The Enlightenment and Rhetoric -Also a Video of Me Conferencing :)

The Enlightenment saw the rise of linguistics, grammar, semiotics, epistemology and even psychology joining the list of things that are related in some way to rhetoric. A debate also arose on rhetoric as the primary source of rhetorical practices and admiration and if this was really a necessary part of it. While traditional rhetoric remained strong in schools, Cartesian curriculum combining religion, mathematics, science, history and French also emerged. In this method, empirical scientific study began to form and “assignments were based on students’ own experience or their response to reading” (795). This sounds very similar to what most assignments in freshman writing entail in modern times. Although Europe resisted the change to empirical studies, tutors who knew this method were still available, and clearly it is what became the foundation for scientific inquiry as we know it today.

When one looks up the word rhetoric today, one of the definitions listed in Webster’s Dictionary is “insincere or grandiloquent language.” This definition is certainly influenced partly by the ideas of Bacon, Descartes, and Ramis who saw rhetoric as the art of obfuscation. The enlightenment saw thinkers wanting to revert to a “plain” language and attacking rhetoric once again for being a means to manipulate people with fancy language, just like the debate between Plato and the Sophists. This lead to John Locke’s ideas on what words actually mean. Locke said that “the chief end of language in communication [is] to be understood” and words have failed to serve this duty “when any word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the speaker” (817). He saw a fundamental flaw in this transfer of ideas when it comes to intangible concepts, like morality, or concepts made up of many small ideas. Thus, one should not try to confuse the faculties of understanding of the audience by adding extra fancy language. It is interesting how Locke uses rhetoric to attack rhetoric, but he does point out that he examines the fallible nature of words not because he “thinks commentaries are needless; but to show how uncertain the names of mixed modes naturally are” (820). He says that figurative language “in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct” are “wholly to be avoided; and where truth and knowledge are concerned cannot but be the fault either of the language or person that makes use of them” (827). Thus, Locke believes that rhetoric can be used for manipulation and this should not taint education. This is very similar to the ideas that Plato had. This makes me wonder what Locke or Plato would think of a journal article written today, as they tend to be very wordy and grandiose in style, yet they are used in university education all the time.

Locke’s discussion on words leads to a study of epistemology because Locke goes on to discuss the nature of knowledge and how “words having no signification, the idea which each stands for must be learned and retained, by those who would exchange thoughts” (818). Hence, the nature of knowledge itself and how we learn is being scrutinized.  The Rhetorical Tradition also explains that “Locke argues that all ideas are mental combinations of sense perceptions and that words refer not directly to things but mental phenomena” (Bizzell 799). Locke and other philosophers had a fascination with how the faculties for understanding in humans worked and sensory perception. This lead to an analysis of the mind that would pave the way for modern psychology.

I always associated these ideas on word signifiers with the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “although the word was used in this sense in the 17th century by the English philosopher John Locke, the idea of semiotics as an interdisciplinary mode for examining phenomena in different fields emerged only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the independent work of Saussure.” In addition, I realized that Etienne Bonnot De Condillac was inspired by Locke to come up with the idea of universal grammar, which lead to the invention of the study of linguistics.  I always attributed the concept of universal grammar to Noam Chomsky. I now realize that de Saussure and Chomsky were building off of these ideas from the Enlightenment, which actually makes their ideas more clear to me.

The Enlightenment is also (unfortunately) when grammar instruction began its association with rhetoric. Ironically, the investigation of “pure” language was developing while linguistics was simultaneously coming up with ideas that completely disprove “pure” language. The Rhetorical Tradition calls it the “eighteenth-century fetish for correctness in language” (Bizzell 802). This idea still persists today in order to oppress low income populations. However, people like Sir William Jones discovered similarities “among Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit” that presented the idea of universal grammar (801). The idea of universal grammar can be used to prove that one language is not necessarily superior to another because they all share common characteristics. One could make this observation about African American Vernacular English today, for example.

This is area is of particular interest to me, as I wrote about the language purity rhetoric that emerged in the United States during this same period in my paper, "Standard American English and Education: The Necessary Contamination of Pure English" last semester. I just presented this paper at the Acacia graduate conference at Cal State Fullerton on Saturday March 24th. I will insert the video below.