The Institute

For a description of the Institute in French, please click here.

• A qualified 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation established by Alfred Korzybski in Chicago in 1938.



• An officially recognized United Nations NGO (non-governmental organization). Our NGO status allows us to share the insights of general semantics with other socially involved NGO entities at the UN. (NGOs are often the most effective voices for the concerns of ordinary people in the international arena.)



• Headquartered in Read House, named in honor of benefactors Allen Walker Read and Charlotte Schuchardt Read, in Fort Worth, Texas.



• Member-supported organization with about 700 individual members around the world.



• Educational organization that provides training in the methods and applications of General Semantics.



• Publishes ETC: A Review of General Semantics, a respected quarterly academic journal since 1943; subscribed to by over 350 libraries in more than 30 countries.



• Merged with the International Society for General Semantics (ISGS, established in 1942) effective January 2004.



• Publishes books and other media related to the field with over 50 titles available in the online store.



• Click here for a 7-minute video on the history of General Semantics by Martin H. Levinson. (.wmv, 28MB)