The Enlightenment Era- A Blessing for Rhetoric

    The shift to Enlightenment rhetoric marks many shifts toward better understanding the use of language and the function of rhetoric. John Locke's (1634-1704) 'theory' seems to gravitate around the idea of understanding language, or the use of words, as mechanisms to carry meaning. In the introduction to our text they said in reference to Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that Locke's reasoning (in book IV) could be boiled down to the assumption "that verbal propositions stand for mental ones and that mental ones stand for real external phenomena"(815). This deduction helps us to place Locke's outlook and his curiosity with words and language as a (inadequate) medium to convey knowledge.

    In his text, Locke appears organized and concise (significantly less thorough in explanatory reasoning than our past authors) and his chief goal seems much more oriented at understanding rather than arguing. I think this can be attributed to the sort of educational inquiry we see in the Enlightenment period but it is interested to think of Locke in contrast to Ramus or Ramistic rhetoric because I think we see some real difference in style. For example, looking conceptually at words, or names, standing in to replace a subject Locke says,"To make words serviceable to the end of communication, it is necessary, as has been said, that they excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker" (Locke 818:6-1). His prose is logical without being overbearing, and his commentary seems as if it were commonsense, instead of the introduction of a radical new concept. He alludes to the fact that this 'has been said'-- though the introduction made clear that Locke was developing psychological and linguistic/rhetorical theories that would latter be built upon or opposed by Campbell, Smith, Sheridan ect.

    It seems that Locke focuses not exclusively on language, but on language as a tool or a medium for the mind. This is an interesting relationship and association that, I think, actually helps rhetoric gain a sense of Ethos or importance for future studies.