That said, I think we should recognize that “sanity” is the name of a social, behavioral concept, too. We should be cautious using it, since it may drag in those connotations. A person who can’t cope with the world due to psychological difficulties may be labeled “insane” by society even if their map of the world is not any more inaccurate than anyone else’s. Once upon a time, being sexually attracted to people of the same sex was considered a matter of insanity; today, being an impulsive child who won’t sit still in classrooms is considered a matter of insanity.
“Unsane” was Korzybski’s word a long time ago. One blogger in the general-semantics tradition writes: “The difference between unsane and insane is that unsane doesn’t necessarily get you into trouble.” G.s. uses “unsanity” to mean something like “having a map that doesn’t describe the territory accurately.”
That said, I think we should recognize that “sanity” is the name of a social, behavioral concept, too. We should be cautious using it, since it may drag in those connotations. A person who can’t cope with the world due to psychological difficulties may be labeled “insane” by society even if their map of the world is not any more inaccurate than anyone else’s. Once upon a time, being sexually attracted to people of the same sex was considered a matter of insanity; today, being an impulsive child who won’t sit still in classrooms is considered a matter of insanity.