An Archival Paradise
John Wilkins’s Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language and Early Modern Info-Utopianism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6011872 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Georgie Newson (0000-0003-1105-1797, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 234-256 |
| Publication date | 2023-07-14 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Utopian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1045-991X • E-ISSN: 2154-9648 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0234 |
| OpenAlex | W4389726389 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
Bishop John Wilkins’s “universal philosophical language,” set out in his Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), has often been described—and indeed dismissed—as a “utopian” project. However, despite the charge of utopianism being applied to Wilkins’s work by theorists as eminent as Foucault, Lacan, and Umberto Eco, no effort has been made to read the Essay as a legitimately utopian text: a text that may be positioned alongside the rich utopian literary-critical tradition to mutually illuminating effect. This article argues that the Essay displays a tendency that the author terms “info-utopianism,” and that this tendency can be located in a number of other Early Modern utopian works. The article then discusses the contextual influences behind the emergence of Early Modern info-utopianism, as well as its implications for contemporary utopian theory
Art · Epistemology · Literature · Paradise · Sociology · Theology · Computer Science · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |