Philosophical languages in the seventeenth century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Philosophical languages in the seventeenth century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz by Jaap Maat Matthew Honig Philosophical languages in the seventeenth century: Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz. By Jaap Maat. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004. Pp. xv, 415. ISBN 1402017588. $164 (Hb). Jaap Maat’s book chronicles the efforts of three European scholars from the mid- to late seventeenth century to produce a universal language: George Dalgarno (Ars Signorum, 1661), John Williams (An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language, 1668), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (uncompleted work). Prior to the seventeenth century, European linguists concerned themselves primarily with studies in classical Latin and Greek. With an increasing awareness of nonwestern languages, however, their concerns began to turn to language planning in an effort to break down language barriers. Dalgarno and Wilkins both contributed to this effort by producing complete universal language systems (not quite complete languages) which were to facilitate communication between members of different language groups. Leibniz intended to do them one better by inventing a language that would actually improve human reason as well. Unfortunately Leibniz never finished his work in this area, so M uses Leibniz’s early philosophical treatise Dissertatio de Arte Combinatori as his representative text. Although none of their works were actually adopted in practice, the content of their efforts and the accompanying discussion make for a worthwhile study in the history of linguistics. In telling the stories and analyzing the works of Dalgarno, Wilkins, and Leibniz, M uses their own writings extensively, quoting not only their finished works, but numerous previous and later writings as well, including late autobiographies. M’s study is timely in that many of their letters and minor papers have only recently been published, a fact that he is appropriately quick to point out when discussing the shortcomings of previous treatments of their work. Among M’s original contributions, the most significant seems to be his proposal that Dalgarno’s work deserves to be treated independently from Wilkins’s. Based on Dalgarno’s foundation, the two actually worked together for a time, but they eventually parted ways because of their fundamental disagreement over the nature of the universal lexicon. Because Dalgarno’s work after their split was scant due to lack of time and funds (his Ars Signorum was only 150 pages to Wilkins’s 450-page Essay), Wilkins’s work has dominated the discussion, leaving Dalgarno’s as a footnote. From the standpoint of storytelling and corpus presentation, it was a good decision to give each of them their own chapter, but from the standpoint of their overall philosophical differences, a chapter subsection would still have been sufficient. M explains the languages in Ars Signorum and Essay clearly with well-organized tables and examples. Dissertatio de Arte Combinatori, however, proves to be a challenge to explain, especially since Leibniz himself uses difficult mathematical terminology and symbolism. M does a good job of setting up his philosophy and his relevance, but he has less success leading his reader through Leibniz’s work. This book helps its readers understand the thought processes of European intellectuals as they sought linguistic answers to the challenges of growing global interaction during the 1600s. It also reveals the complex difficulties inherent in any project that would propose a contrived international language, a relevant topic for today. Matthew Honig The University of Texas at Arlington Copyright © 2007 Linguistic Society of America