Francis Bacon: Rhetoric & Empiricism

“Rhetoric, in the most traditional sense, remained the province of men, the product of teaching and practice, a means of achievement and power”
(Glenn 141).

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“By marriage, the husband and wife became one person in law—and that person was the husband”
(Stone qtd. in Glenn 121).
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Exceptional women were mostly aristocratic:

Queen Elizabeth I:
 “Superbly educated . . . accomplished and prolific in rhetoric and poetics” (118).
 The Tudor Women:
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Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Parr, and Lady
Jane Grey all demonstrated exceptional educations and awareness of rhetorical theory and practice (129 – 131)

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Leonard Cox, The Art or Crafte of Rhetoryke (1530)
 First systematic English version of a Ciceronian approach to invention (Glenn 139)
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Thomas Wilson, Arte of Rhetorique (1553)
 First complete English version of a full Ciceronian rhetoric
(139).
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Style, persuasion, and poetics:
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During the Renaissance, English rhetoric became closely associated with poetry and style:
 “The English language must be elevated, beautiful, and rhythmic to be memorable and persuasive” (140)

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Reaction to both Scholasticism and Classicism:
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Rejected the closed and often useless Scholastic emphasis on precise definition and syllogistic logic.
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Rejected much accepted Classical scientific knowledge:
 Scientific knowledge should be primarily based on repeated observation.
 The deductive process – moving from general assumptions to specific conclusions – was flawed in regard to scientific enquiry.
Empiricism and the Individual:
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Empiricism emphasized the individual’s ability to accurately observe, record, and interpret natural phenomena.

For Bacon, the discovery of a New World . . .
Demanded a corresponding discovery of a new mental world in which old patterns of thinking, traditional prejudices, subjective distortions, verbal confusions, and general intellectual blindness would be overcome by a new method of acquiring knowledge. This method was to be fundamentally empirical. (Tarnas 272)

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Bacon’s Empirical Approach:
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Theological:
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Science as “the material and human counterpart to God’s plan of spiritual salvation. Man was created by God to interpret and hold dominion over nature . . . Science was therefore his religious obligation” (Tarnas 273).
Philosophical:
 Bacon felt it was necessary to rigorously question and often reject received philosophical foundations for human knowledge:
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“To fill the world with assumed final causes, as did Aristotle, or with intelligible divine essences, as did Plato, was to obscure from man a genuine understanding of nature on its own terms” (Tarnas 273).
“The true philosopher directly approached the real world and studied it, without falsely anticipating and prejudicing the outcome” (Tarnas 273).
“The Aristotelian search for formal and final causes . . . [was] just [a] distortion, deceptively attractive to the emotionally tainted intellect” (Tarnas
274).

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Faculty Psychology
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Faculty psychology, as developed by Bacon, was the dominant understanding of the psyche for three centuries
(Bizzell and Herzberg 737).
Faculty psychology is the belief that all people are endowed with certain mental faculties:

Bacon cites three faculties:
 Reason, memory, and imagination (and two others: appetite and the will)
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All people possess each of the faculties in varying degrees.
 The faculties can be developed through education and practice.
Preview!
 Later iterations of faculty psychology (in the 18 th century) focus on the faculties of judgment and taste.

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Bacon divides intellectual activity into four “arts”:
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Invention
 Aristotelian: “To draw forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the purpose which we take into our consideration” (740)
Judgment

Deduction is ok, but is often flawed and pointless.
 Induction is the way to go!
Memory
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Systems of memorization are usually cumbersome and ridiculous.
Prenotion:
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Mental systems for organizing memories.
Emblem:
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Visual mnemonic devices.
Delivery
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Oral or written; rhetoric a must here.

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1.
2.
3.
4.
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Idols of the Tribe
Human nature.
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Idols of the Cave
Individual idiosyncracies.
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Idols of the Marketplace
Human communication.
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Idols of the Theatre
Flawed philosophical systems

“The duty and office of Rhetoric is to apply
Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will” (743).

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1.
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The application of reason to human emotion to produce an effect.
Rhetoric “links morality and reason” (Bizzell and Herzberg
738).
“Logic handleth reason exact and in truth, and Rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in popular opinions and manners” (Bacon 744).
Rhetoric is, in this sense, applied philosophy.
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Bacon’s defense of rhetoric:
“Rhetoric can be no more charged with the colouring of the worse part, than Logic with Sophistry, or Morality with Vice”
(Bacon 743).

2.
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To combat the effects of the Idols of the Marketplace.
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The problem:
“The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding” (Bacon 746)
Definitions do not necessarily help alleviate the confusion (746).
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“But words plainly force and over-rule the understanding , and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies” (746)
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The solution:
A scientific approach to language:
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Observation, observation, observation, all of which leads to
General conclusions about the nature of words and language
(Popkin 331).
Knowledge (of rhetoric) is power.