Publisher's Synopsis
The History of Logic and Rhetoric in Britain, 1500-1800 brings together for the first time two important works previously only available separately. Together they make the only comprehensive reference work on British logic for this period.
Volume 1, Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700 (1956), explores the main treatises on logic and rhetoric in England between 1500 and 1700, interpreting them within their social, political, intellectual and religious context. Howell analyses a wealth of theories from a wide range of logicians and rhetoricians such as Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes and Glanvill, and considers the patterns of development in the sixteenth century of the logical treatises of Aristotle. The work contains an important examination of the development of traditional rhetorical theory, divided into three distinct patterns: the Ciceronian, stylistic and formulary. Other chapters examine the revolt between 1574 and 1600 against scholastic logic and traditional rhetoric in favour of the educational reforms of Frenchman Petrus Ramus. Howell also analyses the emergence at the end of the seventeenth century of a logic which was critical of the Ramists and led to the appearance of one of the most significant works in logical theory, the famous Port-Royal Logic (1685).
Volume 2, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971), is a continuation of the work Howell began in 1956. This extensive study illustrates the dramatic change that the disciplines of logic and rhetoric underwent in the eighteenth century, moving away from the Aristotelian tradition towards the new science founded by Bacon. Rhetoric became the 'sole art of communication by means of language' and logic moved towards its role as the 'science of scientific enquiry'. The core figure in this new science was John Locke. Howell traces the impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) on a wave of new thinkers in logic and rhetoric including Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Joseph Priestley and Dugald Stewart. He also places the works of these writers in the context of their seventeenth-century predecessors and nineteenth-century successors.
Volume 1, Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700 (1956), explores the main treatises on logic and rhetoric in England between 1500 and 1700, interpreting them within their social, political, intellectual and religious context. Howell analyses a wealth of theories from a wide range of logicians and rhetoricians such as Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes and Glanvill, and considers the patterns of development in the sixteenth century of the logical treatises of Aristotle. The work contains an important examination of the development of traditional rhetorical theory, divided into three distinct patterns: the Ciceronian, stylistic and formulary. Other chapters examine the revolt between 1574 and 1600 against scholastic logic and traditional rhetoric in favour of the educational reforms of Frenchman Petrus Ramus. Howell also analyses the emergence at the end of the seventeenth century of a logic which was critical of the Ramists and led to the appearance of one of the most significant works in logical theory, the famous Port-Royal Logic (1685).
Volume 2, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971), is a continuation of the work Howell began in 1956. This extensive study illustrates the dramatic change that the disciplines of logic and rhetoric underwent in the eighteenth century, moving away from the Aristotelian tradition towards the new science founded by Bacon. Rhetoric became the 'sole art of communication by means of language' and logic moved towards its role as the 'science of scientific enquiry'. The core figure in this new science was John Locke. Howell traces the impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) on a wave of new thinkers in logic and rhetoric including Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Joseph Priestley and Dugald Stewart. He also places the works of these writers in the context of their seventeenth-century predecessors and nineteenth-century successors.
