The publication of John Wilkins's Essay (1668): some contextual considerations

2002 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Title Page ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Real Character ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Founding Member ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
Religious Controversy ◽  
Publishing Practice

John Wilkins's Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language was published in 1668. It was an attempt to institute an artificial language based on the order of things, and was expected to contribute to improved scientific practice, to facilitate inter–linguistic communication and to ameliorate religious controversy. Wilkins was a founding member of The Royal Society, and the Essay was published under its imprimatur. The printer to The Royal Society was John Martyn, and this article traces the occasionally damaging impact Martyn had upon the publishing practice of the early Royal Society, before considering the steps Wilkins took to ensure the best possible reception for his work. Prominent amongst these was the fact that although Martyn's name appeared on the title page of the Essay , Wilkins was principally dependent on Samuel Gellibrand—another, more creditable, printer with whom he had a long–standing relationship—for its publication. Wilkins's approach to the production of a book of the Essay 's size and typographic complexity is also considered.

‘Philosophical’ grammar in John Wilkins’s ‘Essay’

1975 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Real Character ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Century Thought ◽  
Insight Into

Recent studies of John Wilkins, author ofAn essay towards a real character, and a philosophical language(1668) have examined aspects of his life and work which illustrate the modernity of his attitudes, both as a theologian, sympathetic to the ecumenical ideals of seventeenth-century reformers like John Amos Comenius (DeMott 1955, 1958), and as an amateur scientist enthusiastically engaged in forwarding the interests of natural philosophy in his involvement with the Royal Society. His linguistic work has, accordingly, been examined for its relevance to seventeenth-century thought and for evidence of its modernity; described by a twentieth-century scientist as “impressive” and as “a prodigious piece of work” (Andrade 1936:6, 7), theEssayhas been highly praised for its classification of reality (Vickery 1953:326, 342) and for its insight into phonetics and semantics (Linsky 1966:60). It has also, incidentally, been examined for the evidence it offers on seventeenth-century pronunciation (Dobson 1968).

Comenius and the Real Character in England

PMLA ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 1068-1081 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Demott
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Real Character ◽  
The Real ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins

Since Bacon was the first Englishman to mention “real characters” and among the first to insist on the need for a truly precise means of expression, scholarship has come to regard the outcropping of linguistic schemes in the seventeenth century as a direct result of his writings. The influence of his “semantic sense” on later thinkers has been traced with some care; Richard F. Jones and others have shown us how to connect the language projects with specific passages in his works; evidence of his influence has been seen in the support given in scientific circles to projects like John Wilkins' Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, which the Royal Society published in 1668.

scholarly journals Seventeenth-Century ‘double writing’ schemes, and a 1676 letter in the phonetic script and real character of John Wilkins

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Poole
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Real Character ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
History Of ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
First Time

Royal Society Classified Papers XVI contains a letter written in not one but two seemingly mysterious scripts. As a result, this letter has remained until now effectively illegible, and has been miscatalogued. These scripts are rare examples of the written forms devised by John Wilkins to accompany his proposals for an artificial language, published under the auspices of the Royal Society in 1668. This article therefore first correctly identifies and decodes this letter, which is shown to be from the Somersetshire clergyman Andrew Paschall to Robert Hooke in London in 1676, and then surveys other surviving texts written in Wilkins's scripts or language. Finally the article addresses the contents of the letter, namely its author's attempt to build a workable double writing device, in effect an early ‘pantograph’. Designs for such instruments had been much touted in the 1650s, and the complex history of such proposals is unravelled properly for the first time.

John Wilkins’ Essay (1668)

1974 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Salmon
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Real Character ◽  
Semantic Classification ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
The 19Th Century

Summary One of the major achievements of Britsh linguistic scholarship before the 19th century was John Wilkins’ (1609–72) Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language (1668), which attempted to construct, for scientific purposes, a language in which the elements were isomorphic with the categories of reality (as they were perceived by Wilkins). Immediately after its publication, the Essay was presented to the scientists of the newly-founded Royal Society for their critical appraisal. Since the committee appointed to examine it never reported, it has usually been assumed that they were uninterested or disapproving. It can now be shown, however, that it was certainly not lack of enthusiasm among Wilkins’ contemporaries that led to the absence of a report, and that three members of the original committee took part in a project to revise the Essay after its author’s death. It has long been known that a small group were informally engaged on its revision in 1678, according to a report of the antiquarian John Aubrey (1626–97), F.R.S., but hitherto nothing has been known of the enterprise. Recently, their correspondence has been discovered among Aubrey’s collection of manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and these letters, besides showing links with the original committee, illustrate the growth of linguistic insight in the would-be improvers, particularly in respect of semantic classification and various problems in the phonetics of English. The course of their discussion is traced here, and the reasons for their eventual rejection of Wilkins’ scheme. Yet the immense undertaking was never wholly forgotten; it aroused the interest of at least one eminent 18th-century scientist, and became one source of inspiration for Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), creator of the famous Thesaurus.

Faith and Thought

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Mathieson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Conservative Christianity ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Teleological Argument ◽  
William Paley ◽  
Eternal Punishment ◽  
Evangelical Theology

This chapter examines Stokes as an outspoken scientist of faith. It uses Stokes to examine the intellectual threats to conservative Christianity in the second half of the nineteenth century, and highlights his leading role among Victorian Britain’s religious scientists, through bodies such as the Royal Society and the Victoria Institute. It also explains how Stokes’s upbringing and education formed the basis for his own evangelical theology, and highlights his two most significant contributions to that field. First, it explores Stokes’s opposition to the doctrine of eternal punishment, and his promotion of conditional immortality as an alternative. Second, it highlights how Stokes continued to advocate the natural theology and teleological argument of William Paley a century after they were first proposed, as a method of harmonizing faith and scientific practice.

An account of some books. I. Geometriæ pars Universalis, quantinum curvarum transmutationi & mensuræ inserviens, auth. Jac. Gregorio, Scoto: where are inserted some remarks, imparted by the same author in two letters written to a member of the R. Society. II. An Introduction to Algebra, translated out of High:Dutch into English by Tho. Brancker, M.A; much altered and augmented by D. J. P. III. An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, by John Wilkins, D.D. &c. IV. Stanislai Dc

1668 ◽  
Vol 3 (35) ◽  
pp. 685-692 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Real Character ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins

An account of some books. I. Geometriæ pars Universalis, quantinum curvarum transmutationi & mensuræ inserviens, auth. Jac. Gregorio, Scoto: where are inserted some remarks, imparted by the same author in two letters written to a member of the R. Society. II. An Introduction to Algebra, translated out of High:Dutch into English by Tho. Brancker, M.A; much altered and augmented by D. J. P. III. An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, by John Wilkins, D.D. &c. IV. Stanislai Dc Lubienietz Theatrum Cometicum, &c. Numb. 30. We gave an account of a small tract, entitul'd Quadratura circuli & Hyperbolœ in in propriasua Proportionis Specie inventa & demonstrata, a Jac. Gregorio Scoto ; and intimated that it would be reprinted here, and accordingly the Impression was begun

Introductory remarks

1957 ◽  
Vol 147 (929) ◽  
pp. 423-426 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Material ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Title Page ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Charles Ii

Nearly three hundred years ago, in 1665, Robert Boyle published a series of remarkable essays on the effects of cold. The title page of the second edition, which was published 18 years later, and included biological material, is reproduced in figure 1. Boyle was a member of the group which used to meet at Gresham College, and was one of the members of the first Council of the Royal Society named in the Charter granted by Charles II. Christopher Merret, also mentioned on the title page, was another of the early Fellows of the Society, having signed the Charter Book in 1663. The subject under discussion today, therefore, has not only a long history, but also the distinction of early association with the Royal Society. In Boyle’s day it seems to have been thought less reputable. His paper on ‘New thermometrical experiments and thoughts’ opens as follows: ‘It may to most men appear a work of needless Curiosity, or superfluous diligence, to examine sollicitously, by what Criterion or way of estimate the Coldness of Bodies, and the degrees of it are to be judg’d; Since Coldness being a Tactile Quality, it seems impertinent to seek for any other judges of It than the Organs of that sense, whose proper object it is.’

משנים את מידות העולם: חוג הלומדים המהפכני בקלויז ברודי ומהפכת יחידות המידה בראשית העת החדשה

AJS Review ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. כט-נג
Author(s):  
מעוז כהנא
Keyword(s):  
Real Character ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins

בשנת 1668 נדפס בלונדון ספרו של המלומד האנגלי ג׳ון וילקינס (John Wilkins, 1614–1672) :‘An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language’. וילקינס היה כומר אנגליקני מתון, פילוסוף נטורלי, וגם ממיסדי ה‘Royal Society of London’ – החברה המלכותית שהיתה לאבן דרך בהתפתחות המדעית של אירופה. בספרו הציג וילקינס כמה מסרים רדיקליים. אחד מהם היה יצירתה של שפת כתיבה חדשה, אוניברסלית, שתחליף את הלטינית 1672–1614 ,הישנה של הכנסיה הקתולית, ותשמש מצע קשר למלומדים ומבקשי אמת מכל העולם. מגמה דומה התבטאה במשאלה נוספת, דמיונית לא פחות המלומד האנגלי ביקש להחיל על העולם כולו יחידת מדידת אורך אחת ויחידה, שתחושב באופן רציונאלי ובסולם עשרוני. מאז התפרקות האימפריה הרומית, לכל הפחות, היתה אירופה נתונה בתוהו ובוהו של מידות אורך משקל ונפח. בתוך יחידה מדינית אחת כצרפת או אנגליה יכלו לשמש בו זמנית במקביל מאות מידות שונות. יחידות מידה (שפעמים רבות נשאו שמות זהים) נשמרו במקומות שונים בצורות שונות לגמרי. קביעת יחידות המידה היתה לכלי שרת גם בידי שליטים מקומיים – אלה, כמובן, ביקשו לסמן בעזרתן את מרחב סמכותם, וגם אלה, כידוע, רבו מספור.

The interjection as a grammatical category in John Wilkins’ philosophical language

1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 89-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Nate
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Language ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
John Wilkins

Summary Considering the fact that John Wilkins (1614–1672) constructed his artificial language as a mirror of reality, which should be based on logical principles, the incorporation of the interjection into his Natural Grammar seems surprising. It is probable that Wilkins kept the interjection as a grammatical category because it belonged to the fixed canon of the eight parts of speech in traditional Latin grammars. Moreover, interjections were conceived of as immediate, i.e., natural, expressions of feelings and were held to be universal. Wilkins’ description of interjections shows that he is aware of their pragmatic functions. His classification is based on communicative principles. In constructing his artificial writing system, however, Wilkins adheres to his rationalistic position and transforms the interjections into purely referential signs. Thus, his grammatical analysis reveals insights into the pragmatic functions of language for which there was no room in an artificial language based on logical principles.

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