The Enlightenment seems to bring about a shift in rhetoric's purpose from that of civil discourse to more private interests and communication. Where traditional doctrines of knowledge-making or discovering truth stem from innate or received divination, the rhetoricians and philosophers of the Enlightenment emphasized that the ability to discover knowledge resided in perception.
Locke extends Bacon's tenets that truth could be discovered in the physical world with knowledge being possible if we understood the discovery process. He puts forth the idea that words are signs of ideas and the act of reflection, relating ideas to one another, is how we acquire knowledge. Not a fan of style and delivery, Locke represents a more philosophical and introspective approach to rhetoric and knowledge-making.
Hume and Sheridan, on the other hand, approach knowledge acquisition from a more relativistic view. Both emphasize the importance of style, although Sheridan takes presentation a bit far with his emphasis on elocution. Hume tries to temper an extreme relativistic view with touchstones--claiming some things (art in particular) are simply clearly better than others--and taste--believing some people are simply "more sensitive and knowledgeable" than others. The parameters that Hume employs on rhetoric relate the importance he places on knowing the tolerances of the audience, an idea that reflects back to Cicero.
Blair's quote, which opens Chapter 8, blends the strategies of both Locke's and Hume's philosophies. Language is best served when we "convey our ideas clearly to the minds of others . . . in such a dress, as by pleasing and interesting them" (p. 174).
Dear Deb,
ReplyDeleteI was not surprised by Sheridan's emphasis on elocution because of his thespian background. It is to be expected. And even Cicero recognized delivery as important. Oratory was also important during this period for messages from the pulpit, however Herrick tells us that "British culture shifted increasingly from oral to written discourse" (179).
I think throughout various periods in history oral rhetoric has grown and waned in popularity. Right now, for example, there is very little emphasis on oral rhetoric (unless one is a politician or other public spokesperson), and written rhetoric seems to be more popular (I'm thinking of the prevalence of Twitter and Facebook, which are extreme forms of written rhetoric but right now very au courant). I look forward to the coming decades to see what's next.
Good note about moving rhetoric to the people. Yes, there is much more personal correspondence that pays close attention to principles of rhetoric in the Enlightenment, with elocution. Is Locke's discovery process, then, similar to Aristotle's notion of invention as selection? There is knowledge in the world, we just have to know how to access it legitimately, through the senses, through science rather than deductive logic only. As Debbie points out, there is relatively little emphasis of oral rhetoric. Is delivery and visual rhetoric the new oral rhetoric? Are we moving toward more oral rhetoric with podcasting?
ReplyDeleteI liked your discussion and the quote about language putting on a pleasing dress. In a way that is very apt. We all see things that are more pleasing to look at and more pleasing to read than others.
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