syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 10.4.05

Style and Common Sense Realism

Purpose

Scottish Common Sense Realism, as an intellectual movement, opened rhetoric and its relationship to knowledge up to the common man. Everybody has the ability to see the truth and articulate it; yet there is a way to see and articulate. We will examine the rhetorical theory that originated during this movement and consider its current influence and application.

Background

Peter Ramus

• 1515-1572, France
• influenced by Renaissance, and "age of recovery and reform"
• argued that the ancients confused rhetoric with dialectic
  • placed invention & arrangement with dialectic
  • placed style & delivery with rhetoric
  • completely omitted memory
• Very influential throughout Europe

Scottish Common Sense Realism

• 1750s-1780s
• includes Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) who was also an influential rhetorician
• An intellectual movement to develop a "science of man"
• Rhetoric focuses on reception rather than production
  • emphasis on language, taste, and style
  • valued clarity, vivacity, propriety
    • more psychological and empirical, less topics
      
      

  George Campbell

  • 1719-1796
  • Clergyman: worked against religious skepticism and atheism, like Hume
  • Founded Aberdeen Philosophical Society
  • Influenced by Thomas Reid's patient methods of inductionÐempiricism

  Richard Whately

  • 1787-1863
  • Clergyman and logician
  • Wrote the Elements of Rhetoric & Elements of Logic
    • As a result few scholars agree on a Whatelian rhetoric

  Hugh Blair

  • 1718-1800
  • First Regius Professor of Rhetoric & Belles Lettres at Edinburgh University
  • "Little in his lectures are original, but everything is thoroughly assimilated and elegantly presented"
  • Pedagogically quite influential

Presentation

Sarah S , Roger, Linda

Discussion

• In his first lecture, what is Blair's theory of rhetoric? How does this resonate with previous rhetoricians?
• According to Blair, what is taste?
• Let us define the 4P's: perspicuity, purity, propriety, precision
• In what situations, does Blair believe the rhetor should use figurative language? how should figurative language be used? (p. 77-78)
• How does Blair believe the rhetor should be educated? (p. 75, 82, 86, 129, 132, 136)
• What connection does Blair make between good style and good sense (p. 84-85) and good morality (p. 129, 131)
• How does Blair's theory of rhetoric resonate with the expectations for workplace documents? with the VA SOLs? with creative writing?
• How does Blair's theory of rhetoric resonate with the other theories we have studied? Think about this in terms of those who Blair is responding to (i.e., Aristotle, Augustine) and those who have responded to him–directly or indirectly (i.e., Lebert, Wysocki, Barthes).