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“The Best of All Possible Languages”: Marin Mersenne as a Source of Comenius’s Combinatorial Approach to Language Planning
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SYSNO ASEP 0503453 Document Type J - Journal Article R&D Document Type Journal Article Subsidiary J Článek ve SCOPUS Title “The Best of All Possible Languages”: Marin Mersenne as a Source of Comenius’s Combinatorial Approach to Language Planning Author(s) Pavlas, Petr (FLU-F) ORCID, RID, SAI Source Title Acta Comeniana. - : Filosofický ústav AV ČR, v. v. i. - ISSN 0231-5955
-, 31/55 (2017), s. 23-41Number of pages 19 s. Publication form Print - P Language eng - English Country CZ - Czech Republic Keywords Combinatorics ; Combinatorial mathematics ; Raymond Lull ; Girolamo Cardano ; Christopher Clavius ; Paul Guldin ; Daniel Schwenter ; Marin Mersenne ; Jan Amos Comenius Subject RIV AA - Philosophy ; Religion OECD category Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology R&D Projects GB14-37038G GA ČR - Czech Science Foundation (CSF) Method of publishing Metadata only Institutional support FLU-F - RVO:67985955 EID SCOPUS 85066815653 Annotation Apart from cabbalist and Lullist “philosophical combinatorics”, there is a tradition of mathematical combinatorics connected with transposing letters (phones) from Cardano on. While Girolamo Cardano (1539) uses the combinations of letters as a more or less random illustration of the method of combinatorial calculations, Christopher Clavius (1570) more appropriately applies permutation and Daniel Schwenter (1636) thinks about putting all the gained “words” down. Paul Guldin (1641), moreover, enumerates the media and space needed for such an enterprise. The problem is, step by step, taken more and more seriously. Marin Mersenne and Jan Amos Comenius take this problem as a serious issue too. This study shows the influence of Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (1636) on Jan Amos Comenius’s combinatorial approach to language planning. The influence could be either direct or indirect (perhaps via a hypothetical translation or abstract by Theodore Haak). However, there is no doubt that Comenius was acquainted with Mersenne’s project in detail. Comenius is the first thinker whose combinatorial calculations are a part of a treatise focused purely on general linguistic (Novissima linguarum methodus, 1648). Kircher’s Polygraphia nova et universalis appears in 1663, Leibniz’s Dissertatio de arte combinatoria in 1666, van Helmont’s Alphabeti vere naturalis Hebraici brevissima delineatio in 1667. Workplace Institute of Philosophy Contact Chlumská Simona, chlumska@flu.cas.cz ; Tichá Zuzana, asep@flu.cas.cz Tel: 221 183 360 Year of Publishing 2019
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