Meaning is central to all the epistemic discourses that humanity has been engaged with since time immemorial. It pervades every sphere of life, that we perceive, experience, examine, communicate and understand. Traditionally, the discipline of Semantics has been associated with the meaning in language and other symbolic modes of communication. As our experiences are articulated through languages or signs and symbols, it becomes necessary to reflect upon how they affect our cognition, emotion, psyche, body/physiology,
and the linguistic aspects of life. This is where General Semantics has been very productive and forward-looking for it endeavors to systematically engage itself with various languages of all the disciplines of knowledge. The discipline of General Semantics, conceived by Alfred Korzybski, is perceived as a composite unit of thought where meaning is no longer restricted to language but pervades into human actions prominently manifested through the theories of time-binding and consciousness of abstraction. However, irrespective of their focus scholars working on both Semantics and General Semantics unanimously agree that meaning has the power to integrate various fields of knowledge and open debates and dialogues with all disciplines to create awareness and lay down paths for the dissemination of knowledge. The contemporary disciplinary pursuits and orientations, still lack clarity and are caught in the web of lexicons that creates a complex syndrome of a rigid opaque system that fails to connect to the world. In addition to this, with the emergence of AI and especially with the intervention of ChatGPT, there is serious skepticism concerning the authenticity of meaning and
integrity of agency. It is in this context that there is a need to reflect on these issues philosophically and try to engage in the conversation of philosophical semantics which would show a direction not only as a source of generating meaning but also throw light on deep reading of facts. Philosophical semantics, in this regard, aims at nurturing philosophical thinking that would bring new insights into various fields of engagement, be it science and technology, art and design, literature and music, rituals and mythologies, politics and policy studies, and so on. Philosophical thinking demands continuous contemplation and reflection, both creatively and critically to encounter the challenges that we live with and that are yet to surface to us. We need to be argumentative as well as descriptive, in our epistemic engagements while making knowledge intelligible, consistent and reasonable in stating the content with clarity and understanding. Considering this, the seminar aims to bring scholars from different paths of life who are engaged professionally and trying to create knowledge and disseminate it through developing philosophical sensitivity to unfold a general system of evaluation and awareness.