Rhetoric Dialectic In The Time Of Galileo

Examines the teaching and practice of the twin arts of argumentation -- rhetoric and dialectic -- in the time of Galileo. Galileo was an ardent controversialist on behalf of his astronomical theories, yet many today are unacquainted with the kinds of argument that became a focal point in his famous trial. The authors combine their vast knowledge of rhetoric, history, and philosophy to explain the background of the dispute between science and religion. They present an engaging discussion of the prevailing modes of rhetorical and scientific arguments in Northern Italy during the Renaissance. They display primary texts on the arts of rhetoric and dialectic by authors whose thought was known to Galileo.

Introduces new scholars to interdisciplinary research by utilizing bibliographical surveys of both primary and secondary works that address the history of rhetoric, from the Classical period to the 21st century.

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to concepts of the self associated with the development of humanism in England, and to strategies for both inclusion and exclusion in structuring the early modern nation state. It addresses writings about rhetoric and behavior from 1495–1660, beginning with Erasmus’ work on sermo or the conversational rhetoric between friends, which considers the reader as an ‘absent audience’, and following the transference of this stance to a politics whose broadening democratic constituency needed a legitimate structure for governance-at-a-distance. Unusually, the book brings together the impact on behavior of these new concepts about rhetoric, with the growth of the publishing industry, and the emergence of capitalism and of modern medicine. It explores the effects on the formation of the ‘subject’ and political legitimation of the early liberal nation state. It also lays new ground for scholarship concerned with what is left out of both selfhood and politics by that state, studying examples of a parallel development of the ‘self’ defined by friendship not only from educated male writers, but also from women writers and writers concerned with socially ‘middling’ and laboring people and the poor.

Relying on the author’s established expertise in rhetoric and political communication, this book re-contextualizes Romantic rhetorical theory from the late 18th and early 19th centuries to provide a foundation for a Neo-Romantic rhetorical theory for our own time. In the process, it uses a unique methodology to correct misconceptions about the rhetorical theories of many writers. Using a dialectical approach, the early chapters trace Romanticism through its opposition to the industrial revolution and the Enlightenment, back through Humanism and its opposition to Scholasticism, to its roots in St. Augustine’s writing. These chapters include a revisionist analysis of the church’s treatment of Galileo in the course of showing how difficult it was for scientific study to be accepted in Scholastic circles. The study goes on to argue that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and Edmund Burke were bridge figures to the Romantic Era. This move throws new light on exemplary painters, composers, writers and orators of the Romantic Era, who are examined in chapters eight and nine. Chapter ten focuses on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his development of the rhetorical poem, and thereby provides a new genre in the Romantic catalogue. Chapter Eleven turns to the Romantic rhetorical theories of Hugh Blair and Thomas De Quincey to empower those seeking to save the environment. The concluding chapter then synthesizes their theories with relevant contemporary rhetorical theories thereby constructing a Neo-Romantic theory for our own time. In the process, the book links the Romantics’ love of nature to the current environmental crisis.

Thomas Hobbes claimed to have founded the discipline of civil philosophy (political science). The claim did not go uncontested and in recent years the relationship of philosophical reasoning to rhetorical persuasion in Hobbes's work has become a significant area of discussion, as scholars attempt to align his disparaging remarks about rhetoric with his dazzling practice of it in works like Leviathan. The dominant view is that, having rejected an early commitment to humanism and with it rhetoric when he adopted the 'scientific' approach to philosophy in the late 1630s, Hobbes later came to re-embrace it as an essential aid to or part of philosophy. Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Thomas Hobbes proposes that Hobbes was, from first to last, dubious about the place of rhetoric in civil society, and came to see it as a pernicious presence within philosophy - a position from which he did not retreat. It offers a fresh and expanded picture of Hobbes's humanism by examining his years as a country house tutor; his teaching and his translation of Thucydides, the influence on him of Bacon, and the range of his early natural historical and philosophical interests. In demonstrating the distinctively Aristotelian character of his understanding of rhetoric, the book also revisits the new approach to philosophy Hobbes adopted at the end of the 1630s, clarifying the nature and scope of his concern about the contamination of philosophy and political life by the procedures of rhetorical argumentation.

One of the most remarkable trends in the humanities and social sciences in recent decades has been the resurgence of interest in the history, theory, and practice of rhetoric: in an age of global media networks and viral communication, rhetoric is once again "contagious" and "communicable" (Friedrich Nietzsche). Featuring sixty commissioned chapters by eminent scholars of rhetoric from twelve countries, The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies offers students and teachers an engaging and sophisticated introduction to the multidisciplinary field of rhetorical studies. The Handbook traces the history of Western rhetoric from ancient Greece and Rome to the present and surveys the role of rhetoric in more than thirty academic disciplines and fields of social practice. This combination of historical and topical approaches allows readers to chart the metamorphoses of rhetoric over the centuries while mapping the connections between rhetoric and law, politics, science, education, literature, feminism, poetry, composition, philosophy, drama, criticism, digital media, art, semiotics, architecture, and other fields. Chapters provide the information expected of a handbook-discussion of key concepts, texts, authors, problems, and critical debates-while also posing challenging questions and advancing new arguments. In addition to offering an accessible and comprehensive introduction to rhetoric in the European and North American context, the Handbook includes a timeline of major works of rhetorical theory, translations of all Greek and Latin passages, extensive cross-referencing between chapters, and a glossary of more than three hundred rhetorical terms. These features will make this volume a valuable scholarly resource for students and teachers in rhetoric, English, classics, comparative literature, media studies, communication, and adjacent fields. As a whole, the Handbook demonstrates that rhetoric is not merely a form of stylish communication but a pragmatic, inventive, and critical art that operates in myriad social contexts and academic disciplines.

Provides the historical context for understanding the development of sacramental causality as a theological topic in the scholastic period, emphasizing the unique features of Aquinas' response to this question. Following this, relevant texts from Aquinas' early and later work are examined, noting Aquinas' development and integration of the idea of sacramental causality in his later work.

Describes the most important individual contributions to the development of Renaissance rhetoric and analyzes the new ideas which Renaissance thinkers contributed to rhetorical theory.