It's late and I'm tired but I know I won't be able to sleep. Too much intellectual stimulation in class tonight. So, I decided to write on my blog while the impressions from tonight's presentations are still fresh in my mind. Again, when there is so much information presented, I need to use the "gold pan method" of swishing around everything poured in and start swirling through until I reach the nuggets that speak to me-some pattern I can weave out of all the knowledge bestowed.
I've decided to focus on the three rhetoricians that were featured by the presenters tonight because I do see some distinct patterns emerging among: Giambattista Vico, John Locke, and David Hume. They lived between 1632-1776 and all were products of their times, but more importantly, every man challenged the thinking of their time. Vico felt students should have input in their educational outcomes, Locke questioned the divine right of the monarchy, and Hume challenged the reliability of ancient history. Of course, this is a simplistic analysis-each did much more but these are some of the "nuggets" I've captured.
Each man viewed their culture as their identity. Vico said "culture was foremost" it determined how you obtain knowledge. The Scotsmen, Locke and Hume, were considered inferior by their English neighbors because they were not born into the dominant English culture. Certainly, this affected their world view since both espoused the theory of "Empiricism". This is the theory that ideas come through our experiences. The experiences of an educated Scotsman
could not be the same experiences of an educated Englishman. Locke would have had a different vocabulary to express his experience as a member of the culturally disadvantaged, while Hume changed the spelling of his last name so the English would give it the correct Scottish pronunciation.
By today's standards, some of Locke and Hume's logic seems outrageous. Locke declared "all men created equal" but owned shares in a slave trading company, while Hume felt females should read history so they "could engage in conversation which 'can afford any entertainment to men of sense and reflection'" (282). Vico promoted altruism but died impoverished.
Yet, today's standards are today's standards, in part, because of their liberal ideas for the times in which they lived, and in the true spirit of ancient oratory, they were good men speaking out to not only challenge the politics and policies of their age, but to persuade a different outcome.
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It's interesting to contrast Vico's devotion to culture and nationalism against Hume and Locke. Hume and Locke were able to stand up against a tide of English domination (assimilating where necessary, of course) to assert their opinions and were granted legendary status accordingly. Vico, on the other hand, sat firmly entrenched in the dominant guard in Italy but was largely forgotten (even by his own people) nonetheless.
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