50

GRANTHAVERS

uncharitable altogether. Indeed, the elites of the period have often acted "passively" in adopting egalitarian rhetoric (with a Christian root ) that emanated from the lower sectors of American society a phenomenon that
,

would not have surprised Mills.61 Burnham's admiring analysis of M a c hiavelli's politics provides an underappreciated contribution to elite theory His understa nd i n g of the
.

Empiricism, the New Rhetoric and the Public Sphere

relation between ideas and power might have saved value conservatives from placing too much hope in the influence of principle alone as a force

for change. Additionally, his willingness to fault the masses for complicity with elite agenda might have discouraged populists from naively idealiz ing the power of the "People" as a conservative force Yet his own analysis
.

David Randall
Jtirgen Habermas's c on ce pt i o n of the early modem public sphere derived in good part from a K an tian epistemology and the corollary Kantian theory of co mm u n i cation In The
.

of elite power does not dig as deeply as it should into the pivotal meaning of religion for politics. While Burnham sought to show the indispensable

power of religious belief, which many of his fellow conservatives shared in the postwar period, ironically revealed a naivete about the power of can influence each other, his dominant as sumption of elites over the masses. While B urnham did not doubt that masses and elites
"

value ofMachiavelli's teachings, his myopic understanding of religion did not do justice to the ideas of his hero. In fact, his defective grasp of the

Structural Transformation of the Public

Sphere, Habermas made extended reference to Kant as the centerpiece of his crucial chapter "The Bourgeois Public Sphere: Idea and Ideology," and taken as the inspiration of Habermas's public sphere theory:
the following quotation from Kant, select i vely cited by Habermas, may be

passiv i ty

"

among

the people negated any attempt on his part to account for times when the defending the "realism" of Machiavelli's political philosophy, Burnham at masses can challenge and overtake the power of the lead er ship class. In

Persuasion is a mere illusion; for the judgment's basis, which lies in the subject, is regarded as objective. Hence such a judgment also has only private validity, and the assent cannot be communicated. Truth, however, rests on agreement with the object; consequently, in regard to the object the judgments of every un dersta nding must be in agreement

times showed a lack of realism with r espect to the history and politics of his own people .

(consentientia uni tertia, consentiunt inter se).

Thus, whether assent is

conviction or mere persuasion, its touchstone externally is the possibility of communicating assent and of finding it to be val id for every human being's reason. For then there is at least a presumption that the agree ment of all the judgments, despite the difference among the subjects, will rest on the common basis, viz., the object, and that hence the judgments will all agree w ith the object and will thereby prove the truth of the
61. The civil rights movement of the 1960s, a classic case of "unarmed prophets" in
action, initially e njoyed popular support in the North, which forced the hand of reluctant leaders like Kennedy and Johnson to attack racialist practices in the South. By the end of

[joint] judgment.1

the decade, declining support for the movement among previously sympathetic North
erners made its leaders increasi ngly reliant on the federal government's intervention and assistance for more radical objectives like wealth redistribution and affirmative action. For a us eful discussion of the evolution of the movement from its popular base to its depen dence on the

l. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason: Unified Edition, trans Werner S. Pluhar
(Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1996), p. 748 [A820-21; 8848-49]; Jiirgen Habermas,
geois So c iety, trans. Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: The Structural Tram:formation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into
a

Category of Bour

state

see Christopher Lasch, The Troe and Only Heaven: Progress and Its

MIT Press,

Critics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), pp. 393-411.

1991), p. 108.

51

52

DAVID RANDALL

EMPIRICISM, THE NEW RHETORIC,

AND

THE PUBLIC SPHERE

53

For Kant, true knowledge depended on reason, and true communication on this true knowledge underpinned by reason-where "true" is also a rough synonym for "normative, moral ideal." Habermas associated this Kantian epistemology and theory of communication with the practice of the early modem public sphere; his own more general theory of communicative rationality also derived from this Kantianism-albeit with a swerve away from Kant's transcendentalism.2 Habermas's argument here peculiarly melded the historical and the ahis torical. On the one hand, his chain of Enlightenment philosophers is meant to be representative of the thought of the age; their intellectual vocabulary indicative of the thought and practice of millions of their contemporaries. Yet this is obviously no more than a limited gesture toward historicism: one cannot ascribe Kantian thought (or Lockean, Rousseauian, or Hege lian thought) to the millions of Kant's contemporaries across west-central Europe and the eastem seaboard of North America (a rough geographical demarcation of the late eighteenth-century public sphere), much less to the millions of Kant's predecessors in the early eighteenth century who, according to Habermas, had already formed a public sphere (or its near predecessor) without benefit of reading Kant's Critiques. Rousseau, Kant, and Marx are cited as much to provide an ahistorical conceptualization of the early modem public sphere, and to provide links forward to their philo sophical heirs (such as Habermas), as they are to provide evidence of the thought and practice of the era. Habermas's brief survey of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophical thought provides a historical argument in terms of correlation rather than of tight causation: Kant and his fel low philosophers articulated into theory the practice of the day, and hence greatly influenced the practice ofthe future. The similarity of more-or-less simultaneous thought and practice, regardless of the details of causation, in itself constitutes the historical argument. This is a mode of historical argument designed to induce apoplexy in those historians who desire something more than simultaneity and prox imity to demonstrate connection. It is, nevertheless, an argument of great
2. Ji.irgen Haberrnas, "What is Univ ers al Pragm a tics?" in Jlirg en Haberrnas, On the
Pragmatics of Communication, ed. Maeve Cooke (Cambri dge , MA: MIT
pp. 42-46;

persuasive power. On the one hand, it defends Habermas against those philosophers who attack his concepts of lifeworld, universal pragmatics, etc., with ahistorical critiques: Habermas can refer them to his historically derived model of the public sphere and argue that, although Kant may not be ahistorically persuasive when compared to the latest arguments of a Gadamer or a Lyotard or a Rorty, he accurately articulated the idea of the early modem public sphere.3 On the other hand, it defends Habermas against the aforementioned apoplectic historians: the claim to provide the philosophical zeitgeist of the Enlightenment public sphere is an argument of ubiquity, and any argument aimed at undermining its factual sources can be dismissed as only establishing exceptions that prove the rule. The argument that an intellectual tradition is historically representative is very difficult for either a historian or a philosopher to dislodge. It is worth noting at this point that in the Kantian passage cited above, Habermas drew upon one of the passages where Kant's hostility to rhetoric was clearest: "Persuasion is mere illusion." Kant expressed this hostility even more explicitly in his Critique ofJudgment, where he savaged rheto ric at length as unserious, ornamental, deceptive, insidious, and essentially incompatible with the autonomy of human reason.4 Yet, although this attitude is bound up with the Kantian core of Habermas 's definition of the public sphere, rhetoric, for all Kant's distaste for it, appears to me to provide a more accurate tool than reason with which to envision human nature and history, and to imply a more attractive and liberating goal for humanity. Though Habermas would surely doubt the notion, I believe that
a rhetorical mode of analysis is compatible with what I take to be the

essential attributes of the public sphere-and preferable to the Kantian mode. I believe that we can, and should, conceive of the public sphere as rhetorical in nature, and therefore substitute a rhetorical epistemology and theory of communication for the Kantian equivalents that underpin Habermas's account.

3. For s elect ed ah i storica l c ritique s of Haberrnas, see B ern s tein , Beyond Objectiv

ism and Re lativism, pp. 182-223; Thom as B. Farrell , Norms of Rhe torical Culture (New
Haven , CT: Yale UP, 1 993), pp. 1 87-229; Triadafilos Triadafi lopoul os , "Politics, Speech,

Press, 1998),

Jiirgen H abermas

"Actions, Speech Acts, Li n gui stica lly Mediated Interactions,

and th e Art of Persuasion: Toward an Ari st o te lian C o n cep tion of the Public Sphere," The
Journal of Politics 61, no. 3 ( 1 999): 741-57.

and the Lifeworld," in On the Pragmatics of Communication, p. 240; Richard J. B ernste in,

Beyond Obje ctivism and Relativism: Science, He rme ne utics, and Pra;ds (P hilade lphi a :
Univ. of Pennsylvan i a Press, 1983), p. 194.

4. Immanuel Kant, The Critique ofJudgment, trans. James

Meredith (Oxford: Claren

don Press, 1928, 1952), pp. 184-85 [II.l.Sl.32 1 ], 192-93 [II.l.51.327]; Robert J. Dostal,

"Kant and Rhetori c Philosophy &

,"

Rhetoric 13, no. 4 ( 1 980): 225.

54

DAVID RANDALL

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AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

55

In fact, such a substitution has been made already by several scholars.5 These accounts, however, have tended simply to substitute Aristotelian thought, or that of modem rhetoricians, for Kant's. The Aristotelian sub stitution leaves these scholars open to the critique that they are engaging in a very partial use of Aristotle, and tearing Aristotelian rhetoric away from his entire philosophical corpus-which, if they were to use it in its entirety, would implicate them in a great deal of long-exploded philo sophical thought.6 The use of both Aristotle and of modem rhetoricians is, in any case, ahistorical-and hence, as noted above, ill-suited to grapple with the historical aspect of Habermas's argument. If rhetoric is to be substituted for Kantian reason in an account of the early modem public sphere, one must argue the existence of an intellectual tradition of rhetori cal philosophy concurrent with and parallel to that of Habermas's Kantian tradition, and equally able to claim itself both representative of the thought of the age and indicative of the thought and practice of the multitude. Furthermore, it must be a rhetorical philosophy that responded to the same philosophical challenges as did Kant-a rhetorical philosophy alive to the empirical challenge of Locke and Hume. This historically situated rhetorical philosophy did exist-much trans formed from its classical roots by the intellectual stresses induced by the arguments of Ramus, Descartes, and Locke, but also preserving large por tions of the thought of Aristotle, Cicero, and the other rhetorically minded philosophers of antiquity. 7 In the first place, the empirical tradition itself, from Locke through Hume, preserved an astonishing amount of rhetorical thought. Secondly, the tradition ofNew Rhetoric, as exemplified by fig ures such as Adam Smith, George Campbell, and Hugh Blair, reconceived rhetoric around empirical epistemology. I believe that the intellectual tradition that leads from Locke, through Hume, to George Campbell has as much claim as the Kantian tradition to articulate, and represent, the practice of the early modem public sphere.
5. For this substitution, and some critiques, see Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, pp. 188-223; Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture, pp. 187-229; Herbert Schnadelbach, "What is Neo-Aristotelianism?" Praxis lnternationa/7, nos. 3-4 ( 1987-88 ): 225-37. 6. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, pp. 188-89. 7. For the survival of rhetoric into the Enlightenment, also see Nancy Struever, ''The
Conversable World: Eighteenth-Century Transformations of the Relation of Rhetoric and Truth," in Brian Vickers and Nancy Struever, Rhetoric and the Pursuit o.fTruth: Language

My aim here is to parallel Habermas's mode of historical argument: not to establish tight causative links between the thought of George Camp bell and the practice of his peers, not to argue the continuing, ahistorical validity of the thought of Locke and Hume, but rather to provide an alter nate intellectual tradition on which to hang the attributes of representative status, zeitgeist-articulation, ubiquity, and influence upon future practice. 8 I cannot, by the nature of Habermas's argument, disprove the validity of Habermas's proffered canon; rather, I am trying to establish the capacity of this alternate lineage to characterize the early modem public sphere, and so provide a proper answer to that curious heart ofHabermas's

Structural

Trans ormation, f

which oscillates so adroitly between history, philosophy,

and critical theory. It is worth mentioning that the Campbellian rhetorical philosophy presented here is more an assimilation of Locke and Hume than it is (like Kant's) a comprehensive riposte. The reader convinced of the insufficiency of empirical philosophy-particularly in comparison with Kant's-will most likely be unimpressed by the tradition presented here. To such a reader, I would emphasize the dependence of this tradition of rhetorical philosophy on the thought of David Hume. Much about the public sphere that Habermas associates with Kant can, I believe, be associated equally well with Hume, whose thought is not only the crucial precursor of, and foil for, Kant, but also curiously absent from Habermas's account of the public sphere in

Structural Transf ormation.

For such a reader-for all

readers-Hume's position both as inheritor and perfecter of the empirical tradition, and as inspiration for the Kantian, provides the touchstone upon which this argument shall particularly reside. The European rhetorical tradition received its classical formulation from Aristotle's Rhetoric, and that tradition therefore also derived its epis temological underpinnings from Aristotle. Aristotle believed that human knowledge depended in part upon

phantasia,

imagination, the reception

and retention of sensory images, and in part upon no us, direct, rational
8. For the influence upon communicative practice of the rhetorics of George Camp
bell, Hugh Blair, and Richard Whately, see Don Abbott, "Blair 'Abroad': The European Reception of the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres," in Scottish Rhetoric and its Influences, ed. Lynee Lewis Gaillet (Mahwah, NJ: Herrnagoras Press/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998), pp. 67-77; Lloyd F. Bitzer, "Editor's Introduction," in George Camp bell, The Philosophy ofRhetoric, ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1963), p. ix; George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradi rom Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1999), tion f pp. 282, 285-86.

Change in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Los Angeles: William Andrews
Clark Memorial Library, 1985), pp. 79-119.

56

DAVID RANDALL

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THE NEW RHETORIC,

AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

57

intuition of the world, and in particular of universals and forms. Sense and reason were not mutually exclusive but moved in natural comple ment: the animal part of men was limited to sense, the rational part of man transcended those limits, and man as rational animal synthesized both modes of knowledge.9 Language, in tum, represented man's knowledge: "Words spoken are symbols or signs of affections or impressions of the soul; written words are the signs of words spoken." 10 Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, aimed at the skillful communication of both modes of knowl edge from one man to another, so as to instill belief. Rhetoric's concern with logos communicated reason; the passions, the product of the senses, were communicated by pathos. The concern with ethos, character, inher ent in the limitations of knowledge derived from sensation: sensations were not universally perceived, and therefore not all knowledge could be acquired directly. Since reason could not replace sensation, knowledge depended upon the testimony of others-hence, the reliance on the ethos of the testifiers. Aristotle was not the sole philosophical influence on the rhetorical tradition: Quintilian, for one, incorporated large portions of Platonism into his Institutio Oratoria.11 But as the practice of rhetoric in the West generally followed Aristotle's precepts-though often they came with (Cicero's) Latin garb and attribution-so rhetoric's assumed epistemol ogy and philosophy of language remained generally Aristotelian and remarkably unaffected by the innovations of classical, medieval, and early Renaissance philosophy. Indeed, the re-introduction of Aristotelian logical underpinnings of rhetoric. philosophy from ca. 1200 onward strengthened the Aristotelian epistemo 12 As late as the sixteenth century, the The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, saw unprecedented challenges to the theory and practice of rhetoric. In the sixteenth century, Petrus Ramus proselytized an autonomous heuristics, wherein "universal logical method ... [provided] a substitute for knowledge of any particular
9. John Herman Randall, Jr., A risto tle (New York: Columbia UP, 1960), pp. 94-97.

subject."13 The implications for rhetoric were profound, for Ramus evis cerated rhetoric by reassigning the functions of invention, disposition (arrangement), and memory from rhetoric to logic.14 In so doing, Ramus restricted reason to scientific knowledge:
But because of these two species, Aristotle wished to make two logics, one for science, and the other for opinion; in which (saving the honor of so great a master) he has very greatly erred. For although articles of knowledge are on the one hand necessary and scientific, and on the other contingent and matters of opinion, so it is nevertheless that as sight is common in viewing all colors, whether permanent or changeable, so the art of knowing, that is to say, dialectic or logic, is one and the same 15 doctrine in respect to perceiving all things.

Where reason was no more than a matter of scientific proofs, rhetoric had no essential communicative role: language was to be organized by logic alone. The purpose of rhetoric, reduced to style and delivery, "serves no other purpose than to lead this vexatious and mulish auditor, who is pos tulated to us by this [i.e., the prudential] method; and have been studied on no other account than that of the failings and perversities of this very one."16 Rhetoric, for Ramus, was strictly ornamental. Ramus's own system of thought had a strictly limited influence: very influential through much of Europe from the mid-sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, particularly (since Ramus turned Protestant and ended up a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre) in the Reformed tradition, Ramism swiftly receded thereafter outside the Puritan backwater ofNew England.17 So far as rhetoric was concerned, Ramism's

philosophy of rhetoric remained recognizably in the Aristotelian mold.

13. Eugene Garver, Machiavelli and the His tory of Pru dence (M adison: Univ. of
Wisconsin Press, 1987), p. 14. For Petrus Ramus, generally see Walter J. Ong,

Method,

and the Decay ofDialogu e :

Ramus: From the Art of Discourse to the Art ofReason (Ch i

cago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958, 2004).

14. Orner Talon, Petri Rami Professoris Regii, & Audomari Talaei Collectanae Prae
fationes, E is tolae, p

W. He i nemann and Cambridge University Press, 1938, 1962), p. 115 [ 1].

11. Alan Brinton, "Quintilian, Plato, and the no. 3 (1983): 167-84.

10. Aristotle, On Interpretation, trans. Harold P. Cook (Cambridge , MA and

London:
16,

Samuel Howell, L o gic and sell , 1961), pp. 148-49. 15. Petrus Ramus,

Orationes (Marburg, 1599), pp. 15-16; cite d and trans lated in Wilbur Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700 (New York: Russell & Rus Dialec tiqu e de Pierre de Ia Ramee (Paris , and Rhetoric in England, p. 154.
1555), pp. 3-4; cited

Vir Bonus,"

Philosophy &

Rhe t o r ic

and translated in Howell, Logic

12. For the re-introduction of Aristotelian ph ilosophy to the medieval West, see

16. Ramus, Dialectique, p. 134; cited and translated in Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England, p. 164.
17. Perry M iller,

N. E. Nelson, "Cicero's De Officiis in Christian Thought: 300-1300," in Essays and Stud

ies

in

English

and

Comparative Literature (Ann Ar bor :

Univ. of M ich igan Press, 1933),

The New England Mind: The Seventee nth Century (Boston:

Beacon

p. 120.

Press, 1961) , pp. 300-62.

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DAVID RANDALL

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59

In the seventeenth century, the next great challenge to rhetoric pro eeded from Descartes' philosophy, focused upon the autonomy of the oretical reason, and therefore concerned centrally with inquiry rather than with communication. 18 This concern led Cartesian thinkers to conceive of rhetoric as a crafty means to convey the one, logically discovered truth to uditors of limited or prejudiced understanding, and to manipulate them mto agreement with the truth without their awareness.19 In the late seven

scientific, rationalizing philosophy could dispense with rhetoric as the essence of communication and reduce it to the status of mere decoration.

long-tenn influence lay not in establishing a viable philosophy to oppose to Aristotle's, but in publicizing and strengthening the conception that

important Truth. But the Orator wou'd further add whatever is proper to excite the most affective Sentiments in your Mind; and make you love that glorious Being whose Existence he had proved. And this is what we 22 call Perswasion.

Since Descartes emphasized sensory stimulation as the source of cogni tion, Cartesian rhetoric emphasized verisimilitude, vivacity, and clarity as ways to convey sensory information most effectively.13 This Cartesian rhetoric, it should be emphasized, was distinct from Ramist rhetoric both in its suppositions and in its character. Yet the two rhetorics shared a sense of language as subordinate to a narrowly defined reason, and of rhetoric as essentially ornamental. Moreover, Descartes' epistemology, by its emphasis on the senses as a source of knowledge, directly challenged Aristotelian epistemology. Together, Ramus and Des cartes, and the rhetoricians who followed them, had presented a grave challenge to both Aristotelian epistemology and rhetoric. But the toppling blow to the traditional formulations of Aristotelian rhetoric and epistemology came from Lockean empiricism. John Locke, assimilating Cartesian thought, argued that human knowledge of the par ticulars of the world and of ideas in the mind both derived exclusively from the senses: the source ofknowledge was "Our Observation employ' d either about

from Commonplaces, are like ill Weeds that choke the Corn."2 Further more, Lamy wrote, with pronounced Cartesian accent, that
when one proposes things contrary to the i nclinations of those to whom one speaks, craft is necessary. One can only worm one's way into their mind by diverse and secret paths. That is why one must act so that they perceive the truth only after it is the mistress of their hearts; otherwise 21 they wil l close the door of their minds as to an enemy.

teenth century, especially via the thinkers of Port Royal, this Cartesianism began t influence French manuals and theories of rhetoric. Bernard Lamy argued m The Art of Speaking (1676) "that to perswade, we need but one Argument, if it be solid and strong, and that Eloquence consists in clearing of that, and making it perspicuous. All those feeble Arguments ... deriv'd

external, sensible Objects;

or

about the internal Operations

of our Minds."24

His philosophy denied intuitive knowledge and thereby

shattered the Aristotelian epistemology underlying traditional rhetoric. sible ideas, Locke took to have no necessary correspondence to any thing

Frans;ois Fenelon likewise wrote in his D ialogues

Concerning Eloquence

Language, moreover, although derived from an intention to represent sen outside of our minds:

(1722):
T here is still anting w at an Orator wou'd do more than a Metaphysi . . m provmg the Extstence of God. The Metaphysic ian wou'd give you a plain Demonstrat ion of it; and stop at the speculative View of that
Cian,

_w

o W rds in their primary or immediate Signification, standfor nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind ofhim that uses them."25 Aris
"

totle's intuitive knowledge had implied intuitive communication, itself the basis of rhetoric; Locke's decoupling ofword and thing thus also directly upended rhetoric?6 Ramus and Descartes had challenged Aristotelian rhetoric; Locke swept it away.
22. Cited and translated in Wilbur Samuel Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic

Rhetoric

endon Press, 1972), pp. 40-67; Barbara Warnick,

18. Garver, Machiavelli and the History of Prudence, p. 13; Howell , Logic and in England, p. 347 19. Peter France, Rhetoric and Truth in France: Descartes to Diderot (Oxford: Clar
Antecedents (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, I993),

Theory and Its French

p. 29.
m

The Sixth Canon: Belletristic Rhetorical

and Rhetoric

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, I 97I), p. 5 I I.

23. Warnick,

and Rhetorc
21.

20. Bernard Lamy, The Art

ofSpeaking (1676), part 5, p. 106; cited in Howell, Logic England, p. 381 . Also see Warnic k Sixth Canon, p. 25. Ctted and translated in Warnick, Sixth Canon, p. 29.
,

(Oxford:

24. John Lo cke , An

Sixth Canon, pp. 8-10,31-32. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed.

Peter H. Nidditch

Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 104 [II.1 .2].

25. Ibid., p. 405 [III.2.2]. 26. Jules David Law,

The Rhetoric of Empiricism: Language and Perception from

Locke to!. A. R icha rds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1993), pp. 44-45.

DAVID RANDALL

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THE NEW RHETORIC, AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

61

Unsurprisingly, Locke expressed a quite hostile attitude toward hetoric. This hostility was not due to epistemological differences alone: Jocke 's preference for reason and logic as the guiding forces for language, n many ways akin to that of Ramus and Descartes, contributed heavily to tis negative attitude:
[A]ll the artificial and figurati ve application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheat: And therefore however laudable or allowable Oratory may ren der them in Harangues and popular Addresses, they are certainly, in all Discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided; and where Truth and Knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a 27 great fault.

all, shared a common emphasis on sense as a source of knowledge, and likewise their theories of language were by no means totally opposed. Rhetoric lurked, sublimated, in empirical thought, and the empirical phi losophers were scarcely consistent in their condemnation of rhetoric. This rhetorical mode of empiricism led directly to the British New Rhetoric, the explicit reconceptualization of rhetoric in terms of Lockean empiricism. Locke's inheritance certainly included the anti-rhetorical tradition that led to Kant-but it also included, and no less legitimately or importantly, the rhetorical tradition that led to Campbell. This lurking use of the rhetorical mode was present in Locke's own writings. Locke used that most rhetorical concept of"persuasion" not only to refer to opinion and probable knowledge, the traditional domains of rhetoric, but also, notably in A Letter Concerning Toleration, to strong (religious) belief itself. Since Locke had also previously defined knowl edge as compellingly strong belief, Locke's argumentation aligned with, and implicitly identified, knowledge itself as persuasion. Locke reinforced this identification by his recommendation that religious belief should be the subject of eloquence, argument, and oratory-of persuasion itsele1 Furthermore, Locke's account of the origin of language was an empiri cist generalization of the traditional account of the origin of trope and metaphor. To say that men "were fain to borrow Words from ordinary known Ideas of Sensation, by that means to make others the more easily to conceive those Operations they experimented in themselves, which made no outward sensible appearances," was to restate Cicero's claim that "the metaphorical use of words was originally invented on account of their paucity.... [W]hen that which can scarcely be signified by its proper word is expressed by one used in a metaphorical sense, the similitude taken from that which we indicate by a foreign term gives clearness to that which we wish to be understood."3" Finally, Locke's hostility to the figures of rhetoric was by no means unremitting. The ends of language itself were "First, To make known one Man's Thoughts or Ideas to another. Secondly, To do it with as much ease and quickness, as is possible; and Thirdly, Thereby to convey the Knowledge ofThings."33 The second end,"ease and
31. William Walker, Locke, Literary Criticism, and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cam bridge UP, 1994), pp. 112-15. 32. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 403 [III.l.S]; Cicero, De Oratore, trans. J. S. Watson (London: George Bell and Sons, 1881), p. 376 [lll.xxxviii]; Walker, Locke, pp. 115-18. 33. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 504 [III.l0.23].

[he post-Lockean empirical tradition inherited Locke's anti-rhetorical Lttitude. Berkeley preferred ideas naked of the "dress and encumbrance

hetoric: "In all abstract reasonings there is one point of view which, if we :an happily hit, we shall go farther towards illustrating the subject than by

>f words which so much contribute to blind the judgment and divide the Lttention."28 Hume on occasion expressed a restrained disapprobation of

mpiricism's critique of rhetoric wholeheartedly. Habermas can scarcely >e blamed for believing that he had no need to consider rhetoric in his :onception of the public sphere; it had been disposed of roundly as far

Lll the eloquence and copious expression in the world."29 Kant himself, 10 matter how severe his critique of other aspects of empiricism, adopted

)ack as Locke.

But this brief sketch was not the entire story. The avowed hostility f Lockean empiricism to rhetoric disguised significant areas of align nent between the two intellectual traditions.30 Locke and Aristotle, after

27. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 508 [III.l0.34]. 28. George Berkeley, Principles of Human Kno wledge and Three Dialogues , ed. [oward Robinson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996), p. 22.

29. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. L.A. Selby :igge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902, 1972), p. 79 [VII.2].

30. Hobbes also incorporated substantial amounts of rhetorical thought in his philoso hy, despite an initial avowed hostility to rhetoric. See Victoria Kahn, Rheto r ic. Prudence,

nd Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1985 ), pp. 152-81; and Quen n Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge

rp, 1996).

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63

quickness," opened the door to rhetoric. Subsequently, Locke provided a far more explicit justification of rhetoric. In his posthumously published Of the Conduct of the Understanding, he granted that
figured and metaphorical expressions do well to illustrate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which the mind is not yet thoroughly accustomed to; but then they must be made use of to illustrate ideas that we already have, not to paint to us those which we yet have not. Such borrowed and allusive ideas may follow real and solid truth, to set it off when found, but must by no means be set in its place and taken for it . 3 4

depends, in their due order, in which Position the Mind taking a view of them, sees what connexion they have."39 Such words could also deceive, since metaphor's relationship to idea remained loose:
[T)he Reason why sometimes Men, who sincerely aim at Truth, are imposed upon by such loose, and as they are called Rhetorical Dis courses, is that their Phancies being struck with some lively metaphorical are the true Ideas, upon which the Inference depends. Representations, they neglect to observe, or do not easily perceive what 40

In this passage, Locke closely delimited and subordinated rhetoric, while conceiving of it more as an aid to exposition than as a means to persuasion.35 Yet the shackles he placed on rhetoric here were ultimately of secondary importance. What mattered more was that Locke now had provided a role for, and legitimated, both the rhetorical function of language in general and specific elements of the rhetorical tradition in particular. If rhetoric was to have a role, however, it would have to follow the strictures of Lockean epistemology and philosophy of language. Most relevant for rhetoric was Locke's conception that words, even if they only represented ideas in the mind, excited those ideas in the same manner as sensory impressions: "there comes by constant use, to be such a Connex

The rhetoric that aimed to trick the senses could not rely upon the senses, and hence was less compelling: deceptive rhetoric was weak rhetoric. But this was not an argument against the use of rhetoric or evocative language per se, but rather an argument for the use of language correctly tied to sense and ideas. Language should use right reason and perspicuity to proper terms for the ideas or thoughts, which he would have pass from his skillful communication of compelling sensory knowledge. express sense and ideas correctly: "Perspicuity, consists in the using of own mind into that of another man 's."41 Rhetorical power derived from the It is worth emphasizing that here, as above, Locke provided a uni

which are apt to produce them, did actually affect the Senses."36 Words, therefore, had the power to affect the mind of an auditor, even if speaker and auditor shared no common understanding of their meaning.37 Further more, some such sensory knowledge--e.g., distinction of color, shape, and number-was compelling: "This part of Knowledge is irresistible, and like

ion between certa in Sounds, and the Ideas they standfor, that the Names heard, almost as readily excite certain Ideas, as if the Objects themselves,

Enargeia (vivid illustration, palpability) and energeia (liveliness, actual ity) were well-established (and often confiated) parts of rhetorical theory,

versalizing, empirical rendition of aspects of classical rhetorical theory.

promoted by Aristotle, Cicero, Longinus, and Quintilian.4 The very philo sophical vocabulary of empiricism-force, liveliness, vivacity--derived from classical rhetorical theory, by way of French rhetoricians such as Dumarsais and Condillac; Campbell's later reintegration of rhetoric and

tion, Doubt, or Examination."38 In consequence, the compelling power of words depended upon the clear exposition of such compelling knowledge: to display "the naked Ideas on which the force of the Argumentation
34. John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, ed. Francis W. Garforth (New York: Teachers College Press, 1966), p. 10 I [32]; Walker, Locke, p. 118. 35. Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric, p. 50 1. 36. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 407 [Ill.2.6].
37. Walker Locke, p.119. 38. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 531 [IV.2.1].
,

the bright Sun-shine, forces it self immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the Mind turns its view that way; and leaves no room for Hesita

empiricism was made easier by the fact that many of empiricism's con cepts were themselves rhetorical in origin.43 In the guise of vivacity and

perspicuity, Locke had promoted specific rhetorical tropes to general attributes of language itself.44 Likewise, Locke's subordination of language
39. Ibid., p. 676 [IV.l7 .4 ].
41. John Locke, "Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman," in A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Locke (London, 1720), pp. 234-35; c ited in Howell, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric, p. 500. 42. Walker, Locke, pp. 120-21.

40. Ibid.,pp. 675-76 [IV.17.4].

43. Adam Potkay, The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1994), pp. 183-84.
44. Walker, Locke, p. 121.

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to common use--common apprehension-preserved rhetoric's traditional concern with shaping speech to suit the nature of an audience.45
[Men] must also take care to apply their Words, as near as may be, to

same figurative logic, the percipient mind is analogous to a democratic assembly, susceptible to forcible persuasion.... We may "see" behind Hume 's metaphysics the ghostly outlines of the orator who speaks before the republic, a citizen among citizens, privileged only for the moment of 48 his speech.

such Ideas

as

common

use

has annexed them to

. .

Men's Intentions in

speaking are, or at least should be, to be understood; which cannot be without frequent Explanations, Demands, and other the like incommodi 46 ous Interruptions, where Men do not follow common Use.

Furthermore, Hume's own philosophy also aligned with rhetoric in many particulars. Following Locke, he derived knowledge from sensory ideas; he therefore also conceived of rhetoric-eloquence, discourse-as aimed to promote the communication of these ideas. Sympathy was a hand maiden to s uch communication: "Sympathy being the conversion of an idea into an impression, demands a greater force and vivacity in the idea than is requisite to comparison."49 Indeed, vivacity in turn forwarded the persuasion that constituted belief:
Thus it appears, that the

"Common use" implied a sharp distinction between the traditional rhetori cal conception of particular audiences and the Lockean conception of a general audience (which Lockean conception, not incidentally, was a vital prerequisite for the idea of a public sphere). But the simple acknowledge ment that language use should take into account the nature of the audience, whether general or particular, further aligned Locke's theory of language with that of rhetoric. Locke's philosophy of language retained many of the communica tive assumptions of rhetoric. Indeed, Locke's sustained, if minor key, approb ation of rhetoric provided the sanction for his own extensive use of metaphor and figural language to forward the persuasive purposes of his philosophical writings.47 The later resurgence of rhetoric within the empirical tradition, therefore, was not a clumsy and retrospective attempt to graft together two dissimilar intellectual traditions. Rather, it developed naturally from later philosophers' accurate perception that Locke had embedded rhetorical thought and practice in the wellspring of empirical thought. As David Hume provided the direct inspiration for both Campbell and Kant, it seems appropriate at this point to leap forward directly to a consideration of Hurne's thought. Hume, as much as Locke, also resur rected large portions of rhetorical thought in his empirical philosophy In the first place, the metaphors by which Hume conceived the operations of
.

belief or assent,

which always attends the

memory and senses, is nothing but the vivacity of those perceptions they present; and that this alone distinguishes them from the imagination. To believe is in this case to feel an immediate impression of the senses, or a repetition of that impression in the memory.... 'Tis difficult for us to withhold our assent from what is painted out to us in all the colours of eloquence; and the vivacity produc'd by the fancy is in many cases 50 greater than that which arises from custom and experience.

For Hume, eloquence aimed to produce that vivacity of perception that in turn induced belief.51 Moreover, Hume also retained Locke's conception of a universal audience-now called a "public"-and explicitly associ ated it with rhetoric. Indeed, Hume emphasized the essential universality of rhetoric (with implicit contrast to science), since rhetoric's excellence, uniquely among the arts, consisted essentially in the popular success of its appeal:
eloquence; which, being merely calculated for the public, and for men of the world, cannot, with any pretence of reason, appeal from the people

the human mind were drawn from rhetoric. As Potkay notes,

for Hume forceful and vivacious perceptions strike the mind in a manner analogous to strong oratory's operation upon an assembly.... And, by the
45. Ibid., pp. 121-22. 46. L o cke , Essay Concerning Human Understanding, p. 514 [III.11.11]. 48. Potkay, Fate of Eloquence, p. 185. 49. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nat ure , ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J.

Norton (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000), p. 37 9 [Ill.3.2]. Also see Potkay, Fate of Eloquence,

p. 48.
50. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, pp. 61 [1.3.5], 84 [I.3.!0]. 51. Potkay, Fate of Eloquence, pp. I 82--83.

47. Walker, Locke, p. 125; John J. Richetti, Philosophical Writing: Locke. Berkeley,
Hume (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983), pp. 75-79.

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to more refined j udges, but must submit to the public verdict without reserve or limitation. Whoever, upon comparison, is deemed by a com mon audience the greatest orator, ought most certainly to be pronounced 52 such by men of science and erudition.

of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."57 Sympathy united different, particular groups , but could not easily transcend the bounds of c ommunal particularity ; indeed, the very sympathetic process that transcended individuality at the same time rein forced the distinction of communities. 58 What reason and sympathy could not do, passion did. Passion, because it was universal, was the necessary means by which any one human being could persuade any other:
The minds of all men are similar in their fee l ings and operations; nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, suscepti ble. As i n strings equally wound up, the motion of one communicates itself to all the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature. When I see the

Finally, Hume 's attitude toward rhetoric was hardly one of universal

is . . . good sense, delivered in proper expressions. "53 In general, his attitude toward rhetoric was one of sober evaluation, and as much analyti cal as normative . 54 If he did not embrace rhetoric with open arms, neither did he In much of this above consideration of rhetoric, Hume echoed Locke. Yet Hume 's thought also differed signifi cantly from Locke 's, not least in the emphasis he placed on the passions, and on the positive moral valence he gave to them. Among the many effects of this emphasis was a particular impact upon Hume 's approach to language and to rhetoric. Hume's rheto Hume, as had Locke, took passions to be ideas : "every lively idea is agreeable, but especially that of a passion, because such an idea becomes a kind of passion, and gives a more sensible agitation to the mind, than any other image or conception."55 In consequence, he bel ieved that rhetoric should aim to excite the passions:
Nothing is more capable of infusing any passion into the mind, than eloquence, by which obj ects are represented in their strongest and most lively colours. We may of ourselves ackn owledge, that such an obj ect is valuable, and such another odious; but till an orator excites the imagina tion, and gives force to these ideas, they may have but a feeble infl uence either on the will or the affections. 56

condemnation: if on occasion he expressed nuanced disapprobati on, he also on occasion expressed nuanced approval of "modern eloquen ce; that

conceive of his thought as essentially opposed to rhetori c 's assumpti ons.

effects o f passion in the voice

and

gesture of any person, my mind immediately passes from these effects to their causes, and forms such a lively idea of the passion, as is presently converted into the passion itself. 59

ric, far more than Locke 's, was a rhetoric of the passions.

Rhetoric was therefore truly universal not only because it appealed to public j udgment but also precisely because it appealed to passion. Indeed, Hume 's passionate eloquence appealed to, and sought to create, a public constituted at least as much by the concordance of hearts as by the com mon sense of reason.60 Only rhetoric could properly move the passions, and only passion could assemble a universal public. This Humean philosophy directly inspired the British school of New Rhetoric. Indeed, the exemplar o f that schoo l , George Campbell, clearly f aimed to provide in his culminating synthesis, The Philosophy o Rheto

ric

( 1 776),

a system of rhetoric based firmly on Lockean and Humean

philosophy. 61 Campbell's synthesis was not merely a sublimation of rhetori c . Where Locke grudgingly accepted the necessity of rhetorical thought, and Hume, by cool nuance, avo i ded a wholehearted embrace, Campbell, without apology, reiterated rhetoric 's traditional format and c laims : "In speaking there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer. The word eloquence
5 7 . Ibid., p. 266 [II . 3 . 3 ] .
fE!oquence, p . 5 0 . 5 8 . Potkay, Fate o

Indeed, passion was central to Hume 's philosophy and rhetoric. Reason had limited power to move men: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave
52. David Hume, "Of Eloqu en ce , " O the Standard of T f aste and Other Essays, ed. John W. Lenz (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1 965), p. 69. All future reference to Hume's essays are to this volume. 53 . Hume, "Of Eloquence," p. 66. 54. E.g., Hume, "Of Eloquence," pp. 60-7 1 .
f 5 5 . Hume, A Treatise o Human Nature, p . 228 [11.2 .4] .

5 9 . Hume,

A Treatise of Human Nature, p. 3 6 8 [Ill. 3 . 1 ) .

f 6 0 . Potkay, Fate o Eloquence, p. 48. in George Campbell 's Philosophy

o

6 1 . Bitzer, "Editor 's Introduction," pp. ix-xxix; Lloyd F . B i tze r, "Hume's Philosophy

56. Ibid., p. 273 [II. 3 . 6) .

f Rhetoric,"

Philosophy & Rhetoric 2 ( 1 969): 1 3 9-66.

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"Eloquence not only considers the subj ect, but also the speaker and the hearers, and both the subject and the speaker for the sake of the hearers, or rather for the sake of the effect intended to b e produced in the m."63 Campbell 's defense of rhetoric harked back to all the similar defenses over

in its greatest latitude denotes, ' That art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end."ii2 His consideration of rhetoric, moreover, preserved classical rhetoric 's sense of the specificity of speaker, auditor, and subject:

nothing more than a Lockean concatenation of probabilities: "Probabil ity results from evidence , and begets belief. Belief invigorates our ideas . B elief raised to the highest becomes certainty."69 And, where empiricism failed to provide answers, Campbell, like Locke and Hume, relied on the . 0 . a pnons o f common sense. 7 Campbell ' s rhetoric aimed to use words so as to excite the ideas of sense, memory, and passion into a state of highly probable belief. Per spicuity, the clear expression of ideas, was therefore a primary goal of his rhetoric-particularly when the goal was information rather than p ersuasion. 7 1 But perspicuity was a general goal : perspicuity "being to the understanding what light is to the eye, ought to be diffused over the whole performance ."72 Since abstraction and metaphor arose from par ticular ideas, it was important that abstraction and metaphor not stray too far from their sensory origins.73 Furthermore, since memory was nothing more than the fading imprint of sense, "care must be taken by the orator that, in introducing new topics, the vestiges left by the former on the minds of the hearers may not be effaced." Orderly composition, since easier to remember, fitted speech to the inescapable decay o f memory.74 Vivacity, the lively expre ssion of ideas, was perhaps the most important aim of rhetoric : "I will not say with a late subtle metaphysician [Hume ], that ' Belief consisteth in the liveliness of our ideas.' . . . Thus much however is indubitable, that belief commonly enlivens our ideas; and that lively ideas have a stronger influence than faint ideas to induce belief."75 Vivacity was especially important when the goal was persuasion. "Lively signatures of . memory . . . command an unlimited assent," "vivid ideas are . . . more easily retained," and so vivid words were prescribed to stimulate the belief tht accompanied vivid memory.76 But belief also derived from passion: "If It is fancy which bestows brilliancy on our ideas, if it is memory which gives them stability, passion doth more, it animates them. Hence they derive

the millennia:

If the orator would prove successful, it is necess ary that he engage in his service all these different powers of the mind, the imagination, the memory, and the passions. These are not the supplanters of reason, or even rivals in her sway; they are her handmai ds, by whose ministry she is enabled to usher truth into the heart, and procure it there a favourabl e reception. As handmaids they are liable t o be seduced b y sophistry in the garb of reason, and sometimes are made ignorantly to lend their aid in the introduction of falsehood . But their service i s not on this account to be dispensed with; there i s even a necessity of emp loying it, founded on our nature . 64

principles in our nature, which, when properly addressed and managed, give no inconsiderable aid to reason in promoting belief."65 Lockean senses

At the same time, Campbell integrated his rhetoric very tightly with the new philosophy: "As men in general, it must be allowed there are certain

in turn, were also "most strongly excited by sensation. "68 Certainty was

consisted of ideas that were, essentially, "the prints that have been left by sensible impressions," while experience resulted from the repetition of similar ideas, which associated them with one another. 67 The passions,

and ideas once more provided the source of knowledge : "The senses, both external and internal, are the original inlets of perception."66 Memory

Belles Lettres (London, 1 78 5 ; New York: Garland Pub., 1 970), pp. 1 72-73 [II.25] . 63 . Campbell, The Philosophy o Rhetoric, p. 33 [I.4] . For the particular character of f

62. George Campbell, The Philosophy o Rhetoric, ed. Lloyd F. B itzer (Carbondale, f IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1 963), p. 1 [I. l } . Also see Hugh B lair, Lectures on Rhetoric and

6 9 . Ibid. 70. Ibid . , p. 40 [ 1. 5 } . 7 1 . Ibid., p. 2 [1. 1 ] . 72. Ibid. , p . 2 1 6 [II.6] . 7 3 . Ibid. , pp. 256-73 [!1.7]. 74. Ibid. , pp. 75-76 [ 1 . 7] . Also see Henry Homes, Lord Kames, Elements o Criticism f ( 1 7 8 5 ; Garland, NY: Garland Pub. , 1 972), p. 27 [I. I ] . 7 5 . C ampbell, The Philosophy

audiences, also see pp. 95-96 [1.8].

64. Ibid., p. 72 [1.7]; and see B lair, Lectures on Rhetoric, p. 1 75 [!1.25]. 65. Campbell, The Philosophy o Rhetoric, p. 7 1 [1.7]. f 66. Ibid., p . 47 [L5}. 67. Ibid., pp.

47--48

[I.5] .

of Rhetoric, p .

73 [!. 7 ] . Campbe l l 's reference

IS

to

6 8 . Ibid., p. 8 1 [!.7].

f Hume, A Treatise o Human Nature, p. 6 7 [ 1.3 . 7] .

7 6 . Campbell, The Philosophy o Rhetoric, pp. 4 1 [ 1 . 5 ] , 75 [ 1 . 7 ] . f

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spirit and energy. 'm Vivacity was doubly persuasive because it moved the passions as much as the memory : "to excite s ome desire or passion in the hearers . . . is effected by c ommunicating lively and glowing ideas of the obj ect."78 Vivacity also engaged the imagination, and so excited belie f to an even higher pitch.79

final component of the trinity o f rhetoric, also retained its place. C ampbell define d its scope to include
moral evidence . . . founded on the principles we have from consci ous ness and common sense, improved by experience; and as it proceeds on this general presumption or moral axiom, that the course of nature in time to come will be similar to what it hath been hitherto, it decides, in regard to particulars, concerning the future from the past, an d concerning 85 things unknown from things familiar to us.

But aside from these emphases, c oncepts collectively rehearsed in Locke and Hume, Campbell also engaged in an extensive translation of the elements of classical rhetoric into an eighteenth-century vocabulary. character: Campbell gave explicit commendation to the rhetorical power of ethos,

Thi s definition p aral leled the definition of phronesis, prudence, the form

[I] t hath become a common topic with rhetoricians, that, in order to be a successful orator, one must be a good man; for to be good is the only sure way of being long esteemed good, and to be esteemed good is previously necessary to one's being heard with due attention and regard. 80

of reason traditionally associ ated with rhetoric . 86 Furthermore, C ampbell

gave to reason much the s ame role i n persuasion that Ari stotle had given to logos-necessary, but not sufficient. Reason's consideration o f moral evidence could not persuade by itself:
I n order to ev i nce the truth c onsi dered by itself, conclusive arguments alone are requisite ; but in order to convince me by these arguments, i t i s m oreover requisite that t hey be understood, that they be attended to, that they be remembered by me; and in order to persuade me by them to any particular action or conduct, it is further requisite, that by interesting me in the su bj ect, they may, as it were, be felt . It is not therefore the 87 understanding alone that is here concerned.

Moreover, Campbell translated ethos into concepts of sympathy and tes timony. Sympathy derived very largely from the audi ence 's estimation of the speaker 's character, and, just as ethos acted upon pathos , so "sympathy is one main engine by which the orator operates on the passions."8 1 The rhetorical force of testimony also derived very largely from character: "the reputation of the attester hath a considerable p ower.''x2 Pathos, i n tum, found its equivalent in Campbell 's extensive treatment of the passions an equivalence that Campbell made explicit. 83 Persuasion depended upon moving the passions: "The coolest reasoner always in persuading address eth himself to the passions some way or other. . . . So far therefore it is from being an unfair method of persuasion to move the passions, that there is no persuasion without moving them. "84
77. Ib id . , p. 77 [ I .7 ] . 78. 79. 80. 81.

But reason remained indispensable when considering such moral evidence: once passion had been excited, the orator had to convince his audience them, and the gratification of the desire or passion which he excites . . . . the which the nature o f the subj ect admits."88 twined in C ampbell 's scheme; "that there is a connexion between the action to which he would persuade

Logos,

rational argument, the

latter . . . [is effected] by presenting the best and most forcible arguments

Ratio

and oratio remained c ontinued their

ethos,

p athos , and

logos

82. Campbell, The Ph ilosophy o R h etoric, p. 96 [!.9]. F o r testimony, al so see f pp. ,54-56 [!.5] . 83. Ibid., p. 80 [I. 7]. 84. Ibi d. , p. 77 [ ! . 7] ; and se e Blair, L ectures on Rhetoric and Belles L e ttres , pp. 1 7475, 1 77-78 [1!.25].

Ideas of the Sublime and Beautif ed. J. T. Boulton (London : Rout l ed ge and Kegan Paul, ul, 1 958), pp. 2 2 [Introduction on Ta ste] , 44 [!. 1 3 ] , 1 73-76 [V.7].

f Ibid., pp. 77-78 [1. 7 ] ; and see Kames, Ele m ents o Criticism , pp. 93, 97 [!.2. 1 ] . C ampbell , The Philosophy ofRhetoric, p. 73 [!.7] . Ibid. , pp. 96-97 [1.9] . Ibid. Also see Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin o Our f

long association as sympathy, passion, and moral evidence. The most persuasive rhetoric combined these separate methods : it was "an artful

mixture of that which proposes to convince the j udgment, and that which
f 8 5 . Campbell, The Philosophy o R he to ric, p. 43 [ ! . 5 ] ; and see ibid., p. 62 [ ! . 6 ] . 8 6 . Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans . H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA and
London: Harvard UP and W. Heinemann, 1 92 5 , 1 97 5 ), pp. 3 2 7-3 5 [6. I l 3 9a-b] : Kahn,

Rh etoric, Prudence, and Skepticism, pp. 9 - l O . 8 7 . Campbell, The Philosophy (!{Rhetoric, pp. 7 1 --72 [ ! . 7] . 8 8 . Ibid. , pp. 7 7-78 [ ! . 7 ] .

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interests the passions, its distinguished excellency results from these two, the argumentative and the pathetic incorporated together. "89 Campbell also explicitly addressed the claims of science. Campbell largely separated demonstrative evidence-s cientific reason-from rheto ric . Yet while demonstrative evidence, "built on pure intel lection, and [which] consisteth in an uninterrupted s eries of axioms," had little to do with rhetoric, rhetoric was not entirely absent from demonstrative argu ment.90 Still, in this realm rhetoric was supposed to have a light touch: "In explanatory discourses, which are of all kinds the simplest, there is a certain precision of manner which ought to pervade the whole, and which, though not in the form of argument, is not the less satis factory, since it carries internal evidence along with it. . m 'But just as C ampbell made sure that rhetoric was not to infringe upon the realm of science, he also made sure not to allow science to infringe upon the realm of rhetoric . Campbell carefully delimited the scope of demonstrative reasoning:
The sphere of Demonstration is narrow, but within her sphere she is a despotic sovereign, her sway is uncontrollable. Her rival [moral evi dence] , on the contrary, hath less power but wider empire. Her forces, indeed, are not always irresistible; but the whole world is comprehended 92 in her dominions.

And this, of course, was Campb e l l ' s accomplishment writ large: to pour new wine back into an old bottle, to construct from empirical premises a philosophically sound rhetoric as worthy as Kantian reason to represent the idea of the Enlightenment and the practice of the public sphere. The existence of Campbell 's New Rhetoric allows us to argue that the philo sophical underpinnings and the discourse of the public sphere derived from

eth os , pathos, and logos-character, passion, and reason combined-but

not from a timeless Aristote lian philosophy. Rather, the public sphere derived from a Humean and Campbellian variation on the Aristotelian theme as historically localized to the Enlightenment as Kantian reason or the public sphere itself.

had reversed Locke's emphases : where Locke had provided a strictly con strained role for rhetoric, now Campbell provided a strictly constrained role for science. Here, indeed, was an answer to the successive challenges of Ramus, Descartes, and Locke, each of whom had to some extent opposed some form of necessary logic against the uncertainties and persuasions of rheto ric. The answer was no more than a restatement of Aristotle-but it was an Aristotelian conclusion built upon the philosophy of Locke and Hume.
89. Ibid., pp. 2-4 [I. ! ] . 90. Ibid., p . 4 3 [I.5] .

stration itself doth not always produce such immovable certainty, as is sometimes consequent on merely moral evidence:m In a sense, Campbell

Furthermore, fallible human capacities and memory rendered the claims of science suspect even within their own sphere: therefore, "demon

9 1 . Ibid., p. 33 [I.4] ; and see p. 43 [I.5] .

92. Ibid., p. 46 [I.5 ] . 93. Ibid., pp . 5 8-6 1 [I.5] .