The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy

This 1990 book offers rhetorical and literary analyses of four of George Berkeley's (1685–1753) major philosophical texts.

Peter Walmsley (Author)

9780521374132, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 August 1990

222 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

"Walmsley provides a very thorough account, showing how Berkeley's studied choice of language aids him in manipulating the reader. One comes away from this book filled with admiration both for Walmsley as an analyst and for Berkeley as a stylist." Margaret Atherton, Eighteenth-Century Studies

The works of George Berkeley (1685–1753) have been the object of much philosophical analysis; but philosophers are writers as well as thinkers, and Berkeley was himself positively interested in the functions of language and style. He recognized that words are used not just to convey ideas, but to stir the emotions and influence the behaviour of the hearer or reader. The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy, first published in 1990, offers rhetorical and literary analyses of his four major philosophical texts, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Alciphron and Siris. The Berkeley that emerges from this study is an accomplished stylist, one who builds structures of affective imagery, who creates dramatic voices in his texts, and who masters the range of philosophical genres - the treatise, the dialogue and the essay. Above all, Berkeley's awareness of the rhetorical functions of language is everywhere evident in his own style. His texts persuade as well as prove, enacting a process of inquiry so that the reader may, in the end, grasp Berkeley's truths as his own.

Acknowledgments
Note to the reader
Introduction
Part I. The Principles of Human Knowledge: 1. Ideas and the ends of language
2. Locke, roles, and passion
3. The ends of morality and religion
4. Metaphor and the evidence of things not seen
Part II. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: 5. The opportunities of dialogue
6. The character of the elenchus
7. Comic characters
8. Comic form
Part III. Alciphron: 9. Argument into satire
10. Conversations with ingenious men
Part IV. Siris: 11. The rude essay
12. The method of inductive analogy
13. The hoary maxims of the ancients
Conclusion
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]