George Campbell
This is an excerpt from the paper...
George Campbell was part of the epistemological tradition, as would be Whately. Faculty psychology tried to explain behavior in terms of five powers of the mind--understanding, memory, imagination, passion, and will. Campbell defined rhetoric in terms of these same five faculties. Campbell's theory was that rhetoric must address all the faculties of the mind to achieve persuasion, and he set forth a detailed theory of the faculties, their purposes, and the forms appropriate for appealing to each, stating that the path to persuasion passes through each of the faculties in turn. Professor Dominic LaRusso argues that Campbell's The Philosophy of Rhetoric is not "revolutionary, unique, and important," countering the claim to the contrary by Professor Douglas Ehninger. LaRusso may be correct that the work is not revolutionary or unique, with the first being in part a value judgment and the second an assessment based on a comparison of the work to what went before. The work is clearly important, however, for it disseminated a variety of ideas to others and had a demonstrable influence on subsequent theorists such as Whately, an influence that might not have occurred had the book not been written even if it only codified earlier ideas.George Campbell was one of the proponents of the Scottish philosophy of common sense that would be so important in maintaining the old tradition of rhetoric in Great Britain: This tradition, in which the theory of invention is reduced to a min
. . .
his classical predecessors.
Before, Campbell had rejected classical invention and had thus implied a rejection of the speech itself as the center of rhetoric. Campbell now rejects the entire classical canon and thus implies a rejection of one means of classifying speeches for another, according to Ehninger, who states that he sees this as a refocusing of traditional materials toward the new teleology of "ends." McDermott writes,
The shift which was initially ascribed to Campbell, the shift from speech to hearer, seems to be one of a kind. this new shift, from classifying the speech according to the function of the judge to classifying it according to the rejection desired of him, seems to be one of degree. Nevertheless, the Campbellian revolution continues to be characterized as "radical" and "major."
McDermott draws certain conclusions from his analysis of Campbell's writings and theories. First, he states that the methodology expressed in the five-part canon was not central to the thought of classical rhetoric and that instead it appears that the heart of classical rhetoric was an understanding of man's mind as he operated in society. Second, McDermott concludes that the revolutionary aspect of Campbell's work was n
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
McDermott Ehninger, Bizzell Herzberg, John Locke, Nevertheless Campbellian, Philosophy Rhetoric, Campbell LaRusso, Whately Faculty, Douglas McDermott, LaRusso McDermott, Edney Campbell, revolutionary unique, philosophy rhetoric, campbell revolutionary, campbell's philosophy, rhetoric psychological, campbell's philosophy rhetoric, george campbell, rhetorical tradition, link rhetoric psychological, center rhetorical, ancient contemporary, persuasion passes, rhetoric psychological principles, path persuasion passes, attempt link rhetoric,
Approximate Word count = 1502
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
More Essays on George Campbell
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
