The Philosophy of Rhetoric

الغلاف الأمامي
SIU Press, 01‏/03‏/1988 - 501 من الصفحات
Here, after a quarter century of additional study and reflection, Bitzer presents a new critical edition of George Campbell’s classic. Bitzer provides a more complete review and assessment of Campbell’s work, giving particular emphasis to Campbell’s theological views, which he demonstrates played an important part in Campbell’s overall view of reasoning, feeling, and moral and religious truth. The Rhetoric is widely regarded as the most important statement of a theory of rhetoric produced in the 18th century. Its importance lies, in part, in the fact that the theory is informed by the leading assumptions and themes of the Scottish Enlightenment—the prevailing empiricism, the theory of the association of ideas, the effort to explain natural phenomena by reference to principles and processes of human nature. Campbell’s work engages such themes in an attempt to formulate a universal theory of human communication. Campbell attempts to develop his theory by discovering deep principles in human nature that account for all instances and kinds of human communication. He seeks to derive all communication principles and processes empirically. In addition, all statements in discourse that have to do with matters of fact and human affairs are likewise to be empirically derived. Thus, his theory of rhetoric is vastly wider than, and different from, such classical theories as those proposed by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, whose theories focused on discourse related to civic affairs.

Bitzer shows that, by attempting to elaborate a general theory of rhetoric through empirical procedures, Campbell’s project reveals the limitations of his method. He cannot ground all statements empirically and it is at this point that his theological position comes into play. Inspection of his religious views shows that God’s design of human nature, and God’s revelations to humankind, make moral and spiritual truths known and quite secure to human beings, although not empirically.

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المحتوى

EDITORS INTRODUCTION
vii
EDITIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC
liii
PREFACE
lxiii
INTRODUCTION xlv
lxix
BOOK I
1
Of Wit Humour and Ridicule
8
The Doctrine of the preceding Chapter defended
27
of the different Sources of Evidence and
35
The nature and use of Verbal Criticism with
151
Of Grammatical Purity
169
Some grammatical doubts in regard to English
204
Of the qualities of Style strictly Rhetorical
214
What is the Cause that Nonsense so often escapes
256
The extensive Usefulness of Perspicuity
273
BOOK III
285
Of Vivacity as depending on the number of
333

of the Nature and Use of the scholastic
61
of the Consideration which the Speaker ought
71
of the consideration which the Speaker ought
95
of the cause of that pleasure which we receive
112
BOOK II
139
Of Vivacity as depending on the arrangement
353
of the Connectives employed in combining
384
Of the Connectives employed in combining
403
INDEX
417
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نبذة عن المؤلف (1988)

Lloyd F. Bitzer is Professor of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he has received the Vilas Associate Award for 1986–88.

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