NON-ARISTOTELICIAN THINKING
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2303 ▶ |
| Object type | Human sciences, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
A. KORZYBSKI, who introduced what he called non-aristotelician thinking wrote: “The… non-aristotelician system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of ”identity“, which denial cannot be denied without imposing the burden of impossible proof on the person who denies the denial. If we start, for instance, with a statement that 'a word is not the object spoken about', and someone tries to deny that, he would have to produce and actual physical object which would be the word… This general denial of the 'is' identity gives the main fundamental non-aristotelician premise… The status of negative premises is much more important and secure to start with than that of the positive 'is' of identity, found in the aristotelician system, but easily shown to be false, and involving important delusional factors.
- “Any map or language, to be of maximum usefulness, should, in structure be similar to the structure of the empirical world. Likewise, from the point of view of a theory of sanity, any system of language should, in structure, be similar to the structure of our nervous system. It is easily shown that the aristotelician system differs structurally from these minimal requirements, and that the non-aristotelician system is in accordance with them.
- “This fact turns out to be of psychophysiological importance.” (1950, p. 10-11).
KORZYBSKI insistently recommends training in no-identification as a way to protect psychological and mental sanity and gives numerous practical ways to do it. He views abusive identification as the root of most psychological and socio-political problems.
Autopoiesis and organizational closure are obviously non-aristotelician concepts. So are most modern scientific theories related to complex systems. (See “Non — no”).
KORZYBSKI's fundamental work on non-aristotelician concepts is undoubtedly a corner stone for general systemics.
See also
See also: map-territory relation, non-identity principle, self-reference, structural differential, time-binding.