The New Philosophy and Universal Languages in Seventeenth-century England: Bacon, Hobbes, and WilkinsIn all three, a more perfect language comprises both a model and a means for achieving a more perfect philosophy, and that philosophy, in turn, a vehicle for promoting political authority in the state. Those three projects are the new philosophies of Lord Chancellor Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Bishop John Wilkins, all of which can be usefully understood in the broader context of the century's cultural politics and in the more specific circumstances of the century's fascination with the construction of a universal language. Bacon, Hobbes, and Wilkins construct philosophies out of deeply held convictions about the need to provide a saving form of knowledge to remedy cultural crises. |
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Page 13
... Hobbes's Leviathan . As a convenient shorthand for making generalizations about Bacon , Hobbes , and Wilkins , I will also use the familiar term , new philosophers — philosophers , that is , whose projects are intimately connected with ...
... Hobbes's Leviathan . As a convenient shorthand for making generalizations about Bacon , Hobbes , and Wilkins , I will also use the familiar term , new philosophers — philosophers , that is , whose projects are intimately connected with ...
Page 16
... Hobbes's contemporaries ( even perhaps Hobbes himself ) would have understood . All three write under the imperative that knowledge is for use — that philosophical truth can intervene powerfully across a variety of do- mains an ...
... Hobbes's contemporaries ( even perhaps Hobbes himself ) would have understood . All three write under the imperative that knowledge is for use — that philosophical truth can intervene powerfully across a variety of do- mains an ...
Page 17
... Hobbes's inclusion in this study . Nimrod requires more than dynamite . In spite of his disagreements with Bacon's notions about language and his dismissal of the essentialist linguistics of a Wilkins , Hobbes's project bears a ...
... Hobbes's inclusion in this study . Nimrod requires more than dynamite . In spite of his disagreements with Bacon's notions about language and his dismissal of the essentialist linguistics of a Wilkins , Hobbes's project bears a ...
Page 22
... Hobbes's Leviathan ( its embeddedness in the culture of civil war England ) and foregrounds Hobbes's keen awareness of the textuality of history — the importance of words in political disputes . Early and late in his career , Hobbes ...
... Hobbes's Leviathan ( its embeddedness in the culture of civil war England ) and foregrounds Hobbes's keen awareness of the textuality of history — the importance of words in political disputes . Early and late in his career , Hobbes ...
Page 37
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Contents
9 | |
29 | |
Bacon and the Advent of Universal Languages | 53 |
Natural Philosophy and the Politics of Jacobean Intervention | 55 |
Language and the Natural Philosophy of the Lord Chancellor | 87 |
Hobbes and the State of the Universal Language | 113 |
The Universal Philosophy of Politics and Monsters of Metaphor | 115 |
The Logic and Language of Leviathan From Monstrous Metaphor to Civil Philosophy | 145 |
The New Philosophy of the FiscalMilitary State Cultural Politics and the Language of Interest | 179 |
Interest Achieved The Royal Society and the Political Concernments of Communications | 208 |
A Center Inside the Center Wilkins and the Philosophical Language | 228 |
From Lamentations to Laughter | 263 |
Notes | 269 |
Select Bibliography | 322 |
Index | 347 |
Wilkins and the Making of the Universal Language | 177 |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve ancien régime appears argues argument Bacon's natural philosophy Baconian Bruno Latour century century's Charles Charles's civil claims Comenius commerce common consequences construct contemporary context create credit and credibility crises crucial cultural desire discourse divine domain Dryden effort elites English epistemological essay fear Francis Bacon Graunt's guage Henry Oldenburg Hobbes Hobbes's human humanist Ibid ideology important Instauration J. G. A. Pocock Jacobean James James's John Wilkins king king's knowledge language of interest Leviathan linguistic London Lord Chancellor Bacon means ment metaphor monarchy monsters monstrous natural philosophy notions Parliament philosopher's philosophical language political pragmatic promise rational real character reason religious Renaissance Restoration Restoration's rhetoric Royal Society scientific secure seventeenth seventeenth-century England significance signs social Society's sovereign authority speech Sprat theory Thomas Hobbes tion tradition transparent truth turn understanding universal language movement vocabulary Wilkins's words and things writes
Popular passages
Page 171 - Earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will...
Page 91 - ... the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and " copia" of speech, which then began to flourish.
Page 95 - And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.
Page 34 - But yet, if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats...
Page 172 - This is more than consent, or concord ; it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man...
Page 147 - Afterwards men made use of the same word metaphorically, for the knowledge of their own secret facts and secret thoughts; and therefore it is rhetorically said that the conscience is a thousand witnesses.
Page 159 - Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime twigs, the more he struggles the more belimed.
Page 134 - If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England that these powers were divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons, the people had never been divided and fallen into this Civil War...
Page 62 - That which concerns the mystery of the king's power is not lawful to be disputed ; for that is to wade into the weakness of princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.
Page 161 - For the thoughts are to the desires, as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired...