St. Augustine (354-430) A.D.
His most influential work, On Christian Doctrine (The four books of this work were composed between 397 - 427), was targeted at returning the Classic Rhetorical skills to Christian rhetorical practices. The first three books deal with the application of the canon of invention (inventio) to the scriptures.
---James L. Golden, Goodwin E. Berquist, William E. Coleman, The Rhetoric of Western Thought. 5th ed. (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt), 1992, p. 68.Augustine writes about discovering the meaning of the scriptures through a study of signs. This was a critical task for the preacher as the Christian sermon had to be based on the scriptures. So, Augustine's first thoughts in his four volume work were on assisting the preacher to critically interpret the text.
The fourth book is aimed at teaching preachers to preach and teach more effectively through eloquence.
While the faculty of eloquence, which is of great value in urging either evil or justice, is in itself indifferent, why should it not be obtained for the uses of good in the service of truth if the evil usurp it for the winning of perverse and vain causes in defense of iniquity and error?---D.W. Robertson, trans. On Christian Doctrine: Saint Augustine. (Indianapolis: Bobbs/Merrill) 1958, p. 119.
With this, Augustine begins his argument that in order to compete for souls, Christian Clergy must use the principles of rhetoric (especially the ideas of Cicero and Aristotle) in their sermons. The main ideas of his argument are:
Augustine managed to save rhetoric by seeing that it was included in Christian doctrine. Otherwise, this knowledge may have been lost to the dark ages.
Bacon's work begins "technology" (the founding of man’s mastery of nature). Bacon was a part of the "scientific movement" which stressed the value of a method of inquiry based on the inductive process (applying the understanding of a particular to a general population). Bacon sought the total reform of human knowledge.
His first important work is the Advancement of Learning where Bacon described the mental faculties of man:
From these categories, Bacon deduced that: the duty and office of rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imagination for the better moving of the will.
Bacon claimed that our dependence on language held us back from true understanding. He used the metaphor of the idols to illustrate this.
Bacon held that man worships 4 idols:
Bacon's work is considered Negative Philosophy due to Bacon's belief that to achieve true perception, one must negate prior suppositions and beliefs.
Bacon also dictated an appropriate style for the creation of text. He held that well constructed text demonstrated:
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©B. Keith Murphy, 1997, All Rights Reserved.