the other. The academicians continue to associate semantics with the theory of signs and symbolic logic (written in a special sign-language, which, like mathematics, only specialists can read). The extreme [did he mean 'non-corrupt'?] Korzybski-ites continue to talk of general semantics in terms of "nonverbal levels," "extensional devices," "semantic reactions," "colloidal levels," etc.,   (Etc.)

Comment : alas.

Again, Whitehead and Russell had not ever dealt with any 'semantics'.

Carnap and Tarski did work on 'semantics', in a peculiar fashion which seems to have been started by Tarski.

According to A. Rapoport "the academicians continue to associate semantics with the theory of signs and symbolic logic (written in a special sign-language. . . (etc)."   Who exactly were the 'academicians' ?

Definition 1) So far as I know, for the academicians 'semantics' was a branch of philology which had to do with the meanings of the words--as distinguished, sharply, from phonetics for example. On this point, please confer Breal, Walpole, Allen Walker Read, etc.

Korzybski (Introduction to the third edition 1948 of Science and Sanity) : ' . . . :'semantics' is a branch of philology . . '

Definition 2) Korzybski to Hayakawa (8 July 1949) : ' . . . 'semantics' deals with 'meanings', and general semantics deals with values. The two should not be mixed.'

Definition 3) Then, there remain Tarski, Carnap, and Rapoport himself, for whom 'semantics' apparently meant 'the theory of signs and symbolic logic (written in a special sign-language, which, like mathematics, only specialists can read).'

This obviously was not Korzybski's general semantics. Nor was it 'semantics' the branch of philology as known form the late 1800's (Breal) -- nor any reference is being made by A. Rapoport in this article to the etymology of the word -- which for the Greeks meant anything but some 'special sign-language' shorthand.

Instead of definitions of general semantics, which were available to him, A. Rapoport gives some (apparently but not necessarily) capriciously chosen terms : "nonverbal levels," "extensional devices," "semantic reactions," "colloidal levels," etc.'. These were some of the technical terms but were not the definitions.

If A. Rapoport (a) did not know K's definitions then he was not in the least competent even to mention the work in broad publications ; if (b) they were known to him he was plainly disinforming the reader.

WPT, September 2004