Exam 8: Enlightenment Rhetoric

Provide the term for the following definitions: -Eighteenth-century term for reasoning from evidence to more or less probable conclusions on practical issues; the kind of reasoning employed in rhetoric, and appropriate to issues such as those presented by politics, ethics, religion, and economics.

If she were alive today Margaret Cavendish might be a performance artist. What contemporary parallels do you see to her use of a rhetoric of display, and to her challenging of established norms about what can be discussed and by whom?

In what ways might Richard Whately's view of rhetoric be seen as similar in conception to that of St. Augustine?

Compare and contrast the rhetorical theories of Giambattista Vico, George Campbell, Hugh Blair, and Richard Whately. What were the specific concerns or goals of each? What would a student of rhetoric have learned from each writer? Which theory do you find the most interesting, and why.

By what means did Vico think the mind ordered the world and made civilization possible?

Which of the following is the term Vico gives for a human's intuitive ability to grasp similarities or relationships?

What did Richard Whately hope to accomplish through teaching his students rhetoric?

Why was Hugh Blair concerned to develop the quality of taste in his students?

For which of the following reasons did Thomas Sheridan believe that an emphasis on elocution and rhetorical delivery should be implemented in British education?

What, according to Vico, was the human capacity of ingenium?

__________________ was a female rhetorician during the Enlightenment period who used her extensive knowledge on both traditional and Enlightenment rhetoric to parody the rhetorical style of men at that time.

Provide the term for the following definitions: -The innate human capacity to grasp similarities or relationships, as discussed by Vico.

In the eighteenth century, people from the British countryside sought education in rhetoric and writing in order to shed rustic indicators, and as a way to gain upward mobility in English society.

Provide an overview of Vico's thinking on the role of ingenium in the development of human societies, and of rhetorical tropes in the development of human thought.