Jean Dietz Moss
13 articles-
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Reviews 337 The final chapter examines later developments in the air, which the author views as resulting in a general decline in quality, although it may also be the result of a changing aesthetic which valued the simple and natural over the relative complexity of the earlier style. In part this change may have been the result of the popularization resulting from the printed annual anthologies of Ballard, the Airs de different autheiirs (1658-94). In spite of push-back from religious authorities, who decried the pursuit of pleasurable distractions associated with the air, it proliferated in the eighteenth century, albeit in a somewhat simpler, more rustic style. The book is extremely well documented and provides a through bibli ography of relevant research. It furnishes extensiv e and accurate translations of all the texts under discussion. Robert A. Green Bloomington Eric MacPhail, The Sophistic Renaissance (Travaux ¿'Humanisme et Renaissance 485), Geneva: Droz, 2011,155 pp. ISBN: 978-2-600-014670 55 This ingenious small book combines a careful but sprightly appraisal of the sophistic sources av ailable to Humanist scholars and a persuasive analysis of the influence of these sources on the writings of major literary figures of the Renaissance. Eric MacPhail manages adroitly the double focus of his study. Scholars of early modern history and literature will doubtless find his appreciation of the linkage between the two an inspiration for further studies. Divided into two parts, the book begins with an engaging bibliographi cal account of the "fragmentary fortunes" of the sophists from their notoriety in the literature of late fifth century Athens to their resurgence in the writ ings of renaissance humanists. The aim of the author is to uncover who the sophists were. Much scholarship has been devoted to the sophists already, but MacPhail's aim is to engender a new appreciation of the effect of their oratorical methods and their relativist philosophy on renaissance literature. He selects from among the sophists mentioned in classical texts, seven who appear to have made the greatest impression on both ancient and renaissance commentators—Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, Hippias, An tiphon, and Critias. Seen as relishing arguments on both sides of an issue and delighting in exhibitions of their inventive powers, few commentators spoke in their favor. And as teachers for hire, they provoked disdain, not only from fifth century critics, but from one of their arch imitators, Montaigne, as well. Yet he was indebted to them for the subversive energy of his essays, MacPhail claims, dubbing him "the champion of sophistic reasoning" (92)." Erasmus, too, owed the satirical character of his Praise ofFolly to the sophists. 338 RHETORICA McPhail places the blame for the disrepute of the sophists on Plato's di alogues. The philosopher excoriated their argumentative strategies as being based solely on opinion, on what appears to be true. Protagoras exemplified their stance in his claim that all opinions are true and that man is the measure of all things. Aristotle, MacPhail remarks, although less pejorative than Plato in the Art of Rhetoric, distinguished sophists from rhetors by their focus on dynamis (prowess), rather than proairesis (moral purpose). One drawback, however, of the compact nature of this study is the omission of any discus sion of the emergence of the art of rhetoric in the same period and its relation to sophistry. Although MacPhail references Aristotle's Rhetoric and treats the "second sophistic" period briefly, noting the writings of Cicero and Quin tilian, he does not address the nature of argumentative strategies in terms of subject matter, contingences, or audiences. Sophists, after all, were not the only sages to realize that contingencies required multiple probable answers. The battle of the sophists for recognition of their contributions to knowl edge versus the claims of philosophers to own truth continues to surface throughout the work. Paradoxically (and fittingly), the bad reputation of the sophists seems to have ensured their survival. They shocked and fascinated humanists by their skill in demonstrating the truth of opposites. They could, indeed, make the weaker case the stronger. In part two, devoted to what he calls "the antagonism of speech," MacPhail's erudition coupled with a detective's acumen enables him to un cover...
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340 RHETORICA to be monitored by the community and that is balanced by an ethics, psy chology, and political theory emphasizing isolated, estranged, and restive individuals (pp. 142-45). The image of the modern Lockean individual that Vogt advances is that of the chastened explorer, conscious of the perils of the voyage of discovery undertaken with imperfect tools, but confident in his ability to overcome as yet unknown challenges. Vogt attempts to formulate a strong version of Lockean modernity in order to shed light on what he terms "the strong attack on Lockean modernity" that he perceives in the work of Burke, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche (p. 6). In those thinkers there is, for Vogt, a more precise pessimism. In their hands, Locke's nautical metaphors entail a much greater risk of disorientation. In this reading, the Burkean sublime is a chaste riposte to Locke's cheerful analogizing, a critique of even a figural empiricism's ability to deal with the measureless. Vogt reads the marine paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and J. M. W. Turner to undermine the notion that maritime life is a storehouse of figures that stand for challenges overcome. Many of the things that Vogt has to say with regard to this strong attack on the strong version of Lockean modernity are suggestive. But it is not clear that a monograph on Locke was the best place to explore these complex issues with the sustained attention that they deserve. David L. Marshall Kettering University Juliet Cummins and David Burchell (eds.), Science, Literature and Rhetoric in Early Modern England (Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity Series), Aldershot (England) and Burlington (Ver mont): Ashgate, 2007. 241 pp. ISBN: 9780754657811 The intent of this collection of essays is to "present new insights" about the "interaction of science, literature and rhetoric" in the development, reception, and dissemination of scientific knowledge in early modernity. The studies emanate from a symposium of scholars held at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. The editors promise in the introduction a wide angled book that will encompass the cultural, political, and social elements of the new science. This has been accomplished to a large degree, even if at times the treatment is a bit parochial in its regional view of science and narrow historical perspective. In addition, rhetoric, left undefined, permits a diffuse sense of the term, and a vague notion that it pervades discourse. But despite these shortcomings, the book offers a rich, lively, innovative collection of essays that illuminate selected literary texts of the period. Several of the essays stand out for their clarity and scholarship. Peter Harrison's "Truth, Utility, and the Natural Sciences in Early Modern Eng land" avoids parochialism in its treatment of changing opinions regarding Reviews 341 natural science vis a vis the humanities. Harrison begins his essay with Sir Philip Sidney's weighing of knowledge for its moral usefulness and his elevation of the particular as key to understanding the universal in "The Defence of Poesy. Earlier the studia }iu matiitutis had revamped education for its social and moral utility as well (p. 17). The essay, with apt illustrations from the writings of the virtuosi and their commentators, shows that a similar moral evaluation was being applied to the study of natural philosophy in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The discipline was thought to aid in the development of virtue through the habits of careful study required of its practitioners. And it turned minds to regard the purpose of their labors as the betterment of mankind. Thus, the moral value of the philosophers' work eventually made the occupation socially acceptable, despite critics' ridicule of experiments performed at meetings of the Royal Society. With impressive erudition, David Burchell analyzes Hobbes' style and its debt to both Seneca and Cicero. His essay, '"A Plain Blunt Man'; Hobbes, Science, and Rhetoric Revisited," has only a tenuous connection to science, but it clarifies the relation of rhetoric to science in the period. Burchell successfully rebuts those who have claimed that Hobbes rejected rhetoric and adopted instead a "clear and perspicuous" style to foster better scientific debate. Burchell shows that Hobbes had, instead, a very broad knowledge of rhetoric and used different...
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Short Reviews: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, by Edward Schiappa, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, by Anne W. Astell, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric, by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe and Rhetorical Figures in Science, by Jeanne Fahnestock ↗
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Review Article| August 01 2000 Short Reviews: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, by Edward Schiappa, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, by Anne W. Astell, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric, by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe and Rhetorical Figures in Science, by Jeanne Fahnestock Edward Schiappa,The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), x + 230 pp.Anne W. Astell,Political Allegory in Late Medieval England (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1999), xii + 218 pp.Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe eds. The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999), vii + 279 pp.Jeanne Fahnestock,Rhetorical Figures in Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xiv + 234 pp. Janet M. Atwill, Janet M. Atwill The University of Tennessee Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Sybil M. Jack, Sybil M. Jack University of Sydney Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Wendy Dasler Johnson, Wendy Dasler Johnson Washington State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Jean Dietz Moss Jean Dietz Moss The Catholic University of America Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (2000) 18 (3): 343–354. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.343 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Janet M. Atwill, Sybil M. Jack, Wendy Dasler Johnson, Jean Dietz Moss; Short Reviews: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece, by Edward Schiappa, Political Allegory in Late Medieval England, by Anne W. Astell, The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric, by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe and Rhetorical Figures in Science, by Jeanne Fahnestock. Rhetorica 1 August 2000; 18 (3): 343–354. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2000.18.3.343 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 2000, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric2000 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
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352 RHETORICA Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xiv + 234 pp. The title of this work well represents the focus of the book, but it fails to convey the breadth of content it contains. Jeanne Fahnestock's book displays a range of erudition not only in the history of science but in the history of rhetoric as well. Unlike other studies that have treated the use of metaphors and analogy in scientific literature, this one reveals the work of some little marked but ubiquitous figures of speech in many classic and modem texts in science. Fahnestock's aim, however, is not just to show the way in which these figures have influenced the turn of scientific thought, or have structured its expression, but she seeks to illuminate the nature of rhetorical figures themselves. The book claims that certain figures are actually condensed lines of argument and that they appear in all kinds of discourse. She selects for close study five figures of particular importance to scientific reasoning: antithesis, gradatio, incrementum, antimetabole, ploche, and poliptoton. These are looked at systematically, with historical accounts and illustrations of each, followed by well-developed examples of their use in a coherent topical, not chronological, order. Throughout the work Fahnestock has also included visual representations that bear witness to the structural figuration behind them. The first chapter of the book alone, "The Figures as Epitomes", should prove invaluable to historians and teachers of rhetoric and literature. Fahnestock first clarifies the confusing categories of tropes, schemes, figures of diction and thought. Next she examines leading theories of figuration: figures are departures from "normal" or "typical" word use; figures ornament or embellish, adding emotion, force, charm. Figures may do all of these things, she says, but essentially they are composites a "formal embodiment of certain ideational or persuasive functions" (p. 23). She defines them as "an identifiable convergence, felicity, or synergy of form and content" (p. 38). As such the most useful approach to the figures is to look at their function. Accordingly, she examines the function of the figures mentioned above to condense or epitomize lines of argument. The key to the figural epitome lies in the topics, Reviews 353 lines of argument best described in Aristotle's Topics and Rhetoric, which he identified as common ways of reasoning. In the second chapter on antithesis, a figure based on the topic of opposites, the author explores a variety of scientific examples, including Bacon's tables of absence and presence and Darwin's examination of emotion in man and animals. The figures of series incrementum and gradatio, described in the third chapter, she explains as products of the dialectical topic of property when considered from the standpoint of the more and the less and similarities. In the scientific illustrations for the chapter, the figures are shown to be constitutive of both thought and expression. The author suggests a continuity between the rhetorical series and mathematical series, illustrating this with Newton's discussion of motion and later theories in astronomy. The subject of chapter four, antimetabole, another figure which epitomizes arguments from property, displays repeated terms in two cola, the second of which reverses the grammatical and syntactic order of the first ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"). Although this figure has not been consistently stressed in stylistic discussions over the years, Fahnestock sees it as having given scientists an especially fertile tactic of conceptual reversal. Newton in mechanics, Farraday and Joseph Henry in electromagnetism, Lamarck and Lewontin in theories of evolution, all furnish examples of the figure's usefulness. The final chapter on ploche and poliptoton introduces figures of repetition, probably unfamiliar to most readers. Pioche, described as "perfect repetition", is a word woven into a discourse in the same, or at times, in a different, sense. The second figure, polyptoton, appearing in highly inflected languages more frequently than in English, repeats a word but does so in a different grammatical case. In a dazzling account of the history of writings on electricity, the author documents the grammatical shifts that occur as experimenters begin to understand its nature. First a...
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Research Article| August 01 1997 Science, Reason, and Rhetoric Science, Reason, and Rhetoric, eds. Henry Krips,J. E. McGuire, and Trevor Melia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995). Jean Dietz Moss Jean Dietz Moss Department of English, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 20064 USA. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1997) 15 (3): 344–347. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1997.15.3.344 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jean Dietz Moss; Science, Reason, and Rhetoric. Rhetorica 1 August 1997; 15 (3): 344–347. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1997.15.3.344 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1997, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1997 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
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344 RHETORICA and yet know all it takes to be American" (p. 245). In the Afterword, Clark and Halloran reiterate that one of their inten tions in editing this volume was to encourage more narratives of the histo ry of rhetorical theory and practice in the nineteenth century. In its poten tial for encouraging additional studies and new theories of cultural and public discourses, this volume has certainly taken a considerable step toward fulfilling its editors' hopes. Rosa A. Eberly Science, Reason, and Rhetoric, eds. Henry Krips, J. E. McGuire, and Trevor Melia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995). This volume of twelve essays and six comments treats a continuingly provocative subject. The book, the product of a conference convened to inaugurate a new program in the rhetoric of science at the University of Pittsburgh, offers some illuminating discussions of the varied appearances of rhetoric in the practice of science. That practice the editors describe carefully in the introduction to the volume. Describing three possible approaches to science, they seek to adopt the third: studies which would "stress the variety and complexity inherent in the production of scientific knowledge and also the attendant human contexts within which science is made and established." Thus they would accept even "accounts of science that are patently not rhetorical." The paths not chosen include a Gorgianic view—science, unable to produce truth, develops strategies of inquiry and uses rhetoric to construct tropes and audiences—and the view that science is sub specie rhetoricae. The book promotes reflection about the relation of rhetoric and science, but, unfortunately, it contains no index to facilitate the examination of concepts, terms, and names. My focus here will be on what seems to me to be the contribution of the volume to rhetoric of sci ence studies and on the problems presented by the ahistorical approach of some of the essays. From the editors' introduction, it should not be surprising that the nature and practice of science is the focus of the volume. The nature and practice of rhetoric as an art in itself, however, receives little attention. Most authors proceed as if rhetoric is simply a familiar term without a his tory or a discipline, but whose presence in science should be remarked upon. This curious approach is exemplified in the lead-off essay by Stephen Toulmin, the title of which, "Science and the Many Faces of Reviews 345 Rhetoric, would seem to promise to furnish the necessary background. In an attempt to bridge the gap envisioned by philosophers between the polar extremes of rhetoric and rationality, Toulmin turns to the Organon of Aristotle to illustrate the varied and overlapping types of reasoning prac ticed by human beings. But his account disappoints by its brevity. In his survey of the Organon, although he makes brief initial reference to the Analytics and the use of dialectical or topical reasoning in science, he then moves on to rhetoric, failing to treat Aristotle's conception of rhetoric or to remark on its relation to dialectic, a point that would seem to illuminate both science and a rhetoric of science. He intends, he says at the end of his seven-page essay, only a "'clearing away [of] the underbrush,"' making no attempt to discuss "questions about the rhetoric of science, or about scien tists as rhetors." J. E. McGuire and Trevor Melia, whose responses to Alan Gross's The Rhetoric of Science (1990) have appeared twice in Rhetorica, again reply neg atively to Gross's view that science is merely rhetorical invention and rep resentation, always relative to time and place (p. 77). Neither foundationalists nor nonfoundationalists, they position themselves as minimal real ists, seeing the actual practice of science as constitutive of science. They argue for a "proportionalizing rhetoric" (one that presumes a balance between representation and investigative practice) which would reflect "the proportionalizing strategies of scientific fallibilism" (p. 86). Several studies attend to sociological aspects of rhetoric. Trevor Pinch, in his analysis of the presentation of the Cold Fusion Process, demonstrates the importance of analyzing spoken rhetoric within its con text as a means to understanding both the presentation and reception of science by different audiences. Steve Fuller calls for...
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Abstract: The teaching and practice of rhetoric at Trinity College, Dublin, in the eighteenth century have been little discussed in the literature. This article describes the curriculum and pedagogy related to the old and “new rhetoric” of the Scottish enlightenment as disclosed by documents in the archives of Trinity College Library; the published lectures of two Erasmus Smith Professors of Oratory and History, John Lawson and Thomas Leland; and the lectures of Thomas Sheridan on elocution. Minutes of the student historical clubs in which debates and harangues are preserved illustrate the interests of the students, their techniques of debate, and the demonstrative exhortations of their officers. The student orations chronicle the gradual absorption of the principles of the new rhetoric at the College.
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Defining the New Rhetorics, edited by Theresa Enos and Stuart C. Brown. Newbury Park: Sage, 1993; pp. 243 + Introduction, Index Nineteenth‐Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection by Winifred Bryan Horner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. 211 Rhetoric and the Origins of Medieval Drama by Jody Enders. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992;xiv; 281. Rhetoric and Society Series, ed. Wayne A. Rebhorn. Peter Ramus's Attack on Cicero: Text and Translation of Ramus's Brutinae Quaestiones. Ed. James J. Murphy.Trans. Carole Newlands. Davis, CA: Hermagoras P, 1992. Literate Culture: Pope's Rhetorical Art by Ruben Quintero. Newark: U of Delaware Press, 1992; 187. Cast by Means of Figures: Herman Melville's Rhetorical Development by Bryan C. Short. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
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Patricia P. Matsen, Philip Rollinson, Marion Sousa, eds. Readings from Classical Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. viii + 382 pages. Roderick P. Hart. Modern Rhetorical Criticism. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman/Little Brown, 1990. iv + 542 pages. Susan Miller. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. 267 pages. Bruce Lincoln. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 238 pages. Gregory Clark. Dialogue, Dialectic, and Conversation: A Social Perspective on the Function of Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. xix + 93 pages. Lawrence J. Prelli. A Rhetoric of Science: Inventing Scientific Discourse. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. xi + 320 pages. Kathleen E. Welch. The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990. 186 pages.
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Research Article| February 01 1989 The Interplay of Science and Rhetoric in Seventeenth Century Italy Jean Dietz Moss Jean Dietz Moss Department of English, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1989) 7 (1): 23–43. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1989.7.1.23 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jean Dietz Moss; The Interplay of Science and Rhetoric in Seventeenth Century Italy. Rhetorica 1 February 1989; 7 (1): 23–43. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1989.7.1.23 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1989, The International Society for the History of Rhetoric1989 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.
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📍 Catholic University of America
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Research Article| May 01 1986 The Rhetoric Course at the Collegio Romano In the Latter Half of the Sixteenth Century Jean Dietz Moss Jean Dietz Moss Department of English, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064, USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Rhetorica (1986) 4 (2): 137–151. https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1986.4.2.137 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jean Dietz Moss; The Rhetoric Course at the Collegio Romano In the Latter Half of the Sixteenth Century. Rhetorica 1 May 1986; 4 (2): 137–151. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.1986.4.2.137 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentRhetorica Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1986, The International Society for The History of Rhetoric1986 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.