From Babel to Eden: Comenius and the 17th-Century Philosophical Langage Movement

Joseph L. Subbiondo
University of the Pacific
Summary

Starting in the 1950s, there has been renewed interest in the 17th-century English philosophical language movement and in Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670), who visited England in 1641 and participated in that movement. In that most of the interest in Comenius has been centered on his role in the development of philosophical language, there has been a tendency to take his theory of universal language (‘panglottia’) out of the broader intellectual context of his work. In spite of his diverse range of inquiry, Comenius, for the most part, maintained a unifying theme for his work – educational reform. For Comenius, educational reform was the end and philosophical language was a means to that end. Thus, as the paper tries to demonstrate, the influence of Comenius on the English philosophical language movement in general, and on the work of its leading theorist and practitioner. John Wilkins (1614–1672) in particular, was that he established a means/end relationship for philosophical language and educational reform.

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