Abstract

Although philosophising about given languages had been going on ever since the time of Plato's Kratylos, the idea of an artificial philosophical language or system of signs began to take shape in the seventeenth century. Both Descartes and Mersenne explored the ground for the foundations of a system of expressions which could meet all the requirements of logical thought; but the merit of presenting the first elaborate plans goes to the British authors George Dalgarno and John Wilkins. 1 Leibniz followed soon after with his characteristica universalis.