La langue philosophique de John Wilkins (1614-1672) : langage universel ou utopie linguistique ?

• Main Author: Sandrine Sorlin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2007-09-01
• Series: Etudes Epistémè
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/episteme/923

Wilkins’s philosophical language is the most complete of languages designed to facilitate human communication and spread scientific knowledge. However, this language reveals some preconceptions in the apprehension of the world that seem to be out of step with the latest epistemological development of the 17th century. While science presented a much more unstable world than was previously thought, Wilkins’s project seems to be driven by a desire to settle it through a language that would itself be fixed and unambiguous. The categorization of the world Wilkins devoted himself to is based on outdated Aristotelian patterns and does not mirror nature so much as it conforms to pre-conceived linguistic moulds. In his panoptic wish to grasp the world linguistically, Wilkins is responsible for a double reduction, that of the world and that of language : his philosophical language is a linguistic utopia.