John Wilkins' Essay Toward a Real Character: Its Place in the Seventeenth-Century Episteme

1982 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidonie Clauss
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Real Character ◽  
John Wilkins

‘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.

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

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.

scholarly journals Attending to insects: Francis Willughby and John Ray

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian W. Ogilvie
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Real Character ◽  
John Ray ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insect Classification ◽  
Francis Willughby ◽  
Deep Interest

Francis Willughby and John Ray were at the forefront of the natural history of insects in the second half of the seventeenth century. Willughby in particular had a deep interest in insects' metamorphosis, behaviour and diversity, an interest that he passed on to his friend and mentor Ray. By examining Willughby's contributions to John Wilkins's Essay towards a Real Character (1668) and Ray's Methodus insectorum (1705) and Historia insectorum (1710), which contained substantial material from Willughby's manuscript history of insects, one may reconstruct how the two naturalists studied insects, their innovative use of metamorphosis in insect classification, and the sheer diversity of insect forms that they described on the basis of their own collections and those of London and Oxford virtuosi. Imperfect as it was, Historia insectorum was recognized by contemporaries as a significant contribution to the emerging field of entomology.

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