We are all vitally concerned with the future of Homoeopathy. Many earnest homoeopaths have discussed for years and emphasized the urgency of modernizing Homoeopathy. However, no attempt has succeeded so far in solving the complicated problems involved, because no solution has reached the essence of the question. C. P. Bryant, M.D., our eminent ex-chairman of the Committee on Research, has worked for years to obtain that goal. He thinks that the way of achieving it is to prove Homoeopathy through physics.
This idea is basically sound, and this paper is a contribution to a similar purpose. It is my belief that we are concerned fundamentally with a question of language and that the solution can be found through general semantics. This can be done by a reformulation and a new methodology similar to the one applied in mathematical language.
The fundamental facts and principles of Homoeopathy cannot be denied. These have been proved time and time again for a century and a half. What has been rejected a priori by the majority of the profession are the theories, explanations and formulations of these facts. In the last two decades all sciences, whether mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc., have been undergoing a radical change from a static to a dynamic conception, as particularly exemplified by the theories of Einstein, Eddington, Korzybski and many others.
By introducing the notion of non-elementalism in physics and the extensional fourth dimension of space-time, as opposed to the old Aristotelian idea of space and time, Einstein has made it possible for the mathematical language to translate the dynamic into the static and vice-versa, and so established similarity of structure between language and facts, which was impossible by Aristotelian methods. This is primarily a process of general semantics. The proof of the importance of the new concept has been thunderously established at Los Alamos and at Hiroshima.
Homoeopathy is suffering the same kind of inadequacy as the other sciences. It was formulated over a century ago when scientific medicine was in its infancy. We should express it with the knowledge of 1949. To cure the trouble, we need to apply the Law of Similars.
Unless there is a close similarity, between language and facts, such as is achieved in modern mathematics, there is no satisfactory solution to the problem. We need another Korzybski or Einstein to apply to the new methodology to Homoeopathy. Dr. Alfred Korzybski invented a new kind of rational logic–a new methodology of thinking and speaking, dealing with all the fields of human activities.
Last year at Atlantic City, Dr. Edward C. Whitmonts brilliant presentation Whitmont, Edw. C.: The Law of Similars in Analytical Psychology, The Homoeopathic Recorder, LXIV: 9, pp. 230-4 (March 1949). rekindled my interest in semantics. Six months ago I had the privilege of reading Alfred Korzybskis book, Science and Sanity–an Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. This formidable book is to semantics what the Organon is to Homoeopathy.
Webster defines the term “Semantics: as the “science of meaning of language.” This science barely existed until Korzybski developed it and brought attention to its tremendous importance, not only in science, but in all domains of life. He enlarged considerably that branch of philosophy to cope with the growing complexities of modern times. He formulated a new system of orientation involving psychosomatic factors and established “structure” as the only possible content of knowledge.
One should not confuse the old semantics–a theory of verbal meanings and words defined by words–with Korzybskis general semantics where one deals only with neuro-semantics and neuro- linguistic living reactions.
We forget that words are objectively, noises; subjectively, symbols and abstractions. The word is not the object. Because of wrong training from childhood on, we are taught words and language first, and the actual facts they represent come next in value. This is a pathologically reversed order by which we are unconsciously being trained to “identify” words with facts. This is called “identification”, which means confusion of order of abstraction.
Because of that fundamental, unconscious confusion, our nervous system is modified in its reflexes during its development and this vitiates our semantic reactions. An extreme illustration of identification is to be found in dementia praecox, where the patient takes his hallucinations for realities. Another typical instance of identification is the sneeze of an allergic patient suddenly confronted with a bouquet of roses–artificial paper roses! Another example: the homoeopathic potency, Phosphorus 10M, obviously means something different to me, to a low potency practitioner, to an allopath, to a physicist and to a layman.
To the latter it means nothing; to the allopath, a mere figment of the imagination; to the physicist or to the low-potency confrere, a theoretical abstraction; but to me, and those who have prescribed Phos. 10M, homoeopathically, it is an actuality confirmed by experience. So the same word has a different meaning for different individuals, and this is the source of serious semantic reactions: heated discussions, confusion, conflict, misunderstanding and cold war in the medical profession.
What is the Aristotelian system?
Most of the disturbances in the world today, whether scientific; religious, or political, are due to the Aristotelian system of logic and semantics, which is 2,300 years old. When one realizes the progress of science and knowledge since that time, one is appalled by the fact that the structure of language is still the same. Principles are immutable but their applications vary as our knowledge expands. Aristotle, twenty three centuries ago, took the structure of the primitive language of his time for granted and formulated from it a philosophical grammar called logic, and defined it as the “Law of Thought”. This has been transmitted and accepted implicitly from generation to generation up to the present time.
Before going further I should clarify the important terms “elementalism”, “elementalistic”. They derive from the word “element”, defined by Webster as a first principle, an ingredient, one of the 87 simple, ultimate, indecomposable constituents of any kind of matter. Elementalism is the theory which identifies the divinities of the ancients with the elemental powers. At the time of Aristotle there were only four elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. In my school days there were 84 elements corresponding to the same Aristotelian definition. The ninety two elements known at the present time appear to be “transitory processes capable of transmutation with a life of a limited span of years.” One can grasp the tremendous difference between the permanent, unalterable, ultimate, static elements of the old Aristotelian concept and the opposite, new, dynamic, functional one of 1949.
Here are 11 of the most important postulates of the Aristotelian system. I quote from Science and Sanity, page 92:.
1. The postulate of uniqueness of subject-predicate representation.
2. The two-valued elementalistic logic, as expressed in the law of the excluded third.
3. The lack of discrimination between the “is” of identity, the “is” of predication, the “is” of existence and the “is” used as an auxiliary verb.
4. The elementalism exemplified by the assumed sharp division of senses and mind, percept and concept, emotion and intellect, etc.
5. The elementalistic theory of meaning.
6. The elementalistic postulate of two-valued cause-effect.
7. The elementalistic theory of definitions which disregards undefined terms.
8. The three dimensional theory of propositions and language.
9. The assumption of the cosmic validity of grammar. 10. The preference of intentional methods.
11. The additive and elementalistic definition of “man.”
What is Korzybskis non-Aristotelian system?
Korzybski rejects all the above postulates. He bases his non-Aristotelian system-function on the negative “is not” premise (the word is not the object), and accepts relations, structure and order as fundamentals.
He accepts the infinite-valued non-elementalistic logic of probability and introduces differential and four dimensional methods.
He applies the principle of non-elementalism to the theory of definitions based on undefined terms.
He formulates the psycho-physiological theory of semantic reactions. Psychosomatic medicine has demonstrated that symptoms related to the heart, digestion, circulation, sex, skin, etc., have a semantogenic, and therefore, a neuro-semantic and neuro- linguistic origin.
Korzybski establishes the multi-ordinality of terms and expands the two-term cause-effect relation into the infinite- valued causality.
He defines “man” is non-elementalistic functional terms, based on the analysis of uniquely human potentialities; namely, that each generation may begin where the former left off. He calls this essential characteristic the “time-binding capacity”.
