A philosophical language is any

constructed language A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...

that is constructed from

first principles In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from first cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nuan ...

, sometimes following a classification. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in

Early Modern The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

times, partly motivated by the goal of revising normal language for philosophical (i.e. scientific) purposes. The term ideal language is sometimes used near-synonymously, though more modern philosophical languages such as

Toki Pona Toki Pona (; , , translated as 'the language of good') is a Philosophical language, philosophical, Artistic language, artistic, constructed language designed for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by Canadia ...

are less likely to involve such an exalted claim of perfection. The axioms and grammars of the languages together differ from commonly spoken languages.

Overview

In most philosophical languages, words are constructed from a limited set of

morphemes A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

that are treated as "elemental" or "fundamental". "Philosophical language" is sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomic language". Vocabularies of oligosynthetic languages are made of

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or Sign language, sign) that consists of more than one Word stem, stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. C ...

s, which are coined from a small (theoretically minimal) set of

morpheme A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

s. Languages like Toki Pona similarly use a limited set of root words but produce phrases which remain series of distinct words.

History

Foreseen in Descartes' letter to Mersenne of November 20, 1629, work on philosophical languages was pioneered by Francis Lodwick (''A Common Writing'', 1647; ''The Groundwork or Foundation laid (or So Intended) for the Framing of a New Perfect Language and a Universal Common Writing'', 1652), Sir

Thomas Urquhart Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611–1660) was a Scottish aristocrat, writer, and translator. He is best known for his translation of the works of French Renaissance writer François Rabelais to English. Biography Urquhart was born to Thomas Urquhar ...

('' Logopandecteision'', 1652), George Dalgarno (''Ars signorum'', 1661), and

John Wilkins John Wilkins (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an English Anglican ministry, Anglican clergyman, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1 ...

('' An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language'', 1668). Those were systems of

hierarchical classification Hierarchical classification is a system of grouping things according to a hierarchy. In the field of machine learning, hierarchical classification is sometimes referred to as instance space decomposition, which splits a complete multi-class clas ...

that were intended to result in both spoken and written expression. In 1855, English writer George Edmonds modified Wilkins' system, leaving its taxonomy intact, but changing the grammar, orthography and pronunciation of the language in an effort to make it easier to speak and to read.Edmonds, George. ''A Universal Alphabet, Grammar, and Language''. Richard Griffin and Company, London and Glasgow, 1855.

Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in ad ...

created '' lingua generalis'' (or ''lingua universalis'') in 1678, aiming to create a lexicon of characters upon which the user might perform calculations that would yield true propositions automatically; as a side effect he developed binary calculus.history-computer.com
/ref> These projects aimed not only to reduce or model grammar, but also to arrange all human knowledge into "characters" or hierarchies. This idea ultimately led to the ''

Encyclopédie , better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...

'', in the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...

. Under the entry ''Charactère'',

D'Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanics, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''E ...

critically reviewed the projects of philosophical languages of the preceding century. After the ''Encyclopédie'', projects for ''a priori'' languages moved more and more to the fringe. However, from time to time, some authors continued to propose philosophical languages until the 20th century (for example, Ro, aUI) or even in the 21st century (

References

Bibliography

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...

, '' The Search for the Perfect Language'', 1993. * Alan Libert, ''A Priori Artificial Languages''. Munich, Lincom Europa, 2000. {{DEFAULTSORT:Philosophical Language Constructed languages Engineered languages Interlinguistics Language and mysticism

Overview

History

See also

References

Bibliography