Astell Through a Classical Lens

Mary Astell can be considered strongly anti-sophist.  On page 852 she claims, “It is an abuse of both of reason and Address to press ‘em into the Service of a Trifle or an Untruth; and a mistake to think that any Argument can be rightly made…the design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth...” At this point I envisioned Astell reading Gorgias’ Encomium and going red in the face with rage.  Further, in claiming, “when we pretend to teach others what we do not understand our selves, no wonder that we do it at a sorry rate,” she seems to be making a direct dispute of frivolous sophistic rhetoric (853). She sounds very Platonic on page 851, claiming a true Christian understands the “notion of the Nothingness of Material things and of the reality and substantialness of immaterial…” Even her capitalization of certain abstract notions like Nothingness or Understanding or Rashness or Ignorance, etc., reflect the Platonic notion of Forms.  Her Christian viewpoint of Absolute Truth in the Christian faith mirrors Plato’s view of Absolute Truth that can be discerned through careful observation and logic.

While Plato and Astell see eye to eye on the existence of Absolute Truth, their treatment of it is vastly different.  Plato uses rhetoric as a tool to understand Truth while Astell considers the matter settled by her faith. In addition, Astell claims, “Human Knowledge is at best defective,” leaving little room for the significance of rhetoric.  In fact, it seems that her conception of rhetoric excludes even the flawed logic of Human Truths.  Her realm of rhetoric consists of the expression of those ideas gained through contemplation and meditation; it doesn’t include the invention itself, merely the expression.  If the ideas are true and right, it is the job of rhetoric to express them clearly, and in a way that pleases the reader simply to keep their attention.  To that end, her disdain for eloquence is strikingly anti-sophist.  To her, sophistic rhetoric probably seems closely akin to “rhetoric as the art of lying.”  While Plato’s pursuits are unconstrained by Christian rules, they each understand that good rhetoric can be ascertained through observing truth in nature.

Interestingly, for someone who removed invention from rhetoric, she also pays little attention to style.  While style is perhaps important to her, there is little use for her in writing about it.  Her disdain for “The Rules of Art” stems from an interesting Christian view that good morals lead to good oratory.  This is strikingly influenced by Cicero and Quintilian (i.e. good man speaking well) despite her departure from their affinity for eloquence.  Aristotle’s classifications or the figures and tropes laid out in the Ad Herrenium, which had strong influences on Cicero and Quintilian are discounted by Astell, not necessarily because she considered them erroneous, but because she considered the apprehension of the rules of style most appropriate through observing nature and identifying admirable style in others.  While the highly eloquent Cicero also regarded ethos as an important aspect to rhetoric, he did not feel, like Astell, that good style was automatically connected with good moral value.