Abstract
The substantial question of Hobbes’s rhetoric immediately splits into two: Hobbes’s use of rhetoric, as opposed to his views on rhetoric. It is almost a platitude that Hobbes was concerned to persuade — mainly in his political writing, but, perhaps naturally, in all facets of his work. It is a further truism that he who is concerned to persuade may be presented as the object of analysis in a discussion of his rhetoric. It is less trivial, but seems to me most obvious, that there are pertinent connections between a thinker’s views on rhetoric and his own use of rhetoric — connections which prove illuminating for both sides of the discussion.1 I shall, in this chapter, focus mainly on Hobbes’s talk of rhetoric, as related to Hobbes on language in general. Hobbes the rhetorician will make his entrance, if at all relevant, near the end of this chapter, when he tells the story of the science of politics.
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References
Such a project, of reconstructing the development of Hobbes on rhetoric as intertwined with Hobbes as rhetorician, has been admirably executed by Johnston in The Rhetoric of Leviathan ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986 ).
Aristotle, Rhetorica,I, 2.
Aristotle, Rhetorica, I,3.
John Aubrey, Brief Lives,p. 158.
But see John T. Harwood, The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), where the dubiousness of answers to such exegetic questions is brought out by the discrepancies of Hobbesian evaluation promulgated by different interpreters. Hobbes is located in a post-Ramean environment (Ramus being the principal anti-Aristotelian of the times), as one tries to understand the structure of his translation. Accordingly, Hobbes may be seen as a Ramist or as an antiRamist, depending on the arguments and texts used to ground the labels. Exegetes search for instances of Ramean terminology, anti-Ramean structure, or parallelisms with Ramean “temperament”, in the attempt to identify Hobbes within this environment. It seems to me, however, that such work is of dubious value until one is clear on the “ideology” behind the rhetoric, that is, on the reasons Hobbes had, concerning rhetoric, for being a Ramist or otherwise.
Harwood, The Rhetorics of Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Lamy,p. 15.
I hasten to note, again, that local differences between Hobbes and Aristotle on specific issues in the rhetoric should not be viewed independently of the fundamental difference between Hobbes and Aristotle. Aristotle insists on a natural essence of rational, i.e. talking, and political animal. Hobbes views the rational animal as a natural essence of man, while the political is artificial. Placing the talking animal on one of two sides is the onus of my project.
See chapter 2.
Aristotle comes to mind here, telling us that educated man demands of different sciences different measures of exactitude. He differentiates between “exact” and “inexact” sciences, the latter - e.g. sociology, politology, etc. - admitting, even requiring, the use of metaphor.
For discussion of the idea that “persuasion is no longer to be contrasted to logical reasoning, nor restricted to influences that circumvent and counteract rationality”, see Jeffrey Barnouw, “Persuasion in Hobbes’s Leviathan,” Hobbes Studies I (1988).
This is not to say that Hobbes is not an able rhetorician in contexts other than that of political science. On the contrary, Hobbes’s own use of language, and specifically his use of persuasive language, are a paradigm of sophisticated rhetoric in various areas of well-defined discourse; e.g. religious discourse (Of the Kindgdome of Darknesse),history (BEHEMOTH or the Long Parliament),and law (A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England).
On Hobbes’s use of rhetoric adapted to different audiences see Cornelis W. Schoneveld, “`Insinuations of the Will’: Hobbes’s Style and Intention in Leviathan Compared to His Earlier Political Works,” in Hobbes’s `Science of Natural Justice’,eds. Craig Walton and Paul J. Johnson (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), and Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan.
There is an interesting literal augmentation of religious discussion which can be seen chronologically in the political writings. Elements of Law touches upon religion in three of its twenty nine chapters; De Cive devotes a whole division named RELIGION to the subject; Leviathan,besides incorporating specific chapters on religion into the two parts “Of Man” and “Of Commonwealth”, goes on to expand the issue in two full parts dealing with both theology and scriptural exegesis: “Of a Christian Common-wealth” and “Of the Kingdome of Darknesse”.
See Sorell, “Hobbes’s UnAristotelian Political Rhetoric,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 23 (1990), for a similar suggestion concerning Hobbes’s use of rhetoric to facilitate easier readings of his scientific political works. Sorell presents five rhetorical devices (other than narrative) - brief summary rules, appeal to introspective experience, definitions, interpreted pieces of Scriptures, and disarmed metaphors - by which Hobbes attempted to “overcome the drawbacks of a scientific form of presentation” (p. 100).
But See Paul T. Johnson, “Leviathan’s Audience,” in Thomas Hobbes: De la Metaphysique a la Politique,eds. Martin Bertman and Michel Malherbe (Paris: J. Vrin, 1989) for an analysis of Hobbes’s audience which takes a more subtle look at the division between academic-scientific) audiences and political, religious ones.
This turn, on my part (and on Hobbes’s part), should not be mistaken for the move made by Quentin Skinner in “Thomas Hobbes: Rhetoric and the Construction of Morality,” Proceedings of the British Academy 76 (1990). While I am looking at Hobbes’s use of a rhetorical tool (the story), Skinner is involved with Hobbes’s knowledge and management of a rhetorical device in use by others in the (moral theory) tradition.
In speaking of rhetoric, I have focused on narrative as a rhetorical pattern of transmission. For a more comprehensive treatment of Hobbes’s use of rhetorical embellishments see Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan,ch. 3: “Rhetoric Rediscovered: From Dry Discourse to Speaking Picture.”
See, for instance, chapter 6 on the question concerning the status of language in the solitary state. If this state is language-less how can we explain the move to a state involving speech with the aid of reason alone. It could, perhaps, be held that some speech acts (such as naming) do not involve communication. Indeed, the state of solitude may be said to contain, perhaps via such speech acts, an innate potentiality of language. This move can be countered, however, by the original doubts: how can such potentiality be brought to fulfillment? An alternative path to take would say that the state of solitude is not bereft of the rules of use of language, but their validating conditions are absent. This claim totters on similar foundations and one must then indulge in the question of the evolution of validating conditions.
At the very fundamental level of narrative being defined, it appears that discussion of the concept of time is essential. E.g. “Narrative is the representation of real and fictive events in a time sequence.” (Gerald Prince, “Aspects of a Grammar of Narrative,” Poetics Today 1, 1980, p. 49); “A salient property of narrative is double time structuring.” (Seymour Chatman, “What Novels Can Do That Films Can’t (and Vice Versa),” in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 118); “…in a narrative neither the telling nor what is explicitly told need take time, and they suggest furthermore, that narrative reordered in any way at all is still narrative.” (Nelson Goodman, “Twisted Tales; or, Story, Study, and Symphony,” in On Narrative, p. 111); “…narrative texts: Here the signals are temporal: once upon a time, then, or the use of the preterit.” (Balz Engler, “Narrative Links in Non-Narrative Poetry,” Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature, 1984, p. 67 ).
Paul Ricoeur, “Narrative Time,” in On Narrative, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980 ).
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Biletzki, A. (1997). Eloquence is Power: The Office of Rhetoric. In: Talking Wolves. Synthese Library, vol 262. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8887-4_9
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