The New Philosophy and Universal Languages in Seventeenth-century England


Book Description

That saving form of knowledge, as it develops in the lines of linguistic thought that extend from Bacon's Instauration to Wilkins's Philosophical Language, is both a product of and one potent agent in producing the emerging, scientistically designed, modern state.




Philosophical Languages in the Seventeenth Century


Book Description

This book discusses three linguistic projects carried out in the seventeenth century: the artificial languages created by Dalgamo and Wilkins, and Leibniz's uncompleted scheme. It treats each of the projects as self contained undertakings, which deserve to be studied and judged in their own right. For this reason, the two artificial languages, as well as Leib niz's work in this area, are described in considerable detail. At the same time, the characteristics of these schemes are linked with their intellectual context, and their multiple interrelations are examined at some length. In this way, the book seeks to combine a systematical with a historical ap proach to the subject, in the hope that both approaches profit from the combination. When I first started the research on which this book is based, I intended to look only briefly into the seventeenth-century schemes, which I assumed represented a typical universalist approach to the study of lan guage, as opposed to a relativistic one. The authors of these schemes thought, or so the assumption was, that almost the only thing required for a truly universal language was the systematic labelling of the items of an apparently readily available, universal catalogue of everything that exists.




Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-century England


Book Description

Ryan J. Stark presents a spiritually sensitive, interdisciplinary, and original discussion of early modern English rhetoric. He shows specifically how experimental philosophers attempted to disenchant language




The Curious Eye


Book Description

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? In our everyday lives, we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically-mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, the volume explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but, rather, an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.




Imagination and Politics in Seventeenth-century England


Book Description

Grounded in the language of early moderns themselves, this study proposes a new epistemology of early modern politics, which sees human thought as a precursor to political action. In analyzing a wide variety of seventeenth-century English texts, including the writings of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, Caroline Court masques, and the poetry and prose of John Milton, Todd Butler reveals an early modern English society deeply concerned with the fundamentally imaginative nature of politics.




George Dalgarno on Universal Language


Book Description

George Dalgarno's 'Art of Signs' ('Ars Signorum', 1661) was the first work in the seventeenth century to present a fully elaborated universal language constructed on philosophical principles. It contains a wealth of observations on human language and the nature of representation in general, and the author takes issue with leading philosophers of his day, notably Hobbes and Descartes, on epistemological and logical questions. By including the first complete English translation alongside the Latin, the present edition makes this seminal text accessible to a wider audience. The text is further elucidated by a previously unpublished autobiographical tract in which Dalgarno describes the development of his ideas, and his discussions with John Wilkins, who eventually was to produce a rival universal language scheme. In this tract Dalgarno provides, in unprecedented detail, a lucid account of the major issues involved in the debate on the structure of a philosophical language. Further tracts by Dalgarno reprinted here illustrate other facets of his thought. These include a series of broadsheets in which he advertised his scheme; 'The Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor' (1680) which contains some original observations concerning the teaching of language to the deaf; and a treatise on 'Double Consonants' - one of the earliest treatments of phonotactics. In bringing together for the first time the full range of Dalgarno's linguistic work - which has strking resonance with modern work in universal grammar and cognitive science - the present volume gives ready access to the ideas of this original and stimulating thinker.




Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England


Book Description

Hundreds of writers in the English-speaking world of the seventeenth-century imagined alternative ideal societies. Sometimes they did so by exploring fanciful territories, such as the world in the moon or the nations of the Antipodes; but sometimes they composed serious disquisitions about the here and now, proposing how England or its nascent colonies could be conceived of as an 'Oceana,' or a New Jerusalem. This book provides a comprehensive view of the operations of the utopian imagination in literature from 1603 to the 1660s. Appealing to social theorists, literary critics, and political and cultural historians, this volume revises prevailing notions of the languages of hope and social dreaming in the making of British modernity during a century of political and intellectual upheaval.




Language Et Ses Contexts


Book Description

Inspired by a postgraduate French studies conference (University of Nottingham, 10 September 2008), this volume explores linguistic form and content in relation to a variety of contexts, considering language alongside music, images, theatre, human experience of the world, and another language. Each essay asks what it is to understand language in a given context, and how, in spite of divergent expressive possibilities, a linguistic situation interacts with other contexts, renegotiating boundaries and redefining understanding. The book lies at the intersection of linguistics and hermeneutics, seeking to (a) contextualise philosophical and linguistic discussions of communication across a range of media and (b) illustrate their intimate relations, despite differing strategies or emphases. Puisant son inspiration dans un colloque de French studies pour doctorants (Université de Nottingham, 10 septembre 2008), cet ouvrage étudie forme et contenu linguistiques en relation avec différents contextes, considérant le langage conjointement avec la musique, les images, le théâtre, l'expérience du monde et un autre langage. Chaque chapitre dissèque la compréhension du langage dans un contexte donné, et se demande comment, en dépit de possibilités expressives divergentes, une situation linguistique interagit avec d'autres contextes, redessinant leurs frontières et redéfinissant la compréhension. Ce livre, situé à l'intersection entre la linguistique et l'herméneutique, a pour but de (a) contextualiser les discussions philosophiques et linguistiques sur la communication dans une gamme de médias et (b) démontrer leur relation intime, malgré des stratégies ou intentions différentes.




Francis Bacon and the Seventeenth-Century Intellectual Discourse


Book Description

This book explores the resistance of three English poets to Francis Bacon's project to restore humanity to Adamic mastery over nature, moving beyond a discussion of the tension between Bacon and these poetic voices to suggest theywere also debating the narrative of humanity's intellectual path.




Early Modern Literature and England’s Long Reformation


Book Description

Assessing early modern literature and England’s Long Reformation, this book challenges the notion that the English Reformation ended in the sixteenth century, or even by the seventeenth century. Contributions by literary scholars and historians of religion put these two disciplines in critical conversation with each other, in order to examine a complex, messy, and long-drawn-out process of reformation that continued well beyond the significant political and religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. The aim of this conversation is to generate new perspectives on the constant remaking of the Reformation—or Reformations, as some scholars prefer to characterize the multiple religious upheavals and changes, both Catholic and Protestant—of the early modern period. This interdisciplinary book makes a major contribution to debates about the nature and length of England’s Long Reformation. Early Modern Literature and England’s Long Reformation is essential reading for scholars and students considering the interconnections between literature and religion in the early modern period. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Reformation.