Tuesday 8 November 2011

Lex Qua Mathesis Universalis

1.  Aristotle's Rhetorical canon (inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, et pronunctio), Descartes' Discours Sur la Methode, and Leibniz'  mathesis universalis, urge us to learn power languages or codes, and thus to lever right principle into right action.  But maybe the best we can do is merely reformulate in a more consistent manner and in a pleasingly beautiful form, grammatical rules, like Panini's integration of Sanskrit grammar setting out a whole new programme for a language culture.  This is the most that social science or human science can do--alter cultures.  The protons remain the same forever, it's the social patterning that is changeable as the winds.

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