Table Of ContentLANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES
Advisory Editorial Board
Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade); Jean-Claude Chevalier (Paris)
H.H. Christmann (Tübingen); Boyd H. Davis (Charlotte, N.C.)
Rudolf Engler (Bern); Hans-Josef Niederehe (Trier)
R.H. Robins (London); Rosane Rocher (Philadelphia)
Vivian Salmon (Oxford); Aldo Scaglione (Chapel Hill)
Volume 48
Lia Formigari
Language and Experience in 17th-Century British Philosophy
LANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE
IN 17TH-CENTURY
BRITISH PHILOSOPHY
LIA FORMIGARI
Facoltà di Lettere
Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1988
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Formigari, Lia, 1931-
[Linguistica ed empirismo nel Seicento inglese. English]
Language and experience in 17th-century British philosophy / Lia Formigari
p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series
III, Studies in the history of language sciences, ISSN 0304-0720; v. 48)
"Revised version of a volume originally published in 1970 under the title Linguistica ed
empirismo nel Seicento inglese" ~ P.
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
1. Languages ~ Philosophy — History ~ 17th century. 2. Empiricism. 3. Philosophy,
British. I. Title. II. Title: Language and experience in seventeenth-century British
philosophy. III. Series.
P106.F66713 1988
401 - dc 19 88-18634
CIP
ISBN 90 272 4531 2 (alk. paper)
© Copyright 1988 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
0. Introduction
Francis Bacon and the Renaissance Linguistic Tradition 1
1.0 Language and the languages 15
1.1 The language of nature 15
1.2 The filiation of languages 24
1.3 The foundations of grammar: language and reason's 'strict
copulation' 39
2.0 The reconstruction of linguistic unity 51
2.1 Communication and the reform of learning 51
2.2 Artificial vs. natural language 61
2.3 Towards a 'Lexicon exemplare' 67
3.0 Semiotics and the theory of knowledge 91
3.1 Semantics vs. metaphysics 91
3.2 Semiotic logic and the theory of meaning 112
3.3 Language and the 'way of ideas' 121
Concluding remarks 133
Bibliography 137
A. Primary sources 137
B. Secondary sources 152
Index of names 171
Index of subjects 177
Acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of a volume originally published in 1970
under the title Linguistica ed empirismo nel Seicento inglese (Bari: Laterza).
Written in the heyday of the reappraisal of Saussure's linguistic theory,
which was given new impetus in Italy by Tullio De Mauro's edition of Saussure's
Cours (1967), it was born out of the need to fill a gap that I felt exist
ed in linguistic historiography between the tradition of philosophical
semantics and contemporary theories of the sign. Since then, the history of
linguistics has developed as a discipline in its own right and a great deal of
material has appeared to fill that gap. In the present embarras de richesse
two opposite trends can be distinguished in the available literature: one
tends to emphasize continuity 'from Locke to Saussure', the other lumps all
17th- and 18th-century theories of language together under the heading of
"representationalism" and thus stresses the breach that separates them
from contemporary theories. An exploration of linguistic theories and their
extra-linguistic basis in 17th-century Britain such as the one attempted in
this book should still be useful today, at least as it would help avoid these
two extremes.
In sending this book to press, I want to give my warmest thanks to Vivian
Salmon of Keble College, Oxford, who has long encouraged the project
of an English translation, and to Konrad Koerner, who has welcomed it in
his series and has carefully read the prefinal version of the text and made a
number of useful suggestions for its improvement. I am also deeply inde
bted to Maria Valentini, who assisted me in the translation of the book, and
to William Dodd, who has read the manuscript. Both of them have helped
me avoid the idola of my mother-tongue. All remaining shortcomings are
mine.
Lia Formigari
Rome, December 1987
0. Introduction
Francis Bacon and the Renaissance Linguistic Tradition
It is not only for chronological reasons that a study of 17th-century
British linguistics must begin with a mention of Francis Bacon (1585-1626)
and a summary of his observations on language. The numerous references
to the "English Aristotle", or the "learned Verulam", are a measure of
Bacon's persisting influence (Howell 1971: 259-437), in spite of the occa
sional reservations and in spite of the multiplicity of contributions which
went into the making of 17th-century British philosophy. Moreover, we can
trace virtually every issue that the philosophy of language was to debate in
the course of the century to Bacon's works. Indeed, Bacon's encyclopaedia
of sciences is, even in the field of linguistics, the best survey of the problems
handed down by tradition and the best starting point for discussion.
In addition to a list of traditional linguistic problems, 17th-century
British philosophy inherits from Bacon a kind of scepticism which tends to
stress the shortcomings of language and advocate reform or even invent
new languages, in order to adapt them to the real needs of communication.
English culture finds in Bacon's works not only an encyclopaedic treatement
of the human and natural sciences, but also a list of impediments to
the transmission of knowledge.
We can approach Bacon's criticism of language through his analysis of
the arts of communication. The classical metaphor representing logic by a
closed fist and rhetoric by an open palm occurs frequently in Renaissance
literature on the subject (Howell 1934) and proves that a distinction
between the two great arts of communication is still valid. Both aim at the
transmission of a previously acquired knowledge, but one is destined for
learned communication, the other for the popularization of knowledge.
This distinction was not questioned even by Ramus' reform of the liberal
arts in the 16th century: a reform which was widely known in England
(Howell 1956: 146-281) and is occasionally mentioned by Bacon himself. It
2 LANGUAGE AND EXPERIENCE
is only in this context that we can understand the importance of Bacon's
criticism of traditional dialectics, which he considers inadequate and incom
petent to deal with the obscurity of nature, whereas induction stimulates
the senses, controls nature, and can almost be identified with practice.
Whence the distinction between the old dialectical logic as a method of
organizing knowledge, and the new inductive logic as a method of discover
ing it: the one anticipatio mentis, the other interpretatio naturae. (1607: 606-
608; 1620a: 151-54, 161; 1620b: 135-39; 1623: 614 ff.)
Once the distinction between logic as a method of investigation and
logic as a method of communication was made, the traditional division of
functions beween dialectics and rhetoric had to be re-examined. In Bacon's
view syllogistic argumentation is still valid, but for transmitting knowledge
only and not for increasing it. It is an effective tool in civil life because it
elicits understanding by exploiting accepted notions and prompts agree
ment; this is why it has a practical rather than a heuristic function and
works only when we do not need to dominate reality but simply to obtain
people's assent. The old logic, the method of anticipation of the mind, is
still considered a proper tool for the communication of knowledge, but only
inasmuch as it implies a new logic or, as Bacon says, a true logic, which
ensures the acquisition of knowledge and the progress of learning. Tradi
tion, following Cicero, had conceived of invention as the discovery of cor
rect or seemingly correct arguments, that is, as a dialectic use of previously
acquired materials. Bacon, by contrast, when discussing the great intellec
tual arts, inaugurates a concept of invention as the acquisition of new data
and notions.
As a result, the old metaphor of the closed fist and the open palm loses
part of its weight. Logic and rhetoric can no longer be identified respec
tively with the art of learned communication and the art of common speech.
The relationship becomes more complex. If we refer to the new logic, to the
interpretation of nature, the difference between logic and rhetoric lies in
the difference between a method of scientific research mainly or even exc
lusively concerned with practical operations, and an art of discovering argu
ments which may be used to express scientific matters but can also be
applied to other aspects of civil life. If, on the other hand, we consider trad
itional dialectics, with its method of anticipatio mentis, then both logic and
rhetoric are reduced to the role of tools for communication bent on obtain
ing assent. Nevertheless, a fundamental difference still holds between
dialectics and rhetoric. Dialectics in fact works with proofs and arguments
