1	A Priori Philosophical Languages & Leibniz January 17, 2002
2	A Priori Philosophical Languages & Leibniz A Priori Philosophical Languages From Leibniz to the Encyclopédie
3	A Priori Philosophical Languages Goal: make a written language that can exactly represent something in the world Library of Congress System = a priori
4	A Priori Attributes Binary Qualities: able to identify anything in the universe Single Articulation: little changes make a slight conceptual change Primitives: small atoms of meaning; build everything on the primitives, like a chemical formula Tree Structure: like levels of classification in the animal kingdom
5	A Priori Implications Linguistic Peace: all thoughts would be the same Is there Choice or Agency???
6	A Posteriori Philosophical Languages Based on existing languages and adapted
7	A Priori versus A Posteriori
8	A Priori versus A Posteriori The goal of both types of philosophic language is to overturn human language. If we had a common language, we would be able to discourse in peace. It would keep us from arguing.
9	Hypertext Denis Diderot: (rationalist); wanted to systemize all human knowledge. Multiple texts – one point on a text refers to another point on a different text; this way different concepts can be related. (See pages 173-4 of the text.)
10	Computer Languages A Priori Languages “They are universal systems; they are comprehensible to speakers of different natural languages and are perfect in the sense that they permit neither error nor ambiguity. They are a priori, in that they are based not on the rules which govern the surface structures of natural languages, but rather, ideally, on a presumed deep grammar common to all natural languages. They are, finally, philosophical because they presume that this deep grammar, based on the laws of logic, is the grammar of thought of human beings and machines alike” (SFPL 311).
11	Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Identified a system of primitives. Elaborated an ideal grammar. Formulated a series of rules governing pronunciation. Elaboration of a lexicon which a speaker could use to formulate true propositions.
12	"“The greatest remedy for..." “The greatest remedy for the mind consists in the possibility of discovering a small set of thoughts from which an infinity of other thoughts might issue in order, in the same way as from a small set of numbers [the integers from 1 to 10] all the other numbers may be derived” (SFPL 275).
13	Binary Calculus “There is not an atom, indeed there is no such thing as a body so small that it cannot be subdivided . . . It follows that there is contained in every particle of the universe a world of infinite creatures. . . There can be no determined number of things, because no number could satisfy the need for an infinity of impressions” (SFPL 277).
14	I Ching Misinterpretation of Book of Changes “Those binary digits 1 and 0 are totally blind symbols which (through a syntactical manipulation) permits discoveries even before the strings into which they are formed are assigned meanings” (SFPL 286). Anticipation of Boolean Algebra and Machine Language.
15	The Systems Finite Set of Primitives Finite Set of Rules (for combining) Produce an Infinite # of Propositions
16	Is It Possible? Can a system that produces an infinite # of propositions produce all possible propositions?
17	Mathematics Integers Fractions Irrational Numbers Imaginary Numbers Each set includes an infinite # of propositions, but does not include all propositions.