Question

In evaluating seventeenth-century philosophical language schemes, historian of linguistics Dr. Julian Sterling contends that John Wilkins’s 1668 Essay Towards a Real Character was not merely a utopian attempt to eliminate ambiguity, but a pragmatic tool designed to facilitate transnational scientific communication. Sterling emphasizes Wilkins’s extensive correspondence with continental natural philosophers as evidence that the system's combinatorial taxonomy was tailored for real-world utility rather than speculative completeness. While Sterling rightly highlights the utilitarian motivations that underpinned Wilkins’s endeavor—a corrective to traditional portrayals of the Essay as an exercise in ivory-tower pedantry—his thesis overstates the degree to which Wilkins’s contemporaries found the system operational. Wilkins’s intricate matrix of tables required users to internalize thousands of arbitrary semantic categories, a cognitive burden that ultimately alienated even his most ardent correspondents. Furthermore, Sterling glosses over Wilkins’s own expressed anxieties regarding the vulnerability of his classification to regional dialectal shift. Thus, while Sterling’s reappraisal helpfully dislodges a long-standing caricature of Wilkins as an impractical dreamer, it ultimately offers an overly sanguine assessment of the real-character project’s functional viability in early modern Europe.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements accurately characterize the author's attitude toward Dr. Julian Sterling's thesis regarding Wilkins's Essay? Select all that apply.