George Berkeley’s language of vision and the occult tradition of linguistic Platonism: Part I: Linguistic Platonism in the Renaissance

This case study on the linguistic ideas of George Berkeley is designed to exemplify the clandestine intrusion of ‘linguistic Platonism’, i.e. occult conceptions of language, into linguistic theories of modern times. The assumption underlying the study is that occult linguistic thought has played an important role in the formation of all modern theories of language which argue for a cognitive function alongside, or instead of, a communicative function of language. Focusing on the historical emergence of linguistic Platonism in Renaissance esoteric traditions, part I will lay the foundations for a new interpretation of Berkeley’s theory of language (part II), which will be presented in the following issue. Here I will argue that occult concepts of language are indeed amenable to serious historiographic study, widespread convictions to the contrary notwithstanding. I will suggest that the apparent contradictions and other theoretical inconsistencies in occult concepts of language vanish once we allow for the possibility that they can be allocated to two different kinds of language and to two theories of language. It is this double theory of language that provides the theoretical backbone of linguistic Platonism.