Ulman – Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions

****This summary is very selective**** Ulman, H. Lewis. Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions : The Problem of Language in Late Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorical Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. Print. Introduction Main claim of Howell’s 18th Century British Logic and Rhetoric:  “the new rhetoric of late 18th century Britain was largely responsible to the new science of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, an interpretation... Read More

McKenna – Adam Smith: The Rhetoric of Propriety

McKenna, Stephen.  Adam Smith:  The Rhetoric of Propriety.  Carbondale: SIU Press, 2005.  Print. M. argues in this work that when Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres is read in connection with his other work and in the context of the time in which Smith was writing, there is a unique contribution to the study of rhetoric . . . Smith offers a new connection between the act of communication and the field/practice of ethics. Chapter... Read More

Bevilacqua – Adam Smith and Some Philosophical Origins of 18th Century Rhetorical Theory

Bevilacqua, Vincent. “Adam Smith and Some Philosophical Origins of Eighteenth-Century Rhetorical Theory.” Modern Language Review 63  (1968): 559-68. Print In this article B. wants to sketch out how a couple of particular “philosophical presuppositions” undergird the work that Smith did on rhetoric and belles lettres; in addition, he’ll also discuss how those same philosophical supports continued to influence rhetorical... Read More

Berlin – The Transformation of Invention in 19th Century American Rhetoric

Berlin, James A. “The Transformation of Invention in Nineteenth Century American Rhetoric.”  Southern Speech Communication Journal 46 (1981):  292-304. 11 In this piece Berlin traces how the disappearance of invention as discovery occurred in the 19th century because of the “supremacy” of Campbell, Blair, and Whately in rhetorical theories of the 18th century.  In these three thinkers he identifies ideas that were compatible with... Read More

Hagaman – On Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric and Its Relevance to Contemporary Invention

Hagaman, John. “On Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric and Its Relevance to Contemporary Invention.” RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly 11 3 (1981): 145-54. Print. In this piece Hagaman rereads Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric in order to reconsider his “theory of mind” and the role it plays in current inventional theory. Despite the fact that Campbell faithfully supported an empirical epistemology, he also accepted that intuition... Read More