Universal language

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
Original Language ◽  
International Language ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Philosophical Language

Most often associated with attempts to establish an international language such as Esperanto, the idea of a universal language is rooted in the biblical claim of an original language common to all human beings. The idea received its most thorough investigation during the seventeenth century. Drawing on the example of Chinese characters, early schemes involved a system of written signs that would allow communication between speakers of different languages. Later thinkers argued for the importance of an ideal ‘philosophical language’ in which the structure of signs exactly mirrored the structure of reality. While such projects fell short of their authors’ expectations, their influence can be discerned in the formalisms of modern logic and science.

Universal language

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
Original Language ◽  
International Language ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Philosophical Language

Most often associated with attempts to establish an international language such as Esperanto, the idea of a universal language is rooted in the biblical claim of an original language common to all human beings. The idea received its most thorough investigation during the seventeenth century. Drawing on the example of Chinese characters, early schemes involved a system of written signs that would allow communication between speakers of different languages. Later thinkers argued for the importance of an ideal ‘philosophical language’ in which the structure of signs exactly mirrored the structure of reality. While such projects fell short of their authors’ expectations, their influence can be discerned in the formalisms of modern logic and science.

scholarly journals The Swift and Secret Messenger: John Wilkins’s Mercury and the Paradoxes of Language

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Klaudia Łączyńska
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Crisis Of Representation ◽  
The Right

AbstractJohn Wilkins’s Mercury or the Secret and Swift Messenger: Showing How a Man May with Privacy and Speed Communicate His Thoughts to a Friend at Any Distance was first published in 1641. As a book on cryptography presenting a variety of secret means of communication at a distance it seems to have appeared at just the right time, when the biblical curse of the confusion of tongues was doubled by the curse of political confusion on the brink of the English civil war. However, the book seems to be more than just a detailed account of methods of secret writing; its topic gives the author a chance to present his views on language which he would later develop in his life’s work An Essay towards Real Character and a Philosophical Language published in 1668. The Essay had received much greater critical attention than the early pamphlet, which is usually referred to as merely a prelude to an account of his universal language project. Indeed, in the little book on cryptography, Wilkins already demonstrated his awareness of the conventional character of language and its role within the system of human interactions, as well as advertised a project of philosophical language that would enhance communication between all nations and remedy the curse of Babel. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the value of the pamphlet lies also in the insight that it gives into the seventeenth-century debates on the nature of language and into arguments which were often provided, in equal measure, by theology, Hermetic lore, mythology, literature and early modern science. Wilkins’s meticulous recording of the contradictory views and propositions on language produces a sense of methodological inconsistency that leads to ambiguities and paradoxes. However, in the medley of concepts and the collection of linguistic “curiosities” that Mercury presents, a careful reader will discern the growing mistrust of language as a means of representing reality and as a foundation of knowledge, which was one of the symptoms of the general crisis of representation leading to an epistemological shift that started in the seventeenth century.

In quest of the universal language

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Stillman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Specific Time ◽  
Good Test ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

The new English translation of Paolo Rossi’s now classic study, Logic and the Art of Memory, presents a useful opportunity to examine contemporary efforts to understand what its subtitle calls “the quest for a universal language.” At the same time, an old seventeenth-century philosophical romance, Thomas Urquhart’s Jewel, affords a good test case for evaluating the success of those contemporary critical efforts — including Rossi’s own. First among contemporary scholars, Rossi made it possible to study seriously the seventeenth-century universal language movement by recovering the history of an idea — the pursuit of the so-called clavis universalis, the universal key to knowledge, from the ancient arts of memory to the Enlightenment’s philosophical language projects. While Rossi’s study has clearly withstood the test of time, since it still has much to teach us about the history of an idea — what Urquhart would call “pure eloquence” — his study has less utility in clarifying the status of that idea in history. Understanding Urquhart’s Jewel requires, I argue, two different forms of history whose interplay is always complicated: the history of ideas and the history of those politically charged engagements with ideas by authors whose situation at a specific time and a specific place brings meanings to their work that transcend epistemological concerns alone.

ART COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE AND THE ANALYSİS OF MUHSİN KUT’S WORKS

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (28) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Gonca YAYAN ◽  
Vildan EVSEL
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Social Consequence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Research Types

In every geography where people live, besides their efforts to meet their mandatory needs, people also put forward their first artistic products. While carving the rocks, the first humans expressed their feelings, what they thought, saw, and lived, and made various descriptions. Thus, the foundations of the art of painting were laid and the colors discovered. In fact, human beings, who are innately creative, have searched for permanent ways to express their feelings, thoughts and wishes as well as their battles and successes, and transfer them to the future generations. In this way, various artistic works that developed from simple pictures to symbolic forms and letter sequences were created. The communication established in this way with art also started a process of exchange of messages between individuals and groups. This exchange, which plays an active role in the interaction of people with each other, has appeared in every situation as a social consequence of being a receiver and a giver. Because the most important elements of communication are formed with these forms of expression, which are realized in written, verbal, visual and auditory terms between the receiver and the transmitter. Today, many artists create works by using the universal language of symbols, by attributing their own meanings to many contents with commonsymbolism, objects and colors. Effective communication between societies with art is also ensured through the symbolic forms used. With this research, it is aimed to examine and evaluate the works of artist Muhsin Kut, who presents different thematic perspectives with his paintings with and without figures containing social themes, in terms of their technical and aesthetic features. The research was carried out with document analysis (literature review) method, which is one of the qualitative research types. Today, many artists create works by using the universal language of symbols by attributing their own meanings to many content with common symbolism, objects and colors. Through the symbolic forms used, an effective communication between societies with art is also ensured. With this research, it is aimed to examine and evaluate the works of the artist Muhsin Kut, who presents different thematic perspectives with his social paintings with and without figures, in terms of their technical and aesthetic features.

scholarly journals فضل القرآن الكريم على اللغة العربية

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Mohsin Al-Qisi
Keyword(s):  
Formal Language ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Holy Quran ◽  
The Holy Quran ◽  
Holy Book

This article seeks to discuss the virtues of the Quran on Arabic language. The language of the Holy Quran is of utmost sophistication and unsurpassed by human wisdom. To prove this, Allah has challenged human beings to produce just one verse of the same standing of the verses contained in the holy book. The Holy Quran has expanded the usage of the Arabic language beyond the boundary of the Arab Peninsular. Arabic has become a formal language in many non-Arab nations and it could not have been spread without Islam. It has also become the universal language of Islam through the virtues of Quran. Many languages have disappeared after some times, but Arabic language has managed to survive until today because of the Holy Quran. This article has clarified two important things. First, the miracle of the words of the Holy Quran that indicate rationality and second, the Quran has defended successfully its way of life and message. It is also very argumentative in addressing the unbelievers.

Belief in the Human

2018 ◽  
pp. 250-281
Author(s):  
Ethan H. Shagan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Suspension Of Disbelief

This chapter cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of the “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to describe the timeless process by which human beings believe in their own creations. As seen before, Europeans influenced by new ideas in the seventeenth century were freed to believe in spiritual objects in much the same way they believed in mundane ones, as acts of sovereign judgment. With the category so perforated, there was no intrinsic reason why belief had to remain bound to objects judged “true” in a transcendent or universal sense; it might also alight upon objects judged true in more provisional or instrumental ways. Crucially, this included the social world: ephemeral human creations, the ideas and things that humans themselves make.

“Civil in any Country, if They Are So in the Fashion of France”

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-158
Author(s):  
Céline Carayon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
New World ◽  
Gestural Communication ◽  
State Control ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Nonverbal Expression ◽  
Modern France

As the 1550 Royal Entry in Rouen described in the opening of this chapter reveals, Renaissance and Early Modern France was home to a deeply ceremonial culture in which political and social rituals held complex meanings. This chapter reviews significant historical and cultural developments that transformed Europeans’ predominantly oral cultures after 1500. At the time of their explorations in the Americas, the French were familiar with a variety of sign traditions that informed their perception of Indigenous gestures and prepared them well to communicate with signs in the New World. In France, gestural communication was deeply connected to the realms of religious and secular oratory, drama (theatre), and court protocols. The seventeenth century saw a renewal of scientific and philosophical interest for manual eloquence with new universal language schemes being developed, including some of the first manuals of sign language. Increased state control over definitions of civility and ongoing distrust of theatrical gestures as unauthentic resulted in diverging types of nonverbal expression among the elite and the rest of the population. The chapter ends with an overview of early Atlantic repertoires of signs that evolved from the traditions of mariners and soldiers who participated in early voyages.

Epilogue and Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 268-272
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Church

This chapter draws together the themes of the book and looks forward to the later-seventeenth century. It argues that for much of the sixteenth century politics was subordinate to religion; temporal authorities needed the additional sanctions provided by religious belief if they were to exert any power over the consciences of individuals. The effect was to entangle temporal power in the deepening conflicts over religious truth, and thus to reveal the brittleness of any conception of political authority which relied on the support of the Church. At the same time, older traditions of political thought did not go away and often became stronger. The circulation of classical ideas, the discovery of new peoples, the growing interest in historical change and development all suggested alternative ways of legitimizing political power, often using natural law and avoiding any reliance on specifically Christian commitments. What happened in the early-seventeenth century, and most obviously in the writing of Hugo Grotius, was a move not only to ground political society in a particular conception of human nature (conceived of juridically, as a source of rights and obligations) but also to detach Christianity from that view of human nature. It was this understanding of human beings which enabled the development of a social contract tradition through the seventeenth century and beyond, and became an important source for modern liberalism. The questions it raised would help to shape the thought of the next century.

Natural Sovereignty and Omnipotence in Hobbes’s Leviathan

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-212
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Easy Answer ◽  
Do So

According to Hobbes, God is a natural sovereign because of his omnipotence, not because of his goodness or creation. The relation between power and kingship is also expressed in the idea of Yahweh as a warrior god, for example in Deuteronomy and the Book of Psalms. Kings, “mortal gods,” need power to protect their subjects and could only do so if they had properties similar to those attributed to God. In the seventeenth-century, intellectuals sometimes made God the model for human sovereigns, and sometimes the reverse. Since both God and human sovereigns are owed obedience, a troubling question arises: “Should human beings obey God or their sovereign if there is a conflict?” Hobbes has an easy answer. God commands people to obey their human sovereign. Arash Abizadeh’s interpretation that God is a person by fiction is refuted.

Human Life as a State of Mediocrity in John Locke

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-105
Author(s):  
Giuliana Di Biase
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Perfect Knowledge ◽  
Further Development ◽  
The Church

This chapter investigates the genesis and evolution of Locke’s idea of human life as a “state of mediocrity”. While this idea had ancient roots going back to the early Church fathers, it remained current in the seventeenth century where mediocrity was generally equated with a condition of partial ignorance and imperfection. Locke’s account of it is original; while life is a time of mediocrity, death opens the way to the extremes of eternal misery or eternal happiness. Initially, inspired by the Church fathers, Locke conceived of human life as a condition of intellectual mediocrity. Subsequently, and arguably prompted by his reading of the pessimistic outlooks of Nicole and Pascal, he redefined the state of mediocrity in more optimistic terms: humans are naturally suited to their mediocre state. A further development of his conception of mediocrity, again involving a partial rethinking of the human condition, can be found in the Essay, where Locke represents mediocrity as an imperfect state of insatiable desire. It is redeemed, however, by the ability of living human beings to attain perfect knowledge of morality.

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