Abstract
This chapter offers a brief scholarly overview of the ancient art of rhetoric and outlines rhetoric’s philosophical and practical relationship to literary criticism. Beginning with the issues raised by the classical rhetoricians, this chapter focuses on the critical rhetorical philosophy developed within the Scottish Enlightenment, from which arose literature as a modern academic field. The work of Adam Smith is used as a rubric by which to outline the interdependent moral, linguistic, psychological, rhetorical, and philosophical considerations that underpin eighteenth-century rhetoric and develop literature and criticism as essential to moral education. This chapter argues that the philosophical relationship between rhetoric and literary criticism is inherent and the ideological issues raised between them critical to the current state of the humanities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Sister Miriam, Joseph (2002), The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, Edited by Marguerite McGlinn (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books), p. 3.
- 2.
In the US, after several decades of fierce re-territorializing, rhetoric has largely become the purview of burgeoning US academic field of Composition and Writing Studies. Last year this discipline (which defines itself separately from English Literature and in large universities is frequently its own department) graduated almost 300 new PhDs from nearly 70 universities.
- 3.
Kennedy , George (1999), Classical Rhetoric in its Christian and Secular Tradition (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press), p. 1.
- 4.
Aristotle (1991), On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Edited and Translated by George Kennedy (Oxford University Press), p. 36.
- 5.
Kennedy , George (1999), Classical Rhetoric in its Christian and Secular Tradition (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press), footnote 34, p. 36.
- 6.
Corbett , Edward J., and Connors, Robert J. (1999), Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (Oxford University Press), p. 1.
- 7.
Broadie, Alexander, ‘Introduction,’ Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric, and the Fine Arts, xxxiii.
- 8.
Corbett , Edward P.J., and Connors, Robert J. (1999), Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, Fourth Edition (Oxford University Press), p. 19.
- 9.
Isocrates (1929), ‘Antidosis,’ in Isocrates , Vol. III, translated by Larue Van Hook, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 291.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 171.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 327.
- 12.
Reid , Thomas (2005), ‘A Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic, with Remarks,’ in Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts, Edited and with an introduction by Alexander Broadie (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), p. 97.
- 13.
Reid , Thomas, ‘A Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic, with Remarks,’ in Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts, ed. Alexander Broadie (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), p. 146.
- 14.
Hutcheson, Francis (2006), Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria. Book I, Section I. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund), p. 26.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 27.
- 16.
Ibid., p. 27.
- 17.
This work follows Stephen McKenna’s argument that Smith’s rhetorical theory must be taken into account first, as the methodological groundwork on the human person within which he developed his moral theory. (2006), Adam Smith: The Rhetoric of Propriety (Albany: State University of New York Press).
- 18.
See Evensky, Jerry (2005), Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Markets, Law, Ethics, and Culture (Cambridge University Press); Kennedy, Gavin (2005), Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); Lundestad, Eric, ‘The Adam Smith Problem: A Reinterpretation,’ Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Vol. 12, Issue 2 (September 2014), pp. 181–97; Tribe, Keith (2002), ‘The German Reception of Adam Smith,’ in A Critical Bibliography of Adam Smith (London: Pickering and Chatto); Montes, Leonidas (2002), Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of Some Central Components of His Thought (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); Roberts, Russ (2014), How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life (New York: Portfolio/Penguin).
- 19.
Forman -Barzilai, Fonna (2002), Adam Smith’s Circles of Sympathy (Cambridge University Press), p. 31.
- 20.
See Stephen, McKenna (2006), Adam Smith and the Rhetoric of Propriety (Albany: State University of New York Press). Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson make a good case for the rhetorical theory Smith uses in his explanations of economics; see ‘The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange,’ Review of Politics 63 (2001), 549–78.
- 21.
Scott , William Robert (1965), Adam Smith as Student and Professor, with Unpublished Documents, including parts of the “Edinburgh Lectures,” a Draft of the Wealth of Nations, Extracts from the Muniments of the University of Glasgow and Correspondence. Reprints of Economic Classics (New York: Augustus Kelley Publisher), p. 40.
- 22.
Phillipson, Nicholas (2010) (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 11.
- 23.
Marcelo , Dascal (2006) calls this the ‘mutual correspondence that must obtain between interacting human beings in order to create and sustain social life.’ ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Language,’ in Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 101.
- 24.
‘As it happens, the twilight of the classical rhetorical tradition in the nineteenth century coincides with the rise of the modern social sciences —political economy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics—and these are conspicuous places to look for rhetoric’s afterlife. If this in part explains the seemingly diminished importance of nineteenth-century rhetorical theory—rhetoric’s traditional theoretical work now being done in these various new fields—it begs all the more for a re-examination of Smith the rhetorician, the theorist as well as the practitioner, for Smith is one of the founders of the modern social sciences , and his view of them was fundamentally interdisciplinary’ McKenna (2006, 6).
- 25.
Kennedy , Gavin (2005), Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), p. xvi.
- 26.
Winch , Donald (2004), ‘Adam Smith,’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press).
- 27.
Haakonssen summarizes that TMS ‘analyzed those features of the human mind and those modes of interaction between several minds that gave rise to moral practices in the human species.’ Haakonssen, Knud (2006), ‘Introduction,’ in Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 4.
- 28.
Smith, Adam (1985), Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Edited by J.C. Bryce, The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford University Press, 1983). Reprinted by the Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, Indiana, and p. 9.
- 29.
Smith, Adam, TMS II.ii.5, p. 1.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 9.
- 31.
TMS III.4.8, p. 159.
- 32.
Italics original. TMS, 9.
- 33.
Forman-Barzilai (2002, 6).
- 34.
McKenna (2006, 29).
- 35.
TMS I.i.2.2, p. 14.
- 36.
TMS I.i.2.6, p. 16.
- 37.
TMS III.4.1, pp. 156–57.
- 38.
I owe this point to a class lecture and discussion on Smith’s theory of moral sentiment with Prof. Paul Guyer, Brown University, April 2015.
- 39.
TMS III.3.26, p. 147.
- 40.
TMS VI, conclusion, p. 263.
- 41.
TMS VI.ii.2.2, p. 228.
- 42.
TMS I.ii.5.2, p. 41.
- 43.
TMS III.ii.1, p. 113.
- 44.
TMS I.i.5.10, p. 26.
- 45.
TMS I.i.4.4, p. 20.
- 46.
Forman-Barzilai, Fonna (2002), Adam Smith’s Circles of Sympathy (Cambridge University Press), p. 137.
- 47.
Hanley , Ryan (2009), Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge University Press), p. 90.
- 48.
TMS, VI.ii.2.4, p. 229.
- 49.
Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg (2000), The Rhetorical Tradition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press), p. 653.
- 50.
LRBL, 26-6.
- 51.
Dascal , Marcelo (2006), ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Language,’ in Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith (Cambridge University Press), p. 101.
- 52.
Smith, Adam. LRBL, I.v.47, p. 19.
- 53.
Dascal (2006, 99).
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Smith, as recounted after his death by an anonymous ‘Amicus’ in The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer for Wednesday, May 11, 1791. (1983) Appendix 1, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Edited by J.C. Bryce, The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 230.
- 56.
TMS. V.2.1, p. 200.
References
Aristotle. 1991. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Edited and translated by George Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. 2000. The Rhetorical Tradition. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.
Corbett, Edward J., and Robert J. Connors. 1999. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dascal, Marcelo. 2006. Adam Smith’s Theory of Language. In Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evensky, Jerry. 2005. Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Markets, Law, Ethics, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forman-Barzilai, Fonna. 2002. Adam Smith’s Circles of Sympathy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haakonssen, Knud. 2006. Introduction. In Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Knud Haakonssen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hanley, Ryan. 2009. Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hutcheson, Francis. 2006. Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria. Book I, Section I. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Isocrates. 1929. Antidosis. In Isocrates, vol. III, trans. Larue Van Hook. Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press.
Joseph, Sister Miriam. 2002. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric. Edited by Marguerite McGlinn. Philadelphia, PA: Paul Dry Books.
Kalyvas, Andreas, and Ira Katznelson. 2001. The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange. Review of Politics 63: 549–578.
Kennedy, George. 1999. Classical Rhetoric in its Christian and Secular Tradition. Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Kennedy, Gavin. 2005. Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lundestad, Eric. 2014. The Adam Smith Problem: A Reinterpretation. Journal of Scottish Philosophy 12 (2): 181–197.
McKenna, Stephen. 2006. Adam Smith: The Rhetoric of Propriety. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Montes, Leonidas. 2002. Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of Some Central Components of His Thought. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Phillipson, Nicholas. 2010. Adam Smith, An Enlightened Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Reid, Thomas. 2005. Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts. Edited and with an introduction by Alexander Broadie. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Roberts, Russ. 2014. How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin.
Scott, William Robert. 1965. Adam Smith as Student and Professor, with Unpublished Documents, including Parts of the “Edinburgh Lectures,” a Draft of the Wealth of Nations, Extracts from the Muniments of the University of Glasgow and Correspondence. New York, NY: Reprints of Economic Classics, Augustus Kelley Publisher.
Smith, Adam. 1981. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 2 vols. Edited by R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd. Reprinted from The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Indianapolis.
———. 1984. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Reprinted from The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Indianapolis.
———. 1985. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Edited by J.C. Bryce. Reprinted from The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Indianapolis.
Tribe, Keith (2002) The German Reception of Adam Smith. In A Critical Bibliography of Adam Smith. Edited by Keith Tribe. London: Pickering and Chatto.
Winch, Donald. 2004. Adam Smith. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keefe, R. (2018). Rhetoric. In: Stocker, B., Mack, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54793-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54794-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)