Philosophy & Rhetoric Jul 2023

Lockean Natural History and the Revivification of Post-Truth Objects

Piper W. Corp

Abstract

ABSTRACT Post-truth, understood as a turn from collective sense and judgment to nonpublic forms of epistemic justification, is a distinctly rhetorical problem. This article offers, in response, a theorization of knowledge making as the means by which affective and material impingements upon bodies become publicly legible and rhetorically available. For this, the author turns, perhaps unexpectedly, to John Locke. Locke’s works offer the foundations of an empirical theory of rhetoric that embraces the sensible realm not as a conduit to reality but as a space where social connection becomes possible. Locke engages this realm through natural historical inquiry. Tracing this inquiry to his commonplacing practices, the author presents the rhetorical-dialectical topics as a basis for the shared sense and judgment that he pursued and that post-truth demands. The topics, this article argues, guide and enlarge the senses, forming objects of knowledge with which to sustain public life—objects about which plural truths are possible.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2023-07-31
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.56.2.0117
Open Access
Closed
Topics
race and writing affect and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (7)

  1. Rickert (2019)
    It Is All There: From Reason to Reasoning-in-the-World
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Biesecker (2018)
    Guest Editor's Introduction: Toward an Archaeogenealogy of Post-truth
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  3. Burgess (2018)
    Between the Desire for Law and the Law of Desire: #MeToo and the Cost of Tellin…
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  4. Vivian (2018)
    On the Erosion of Democracy by Truth
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  5. Watts (2018)
    “Zombies Are Real”: Fantasies, Conspiracies, and the Post-truth Wars
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
Show all 7 →
  1. Fuller (2017)
    The Post-Truth About Philosophy and Rhetoric
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Reeves et al. (2014)
    Heidegger and the Aesthetics of Rhetoric
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
Also cites 5 works outside this index ↓
  1. (1981)
    “Locke versus Aristotle on Natural Kinds.”
    Journal of Philosophy  ↗
  2. (2015)
    “Rhetoric’s Sensorium.”
    Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
  3. (1989)
    “John Locke, the Individual, and the Origin of Communication.”
    Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
  4. (2014)
    “John Locke’s ‘New Method of Making Common-Place-Books: Tradition, Innovation and Epistem…
    Early Science and Medicine  ↗
  5. (1993)
    “Nietzsche and the Aesthetics of Rhetoric.”
    Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →

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