The
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
term ''characteristica universalis'', commonly interpreted as ''universal characteristic'', or ''universal character'' in English, is a
universal and formal language imagined by
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mat ...
able to express mathematical, scientific, and metaphysical concepts. Leibniz thus hoped to create a language usable within the framework of a universal logical calculation or ''
calculus ratiocinator''.
The ''characteristica universalis'' is a recurring concept in the writings of Leibniz. When writing in French, he sometimes employed the phrase ''spécieuse générale'' to the same effect. The concept is sometimes paired with his notion of a ''calculus ratiocinator'' and with his plans for an encyclopaedia as a compendium of all human knowledge.
A universal pictographic language: the key to all the sciences
International communication
Many Leibniz scholars writing in English seem to agree that he intended his ''characteristica universalis'' or "universal character" to be a form of
pasigraphy, or
ideographic language
An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarit ...
. This was to be based on a rationalised version of the 'principles' of
Chinese character
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
s, as Europeans understood these characters in the seventeenth century. From this perspective it is common to find the ''characteristica universalis'' associated with contemporary
universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's people. In some contexts, it refers to a means of communication said to be understood by all humans. It may be the idea of ...
projects like
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
,
auxiliary languages
An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
like
Interlingua
Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is ...
, and formal logic projects like
Frege's ''
Begriffsschrift
''Begriffsschrift'' (German for, roughly, "concept-script") is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and the formal system set out in that book.
''Begriffsschrift'' is usually translated as ''concept writing'' or ''concept notati ...
''. The global expansion of European commerce in Leibniz's time provided mercantilist motivations for a universal language of trade so that traders could communicate with any natural language.
Others, such as Jaenecke, for example, have observed that Leibniz also had other intentions for the ''characteristica universalis'', and these aspects appear to be a source of the aforementioned vagueness and inconsistency in modern interpretations. According to Jaenecke,
As
Louis Couturat
Louis Couturat (; 17 January 1868 – 3 August 1914) was a French logician, mathematician, philosopher, and linguist. Couturat was a pioneer of the constructed language Ido.
Life and education
Born in Ris-Orangis, Essonne, France. In 1887 h ...
wrote, Leibniz criticized the linguistic systems of
George Dalgarno and
John Wilkins
John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.
Wilkins is one of the f ...
for this reason since they focused on
A universal language of science
Leibniz said that his goal was an
alphabet of human thought, a universal symbolic language (characteristic) for
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
,
mathematics, and
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
. According to Couturat, "In May 1676, he once again identified the universal language with the characteristic and dreamed of a language that would also be a calculus—a sort of algebra of thought" (1901, chp 3.). This characteristic was a universalisation of the various "real characteristics". Couturat wrote that Leibniz gave Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics and chemical signs as examples of ''real characteristics'' writing:
In a footnote, Couturat added:
Metaphysics
Hartley Rogers
Hartley may refer to:
Places Australia
*Hartley, New South Wales
* Hartley, South Australia
**Electoral district of Hartley, a state electoral district
Canada
*Hartley Bay, British Columbia
United Kingdom
*Hartley, Cumbria
*Hartley, Plymo ...
emphasised the metaphysical aspect of the ''characteristica universalis'' by relating it to the "elementary theory of the ordering of the reals," defining it as "a precisely definable system for making statements of science" (Rogers 1963: 934). Universal language projects like Esperanto, and formal logic projects like
Frege's ''
Begriffsschrift
''Begriffsschrift'' (German for, roughly, "concept-script") is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and the formal system set out in that book.
''Begriffsschrift'' is usually translated as ''concept writing'' or ''concept notati ...
'' are not commonly concerned with the epistemic synthesis of empirical science, mathematics, pictographs and metaphysics in the way Leibniz described. Hence scholars have had difficulty in showing how projects such as the ''Begriffsschrift'' and Esperanto embody the full vision Leibniz had for his ''characteristica''.
The writings of
Alexander Gode suggested that Leibniz' ''characteristica'' had a metaphysical bias which prevented it from reflecting reality faithfully. Gode emphasized that Leibniz established certain goals or ''functions'' first, and then developed the ''characteristica'' to fulfill those functions.
Science
In the domain of science, Leibniz aimed for his ''characteristica'' to form diagrams or pictures, depicting any system at any scale, and understood by all regardless of native language. Leibniz wrote:
P. P. Weiner raised an example of a large scale application of Leibniz's ''characteristica'' to climatic science. A weather-forecaster invented by
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to ...
"interested Leibniz in connection with his own attempts to invent a universal language" (1940).
Leibniz talked about his dream of a universal scientific language at the very dawn of his career, as follows:
Nicholas Rescher, reviewing Cohen's 1954 article, wrote that:
Near the end of his life, Leibniz wrote that combining metaphysics with mathematics and science through a universal character would require creating what he called:
The universal "representation" of knowledge would therefore combine lines and points with "a kind of pictures" (
pictographs
A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and gr ...
or
logogram
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
s) to be manipulated by means of his ''calculus ratiocinator''. He hoped his pictorial algebra would advance the scientific treatment of qualitative phenomena, thereby constituting "that science in which are treated the forms or formulas of things in general, that is, quality in general" (''On Universal Synthesis and Analysis'', 1679, in Loemker 1969: 233).
His diagrammatic reasoning
Since the ''characteristica universalis'' is diagrammatic and employs
pictograms (see picture), the diagrams in Leibniz's work warrant close study. On at least two occasions, Leibniz illustrated his philosophical reasoning with diagrams. One diagram, the frontispiece to his 1666 ''
De Arte Combinatoria'' (On the Art of Combinations), represents the Aristotelian theory of how all material things are formed from combinations of the elements earth, water, air, and fire.
These four elements make up the four corners of a diamond (see picture). Opposing pairs of these are joined by a bar labeled "contraries" (earth-air, fire-water). At the four corners of the superimposed square are the four qualities defining the elements. Each adjacent pair of these is joined by a bar labeled "possible combination"; the diagonals joining them are labeled "impossible combination". Starting from the top, fire is formed from the combination of dryness and heat; air from wetness and heat; water from coldness and wetness; earth from coldness and dryness. This diagram is reproduced in several texts including ''Saemtliche Schriften und Briefe'' (''Saemtliche Schriften und Briefe'', Reihe VI, Band 1: 166, Loemker 1969: 83, 366, Karl Popp and Erwin Stein 2000: 33).
Leibniz retraces his steps and makes a discovery
Leibniz rightly saw that creating the ''characteristica'' would be difficult, fixing the time required for devising it as follows: "I think that some selected men could finish the matter in five years" (Loemker 1969: 224), later remarking: "And so I repeat, what I have often said, that a man who is neither a prophet nor a prince can ever undertake any thing of greater good to mankind of more fitting for divine glory" (Loemker 1969: 225). But later in life, a more sober note emerged. In a March 1706 letter to the Electress
Sophia of Hanover, the spouse of his patron, he wrote:
In another 1714 letter to Nicholas Remond, he wrote:
Eventually, by discovering
binary digits again from Chinese works, which was now from the
I Ching
The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zh ...
, Leibniz arrived at what he felt was a discovery of a link that would thereby create his characteristica universalis. It eventually created the foundations of
symbolic logic and modern philosophy, specifically the predicate-based
Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
and
Boolean Logic.
Three criteria
C. J. Cohen (1954) set out three criteria which any project for a philosophical language would need to meet before it could be considered a version of the ''characteristica universalis''. In setting out these criteria, Cohen made reference to the concept of "logistic". This concept is not the same as that used in statistical analysis. In 1918,
Clarence Irving Lewis, the first English-speaking logician to translate and discuss some of Leibniz's logical writings, elaborated on "logistic" as follows:
Following from this Cohen stipulated that the universal character would have to serve as:
*An "
international auxiliary language
An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
" enabling individuals speaking different languages to communicate with one another;
*Symbolism for the exact and systematic expression of all present knowledge, making possible a "logistic" treatment of science in general. This symbolism could also be expanded to accommodate future knowledge;
*An instrument of discovery and demonstration.
These criteria together with the notion of logistic reveal that Cohen and Lewis both associated the ''characteristica'' with the methods and objectives of
general systems theory.
A common scientific language
Inconsistency,
vagueness, and a lack of specifics in both English language translations and modern English language interpretations of Leibniz's writings render a clear exposition difficult. As with Leibniz's ''
calculus ratiocinator'' two different schools of philosophical thought have come to emphasise two different aspects that can be found in Leibniz's writing. The first point of view emphasizes
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
and
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
, and is associated with
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
and
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
. The second point of view is more in tune with Couturat's views as expressed above, which emphasize
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
and
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
. This point of view is associated with synthetic philosophy and
empiricism. Either or both of these aspects Leibniz hoped would guide human reasoning like
Ariadne's thread
Ariadne (; grc-gre, Ἀριάδνη; la, Ariadne) was a Cretan princess in Greek mythology. She was mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. She is best known for havi ...
and thereby suggest solutions to many of humanity's urgent problems.
Gödel alleges conspiracy
Because Leibniz never described the ''characteristica universalis'' in operational detail, many philosophers have deemed it an absurd fantasy. In this vein, Parkinson wrote:
The logician
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an imm ...
, on the other hand, believed that the ''characteristica universalis'' was feasible, and that its development would revolutionize mathematical practice (Dawson 1997). He noticed, however, that a detailed treatment of the ''characteristica'' was conspicuously absent from Leibniz's publications. It appears that Gödel assembled all of Leibniz's texts mentioning the ''characteristica'', and convinced himself that some sort of systematic and conspiratorial censoring had taken place, a belief that became obsessional. Gödel may have failed to appreciate the magnitude of the task facing the editors of Leibniz's manuscripts, given that Leibniz left about 15,000 letters and 40,000 pages of other manuscripts. Even now, most of this huge
Nachlass remains unpublished.
Related 17th century projects
Others in the 17th century, such as
George Dalgarno, attempted similar philosophical and linguistic projects, some under the heading of ''
mathesis universalis''. A notable example was
John Wilkins
John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.
Wilkins is one of the f ...
, the author of ''
An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language'', who wrote a
thesaurus
A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
Synonym diction ...
as a first step towards a universal language. He intended to add to his thesaurus an
alphabet of human thought (an organisational scheme, similar to a
thesaurus
A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea:
Synonym diction ...
or the
Dewey decimal system
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject.
Section 4.1 ...
), and an "algebra of thought," allowing rule-based manipulation. The philosophers and linguists who undertook such projects often belonged to
pansophical (universal knowledge) and scientific knowledge groups in London and Oxford, collectively known as the "
Invisible College" and now seen as forerunners of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...
.
More recent projects
A wide variety of
constructed languages have emerged over the past 150 years which may be seen as supporting some of Leibniz's intuitions.
* Raymond F. Piper (1957; 432–433) claimed that O.L. Reiser's ''Unified Symbolism for World Understanding in Science'' (1955), an expansion of his ''A Philosophy for World Unification'' (1946), was inspired by Leibniz's ''characteristica universalis'', and believed necessary for world understanding and unbiased communications so that "war may eventually be eliminated and that a worldwide organism of peaceful human beings may gradually be established" (Piper Ibid.).
* The study of
Boolean algebra
In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas ...
s and
group theory
In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups.
The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ...
in the 19th century proved correct Leibniz's intuition that
algebraic methods could be used to reason about qualitative and non-numerical phenomena. Specifically, the members of the
universal set of a
Boolean algebra
In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas ...
or
group need not be numbers. Moreover, a fair bit of philosophy and theoretical science can be formalized as axiomatic theories embodying
first-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quanti ...
and
set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concer ...
. Note also how
model theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories (a collection of sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a mathematical structure), and their models (those structures in which the ...
has been employed to formalize and reason about such emphatically nonnumerical subjects as
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...
and
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the in ...
of
natural languages
In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...
. But these approaches have yet to result in any
pictographic notations.
* Fearnley-Sander (1986) went one step further, defining Leibniz's ''characteristica'' as a combination of the algebra of logic (which Fearnley-Sander defined as the ''calculus ratiocinator'') and the algebra of geometry (defined as the ''characteristica geometrica''). Fearnley-Sander suggested that this combination had "come to pass" with the rise of
universal algebra
Universal algebra (sometimes called general algebra) is the field of mathematics that studies algebraic structures themselves, not examples ("models") of algebraic structures.
For instance, rather than take particular Group (mathematics), groups as ...
. Some people other than Fearnley-Sander working in the area of "universal algebra," the study of the mathematical and logical properties of
algebraic structures
In mathematics, an algebraic structure consists of a nonempty set ''A'' (called the underlying set, carrier set or domain), a collection of operations on ''A'' (typically binary operations such as addition and multiplication), and a finite set ...
generally, do not believe that universal algebra has anything to do with the ''characteristica''.
* Palko, Gy Bulcsu (1986) considered structured analysis for analyzing and designing hierarchic systems by using an iconic language, and suggested that such was an application of the universal characteristics Leibniz's project to the language of structured analysis and the formalization of an iconic control system.
* Kluge (1980) argued that
Frege's landmark ''
Begriffsschrift
''Begriffsschrift'' (German for, roughly, "concept-script") is a book on logic by Gottlob Frege, published in 1879, and the formal system set out in that book.
''Begriffsschrift'' is usually translated as ''concept writing'' or ''concept notati ...
'' was consciously inspired by the ''characteristica universalis''.
* Even though
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for ...
, a founder of
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...
, believed that all reasoning was diagrammatic, the relation, if any, of the ''characteristica'' to his
existential graph
An existential graph is a type of diagrammatic or visual notation for logical expressions, proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote on graphical logic as early as 1882,Peirce, C. S., "n Junctures and Fractures in Logic (editors' title for M ...
s and to
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...
has yet to be explored in the English literature.
* Several aspects of
logical positivism, specifically:
** The first-order theories of
Rudolf Carnap's ''Aufbau'' (1928, English translation 1967) and of its successor, Goodman (1977), are Leibnizian in their sweep and ambition, although Leibniz would have taken strenuous exception to Carnap's resolute
hostility to all
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
.
** The
unification of science movement of the 1930s, led by
Otto Neurath,
Rudolf Carnap, and
Charles W. Morris, and later by
Edward Haskell et al., bears comparison with the ''characteristica''.
**
Otto Neurath's
isotype pictogram
A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and g ...
system, and "international picture language."
* The following attempts to recast parts of theoretical science as axiomatic first-order theories can be viewed as attempts to develop parts of the ''characteristica'':
**''Special relativity'', by
Hans Reichenbach,
Rudolf Carnap, and others during the 1920s (Carnap 1958: 197–212);
** ''Biology'', by Joseph Woodger (1937), also during the 1930s (Carnap 1958: 213–20):
** ''Mechanics'', by Suppes (1957: 291–305) and others during the 1950s.
* The objectives of the 'Symbolator' or 'idea-computer' (Goppold 1994) resemble in some respects a less ambitious version of the ''characteristica universalis''.
* Connections with the Jewish
Cabbala
Christian Kabbalah arose during the Renaissance due to Christian scholars' interest in the mysticism of Jewish Kabbalah, which they interpreted according to Christian theology. It is often transliterated as Cabala (also ''Cabbala'') to distingu ...
, and the
International auxiliary language policy of the
Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...
have also been made.
* The characteristic has also been claimed as an ancestor of the pictographic
Energy Systems Language and associated
Emergy Synthesis of
Odum's ''
Systems Ecology
Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holism, holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general ...
'' (Cevolatti and Maud, 2004). The Energy Systems Language combines lines and points with "a kind of pictures" manipulated by means of digital computers and software packages like EXTEND (Odum, Odum, and Peterson 1995), and Valyi's Emergy Simulator.
It was designed to provide a general systems language affording quantitative accounting and mathematical simulation of qualitative energy relationships between ecological entities: "that science in which are treated the forms or formulas of things in general, that is, quality in general". A general algebra known as the
emergy algebra emerged from the repeated use of this language in modelling and simulating the
energetic principles of ecological relations. In particular it afforded the discovery and demonstration of the
maximum power principle, suggested as the fourth law of thermodynamics. If this ancestral claim is granted, then simulation software like EXTEND and Valyi's Emergy Simulator can be seen as combining the ''characteristica'' and the ''
calculus ratiocinator'', if and only if the digital computer is interpreted as a physical embodiment of the ''calculus ratiocinator''.
* The work of
Mario Bunge on the border of physics and metaphysics seems grounded in metaphysical presuppositions similar to those of Leibniz's ''characteristica'' (Radnitzky 1981: 246).
*
Jacob Linzbach's
Transcendent Algebra, a pasigraphy designed to allow the "calculation of truth" through manipulation of given facts following basic principles much like those used in mathematics, was inspired by Leibniz's ''characteristica''.
*
Lojban (and its older version
Loglan) are both artificial languages derived from
predicate logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quanti ...
, and intended for use in human communication.
*
Charles K. Bliss's
Blissymbols or Blissymbolics, presently used as an 'alternative and augmentative language' for disabled people but originally intended as an International 'Auxlang', is said to be in the mold of the ''characteristica'' (Bliss 1978).
*
Emoji
An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed convers ...
, while still in their relative infancy, could be considered to be an early stage in the organic development of a universal logographic language.
*
Ithkuil is a constructed language created by John Quijada, designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization.
* The
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(ISO), with a history going back to the 1920s, was founded under its current name in 1947 as a non-governmental organization with general consultative status with the
United Nations Economic and Social Council
The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; french: links=no, Conseil économique et social des Nations unies, ) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields ...
. Its membership consists of the national standards bodies of 164 of the UN Member States. Based on the work of its over 250 technical committees, the ISO has issued over 20,000 standards for scientific terminology, names and abbreviations, weights and measures, and safety-related and other pictographs.
* The
Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system.
*Bennett, John G.; Bortoft, Henri; and Pledge, Kenneth: "Towards an Objectively Complete Language: An Essay in Objective Description as Applied to Scientific Procedure," ''Systematics: The Journal of the Institute for the Comparative Study of History, Philosophy and the Sciences'', Vol. 3, No. 3, (December 1965), pp. 185-229.
* The
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an
alphabetic
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syl ...
system of
phonetic notation based primarily on the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...
. It was devised by the
International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of the sounds of
spoken language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
.
Notes
References
On Leibniz's lifelong interest in the ''characteristica'' and the like, see the following texts in Loemker (1969): 165–66, 192–95, 221–28, 248–50, and 654–66.
On the ''characteristica'', see Rutherford (1995) and the still-classic discussion in Couturat (1901: chpts. 3,4). Also relevant to the ''characteristica'' is Mates's (1986: 183–88) discussion of what he called the ''lingua philosophica''.
* Bliss, Charles K., 1978. ''Semantography: Blissymbolics''. 3rd enlarged edition. Sydney: Semantography-Blissymbolics Publications.
* Brown, M. T., 2004. "A picture is worth a thousand words: energy systems language and simulation," ''Ecological Modelling 178'': 83–100.
* Bulcsu P. G., 1986. "Formalization of the Iconic Language for Structured Analysis and Symbolic Logic,"
STRUKTURALT ANALIZIS (SA) IKONIKUS NYELVENEK FORMALIZALASA ES A SZIMBOLIKUS LOGIKA.''Meres es Automatika 34'': 315–22.
*
Carnap, Rudolph, 1958. ''Introduction to Symbolic Logic with Applications''. Dover.
* —, 1967. ''The Logical Structure of the World: Pseudoproblems in Philosophy''. University of California Press. Translation of his 1928 ''Der Logische Aufbau der Welt''. Leipzig: Felix Meiner Verlag.
* Cevolatti, D., and Maud, S., 2004. "Realising the Enlightenment: H. T. Odum's Energy Systems Language ''qua'' G. W. v. Leibniz's ''Characteristica Universalis''", ''Ecological Modelling 178'': 279–92.
* Cohen, C. Jonathan, 1954. "On the project of a universal character," ''Mind'' (New Series) ''63'': 249, pp. 49-63.
*
Couturat, Louis, 1901. ''La Logique de Leibniz''. Paris: Felix Alcan.
Donald Rutherford's English translation in progress.
*
Couturat, Louis, O. Jespersen, R. Lorenz,
Wilhelm Ostwald and L. Pfaundler, 1910. ''International Language and Science: Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science", Constable and Company Limited, London.
* Dascal, M., 1987. ''Leibniz: Language, Signs and Thought, A Collection of Essays''. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
*
Davis, Martin, 2001. ''Engines of Logic: Mathematicians and the Origin of the Computer''. W W Norton.
* Dawson, Jr., J. W., 1997. ''Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel''. Wellesley MA: A. K. Peters.
* Fearnley-Sander, Desmond, 1982. "Hermann Grassmann and the Prehistory of Universal Algebra," ''The American Mathematical Monthly 89'': 161–66.
*
Gode, Alexander, 1951. ''
Interlingua-English: A Dictionary of the International language''. New York: Storm Publishers.
*
Goodman, Nelson, 1977 (1951). ''The Structure of Appearance''. Reidel.
*
Hintikka, Jaakko, 1997. ''Lingua Universalis vs. Calculus Ratiocinator. An ultimate presupposition of Twentieth-century philosophy''. Kluwer.
* Jaenecke, P., 1996. "Elementary principles for representing knowledge," ''Knowledge Organization 23'': 88–102.
* Kluge, E. H. W., 1980. "Frege, Leibniz and the notion of an ideal language," ''Studia Leibnitiana 12'': 140–54.
*
Lewis, C. I., 1960 (1918). ''A Survey of Symbolic Logic''. Dover.
* Loemker, Leroy, ed. and trans., 1969. ''Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters''. Synthese Historical Library. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
* Mates, Benson, 1986. ''The Philosophy of Leibniz''. Oxford Univ. Press.
* Odum, E. C., Odum, H. T. and Peterson, N. S., 1995. "Using Simulation to Introduce the Systems Approach in Education" in Hall, C.S., ed., ''Maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H. T. Odum''. Colorado Univ. Press: 346–52.
* Parkinson, G. H. R., ed. and trans., 1966. ''Leibniz: Logical Papers''. Oxford Univ. Press.
* —, and Mary Morris, trans., 1973. ''Leibniz: Philosophical Writings''. London: J M Dent.
* Piper, R. F. 1957. "Review of 'Unified Symbolism for World Understanding in Science' by Oliver L. Reiser," ''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17'': 432–33.
* Radnitzky, Gerard, 1981. "Analytic philosophy as the confrontation between Wittgensteinians and Popper" in Agassi, J. & Cohen, R. S. (eds.), ''Scientific Philosophy Today'' (pp. 239–286). Dordrecht: Springer Verlag.
* Reiser, Oliver Leslie, 1946. ''A philosophy for world unification: Scientific humanism as an ideology for cultural integration'', Haldeman-Julius Publications.
* —, 1940. ''The Promise of Scientific Humanism Toward a Unification of Scientific, Religious, Social and Economic Thought'', Oskar Piest.
* –, 1955. ''Unified symbolism for world understanding in science: Including Bliss symbols (semantography) and logic, cybernetics and semantics'', Semantography Pub. Co.
*
Rescher, Nicholas, 1954. "Review of ''On the Project of a Universal Character'' by Jonathan Cohen," ''Journal of Symbolic Logic 19'': 133.
*
Rogers, Jr., Hartley, 1963. "An Example in Mathematical Logic," ''The American Mathematical Monthly 70'': 929–45.
* Rutherford, Donald, 1995, "Philosophy and language" in Jolley, N., ed., ''The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz''. Cambridge Univ. Press.
* Strickland, Lloyd, ed., 2011. ''Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence''. Toronto: Iter Inc.
*
Suppes, Patrick, 1999 (1957). ''Introduction to Logic''. Dover.
*
van Heijenoort, Jean, 1967. "Logic as calculus and logic as language," ''Synthese 17'': 324–330. Reprinted in Hintikka (1997).
* Wiener, Philip P., 1940. "Leibniz's Project of a Public Exhibition of Scientific Inventions," ''Journal of the History of Ideas 1'': 232–240.
* Woodger, Joseph H., 1937. ''The axiomatic method in biology'', Cambridge University Press.
External links
* Corazzon, Raul, 2010
Language as Calculus vs. Language as Universal Medium Includes bibliography, links to online papers, and passages from the writings of
Jaakko Hintikka and
Jean Van Heijenoort.
* Smith, Barry, 1978
An Essay in Formal Ontology ''Grazer Philosophische Studien 6'': 39–62.
* —, 1990
Characteristica Universalisin K. Mulligan, ed., ''Language, Truth and Ontology'', (Philosophical Studies Series). Kluwer: 50–81.
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Engineered languages
Intellectual history
Classification systems