The Study of Logic and Language in England in the Early 17th Century

John A. Trentman
McGill University
Summary

Round the turn of the seventeenth century there was a revival of interest in and sympathy for scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy in the English universities. To some extent this meant a continuation of traditions that had never died out, but it also meant a conscious rejection of anti-Aristotelian doctrines like those of Ramus. Fortunately, we have good contemporary evidence of the sorts of authors recommended for study in the early 17th century in the Directions for a Student in the Universitie, attributed to Richard Holdsworth (1590–1649). Here we find a remarkable proportion of time given to the study of logic texts. An examination of the texts recommended, however, shows that they attempted little formal logic and were careless in what they did attempt. The primary interest of the authors of these books was in the philosophy of logic and language and in related epistemological and metaphysical questions. In this they show, if not the influence of Ramus, at least a parallel emphasis to that of some of the philosophies they rejected. Their philosophy of language is generally thoughtfully and coherently worked out, but it is not original. Indeed, it closely follows the doctrines of the medieval logicians and speculative grammarians, which philosophical doctrines can be identified with the principles delineated by Chomsky as characteristic of so-called Cartesian linguistics. The preservation of medieval philosophy of language combined with a relative lack of interest in medieval formal logic, however, has the effect of sharpening the emphasis in these works on what is innate in human beings and their use of language. This shift of interest rather than any real doctrinal change tends to distinguish these works from those of their medieval predecessors. In Edward Brerewood’s (c. 1565–1613) treatise on the diversity of languages (1614) we see these same philosophical doctrines combined with an interest that was new and not medieval, an interest in the historical and, in its way, empirical study of national languages themselves.

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