Episode Details

This lecture discusses key ideas from the 20th century philosophical short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges's essay "The Analytical Language Of John Wilkins" which can be found in his collection Other Inquisitions. It explains the idea behind this rather utopian scheme to remodel language along completely rational and systematic lines in his work An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language . He also compares Wilkins' project with a classification listing of animals in a fictional "Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge", and with a classification scheme of the Bibliographical Institute of Brussels. As a side-note, Michel Foucault famously incorporated and commented on Borges' fictional list of animals in his work The Order Of Things. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO - or at BuyMeACoffee - www.buymeacoffee.com/A4quYdWoM You can find over 4000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Get Borges' Other Inquisitions here - https://amzn.to/4br9pul