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Language, Mind and Nature

Artificial Languages in England from Bacon to Locke

Paperback

Published: 29th March 2012
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In the attempt to make good one of the desiderata in Bacon's Advancement of Learning, a cohort of seventeenth-century philosophers, scientists, schoolmasters, clergymen and virtuosi attempted to devise artificial languages that would immediately represent the order of thought. This was believed directly to represent the order of things and to be a universal characteristic of the human mind. Language, Mind and Nature is a 2007 text which fully reconstructs this artificial language movement. In so doing, it reveals a great deal about the beliefs and activities of those who sought to reform learning in seventeenth-century England. Artificial languages straddle occult, religious and proto-scientific approaches to representation and communication, and suggest that much of the so-called 'new philosophy' was not very new at all. This study broke important ground within its field, and will interest anyone concerned with early modern intellectual history or with the history of linguistic thought in general.

Review of the hardback: '... Rhodri Lewis ably tells the story of efforts in seventeenth-century England to produce an 'artificial language'. Review of Politics 'Superseding its predecessors, this erudite and nuanced work provides the empirical, theological, and philosophical baseline for all future study of early modern artificial languages.' Matthew Jones, Isis

Acknowledgements
List of illustrations
Note on the text
Abbreviations
Introduction: the idol of the market
Hartlibian beginnings
From Oxford to the Royal Society
Discursus: artificial languages, religion and the occult
The Essay: Wilkins's 'Darling'
After the Essay: reception, revision, frustration and failure
Conclusion: from Pansophia to comprehension
List of manuscripts
Bibliography
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9780521294133
ISBN-10: 0521294134
Series: Ideas in Context
Audience: Professional
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 288
Published: 29th March 2012
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Dimensions (cm): 22.9 x 15.2  x 1.6
Weight (kg): 0.43