Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language

by Paolo Rossi, Stephen Clucas (Translator)

The mnemonic arts and the idea of a universal language that would capture the essence of all things were originally associated with cryptology, mysticism, and other occult practices. And it is commonly held that these enigmatic efforts were abandoned with the development of formal logic in the seventeenth century and the beginning of the modern era. In his distinguished book, Logic and the Art of Memory Italian philosopher and historian Paolo Rossi argues that this view is belied by an examination of the history of the idea of a universal language.

Based on comprehensive analyses of original texts, Rossi traces the development of this idea from late medieval thinkers such as Ramon Lull through Bruno, Bacon, Descartes, and finally Leibniz in the seventeenth century. The search for a symbolic mode of communication that would be intelligible to everyone was not a mere vestige of magical thinking and occult sciences, but a fundamental component of Renaissance and Enlightenment thought. Seen from this perspective, modern science and combinatorial logic represent not a break from the past but rather its full maturity.

Available for the first time in English, this book (originally titled Clavis Universalis ) remains one of the most important contributions to the history of ideas ever written. In addition to his eagerly anticipated translation, Steven Clucas offers a substantial introduction that places this book in the context of other recent works on this fascinating subject. A rich history and valuable sourcebook, Logic and the Art of Memory documents an essential chapter in the development of human reason.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, History Of Science

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

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Filosofo e storico della scienza.

Reviews

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly valuable book linking together the mystical vision of Ramon Llull and the foundation of the Enlightenment. The concept of a "tree of knowledge" which can be united as a single root is traced from a Catholic origin into its Gnostic-Enlightenment counterpart. One astonishing fact for me is that this book came out in 1960, yet it was reviewed anew when the English editions were released in 2000 and 2006, as if people had never heard of it before (in fact, Dame Francis Yates was perfectly familiar with it in 1966). This is starting to solidify my belief that research into the history of Western thought has not been continuously progressing up to the present day as recent books tend to claim, but actually hit a high mark between 1870 and 1970.

[Heather Browning · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this quite dry and difficult to get through - lots and lots of names and dates. The underlying idea was interesting - the relationship between the mnemonic arts and the attempts to find a unifying 'philosophical language' (also timely, having just come across the idea in Quicksilver!), but I would have enjoyed more development of the idea, and fewer details on the historical writings. That's probably just my personal perspective though, as a non-historian; I find the ideas themselves more interesting than the details of who came up with them and how. I also found the ending very abrupt - rather than a wrap-up or concluding remarks, the chapter just ended and that was it. Some summing up of what had been covered and its overall relevance, with perhaps some comments on any further work in the past four centuries, would have helped.

[D. Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on the origins of the enlightenment via mnemotechnics going back to Aristotle, Cicero and the ars magna and combinatoria of Lull that strived for a "universal key", ie a universal language, best exemplified in Leibniz and continues to this day in computer programming (my own addition, computer programming language and systems are not addressed in this work as it is a historical overview of a movement from classical times to Leibniz documenting a movement towards memory and logic[viewed as inseparable] cultivating a universal system of signs---a "Universal Key" to all knowledge requiring mastery of mnemotechnics best arrived at in a universal language. Thought of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and Esperanto a great deal towards the end. Engrossing stuff, to say the least.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting historical overview of the art of memory and the logical system in which it was thought to be useful for producing a universal language. This pursuit had an enormous influence on dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the direction of mathematics and science.

More fields should revive these methods in order to facilitate education and broad synthesis.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ars Memoria was a medieval technique for memorization. One would imagine a structure that was intimately familiar, and in each corner or room, place an object that would bring to mind the thing to be memorized. It was considered a type of magic, to be passed down as all magical lore was, in secret.
Rossi, however, finds connections between the Art and the combinatoric methods of Ramon Llull, the deductive logic of Aristotle, the scientific method of Bacon, the universal character of Leibniz and Wilkins, and the computatio of Hobbes.
In order to memorize something, we need to reduces it to its essentials, to find the symmetries and order underlying it, to find rules that will allow us to reconstruct it in our minds from the smallest amount of actual facts committed to memory possible. In other words, to memorize something is to understand it. (In the field of computer science, this identity between compression and understanding is made formal and exact in the field of data compression and algorithmic information theory.) Bacon had no patience for the magic of it, but thought that the principle of finding the hidden rules to make memorization easier was a useful tool for science.