Locke's Essay and the Rhetoric of ScienceBucknell University Press, 2003 - 199 pages This book shows how, in his enormously influential 'Essay concerning Human Understanding' (1689), John Locke embraces the new rhetoric of seventeenth-century natrual philosophy, adopting the strategies of his scientific contemporaries to create a highly original natural history of the human mind. With the help of Locke's notebooks, letters and journals, Peter Walmsley reconstructs Locke's scientific career, including his early work with the chemist Robert Boyle and the physician Thomas Sydenham. He also shows how the 'Essay' embodies in its form and language many of the preoccupations of the science of its day, from the emerging discourses of experimentation and empirical taxonomy to developments in embryology and the history of trades. The result is a new reading of Locke, one that shows both his brilliance as a writer and his originality in turning to science to effect a radical reinvention of the study of the mind. |
Contents
9 | |
Writing a Natural History of Mind | 32 |
Embryology and the Progress of the Understanding | 59 |
Experimental Essays | 73 |
Wit and Hypothesis | 96 |
Dispute and Conversation | 118 |
Civil and Philosophic Discourse | 131 |
Conclusion | 146 |
178 | |
Locke and Science | 192 |
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Common terms and phrases
air pump argues argument Bacon birds Boyle's Brian Vickers Cambridge Univ cassowary Century chapter civil claims Clarendon Press clearly complex ideas contemporaries conversation corpuscular Corr Culture curiosities discourse disputation distinct England English epistemology Epistle Essay's example experience experimental Francis Willughby Henry Oldenburg Human Understanding hypothesis ideas of sense insists intellectual John Locke John Ray Journal knowledge Kroll language learned Library literary Locke f Locke seems Locke's Locke's Essay London Malebranche Marcello Malpighi mental ments metaphor metaphysical method Michael Hunter Micrographia microscopic mind narrative natural history natural kinds natural philosophy Newton notions observation Oldenburg Oxford parrot perimental Peter phenomena political practical qualities reader reflection Restoration rhetoric Robert Boyle Robert Hooke Royal Society Science scientific Seventeenth seventeenth-century Shapin and Schaffer simple ideas Society's species Sprat substances Sydenham taxonomy theory things Thomas Thomas Sprat thought tion Trans Treatises William William Courten words writing
References to this book
The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies Andrea A. Lunsford,Kirt H. Wilson,Rosa A. Eberly No preview available - 2009 |