Although now largely forgotten, the international language movement was, from the 1880s to the end of the Second World War, a matter of widespread public interest, as well as a concern of numerous scientists and scholars. The primary goal was to establish a language for international communication, but in the early twentieth century an increasing accent was placed on philosophical considerations: wanted was a language better suited to the needs of modern science and rational thought. In this paper, we examine (...) the example of the English scholar C.K. Ogden's international language Basic English and his efforts to win the Vienna Circle philosophers Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap over to the project. Basic is shown to be an implementation of key ideas in Ogden's philosophy of language, ideas shared to a large extent with Neurath and Carnap. This we see through an examination of their unpublished correspondence, as well as through the collaboration that emerged between Ogden and Neurath, in which Neurath's Isotype, a system for graphically representing statistical data, became closely aligned with Basic. Through the ideas and endeavours we investigate here, we gain a new perspective on this crucial period in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Among the many Central European scholars and intellectuals driven into exile across the Atlantic in the 1930s was the prominent Vienna psychologist Karl Bühler (1879–1963). Bühler had great difficulty establishing himself in his new home of the United States, despite his attempts to adapt his ideas to the American scene. In this paper, we look at one such attempt at adaptation, the unpublished manuscript of Bühler’s “Pocketbook on Practical Semantics,” an effort to turn the Sprachtheorie of his Vienna period into (...) a contribution to the applied semiotics and communications research popular in America at the time. Our paper represents the first detailed examination of the “Pocketbook” manuscript that places it in its context in the history of semiotics. (shrink)

This book explores the influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889-1957). Ogden was connected to several of the most significant figures of the modernist period, including Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Victoria Lady Welby, Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap. In investigating these connections, this book reveals links between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics in a crucial period of their respective (...) histories and in turn sheds light on the intellectual history of the early twentieth century. Readers are introduced to the important interaction between Ogden's thought and Victoria Lady Welby's 'significs', Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein's 'logical atomism' in its various forms, and the philosophy and political activism of Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap of the Vienna Circle. McElvenny also examines the background to the ideas espoused in Ogden's book The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with I. A. Richards, along with the application of these ideas in Ogden's international language project Basic English. Provides a detailed study of the historical origin of key concepts in semantics and semiotics Reveals links between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics in a crucial period of their respective histories Makes extensive use of previously unexplored sources, including Ogden's articles in the journal Psyche and unpublished correspondence Includes a detailed examination of The Meaning of Meaning, 1923 and Basic English, 1930. (shrink)