AUTHORITY FIGURES
AUTHORITY FIGURES
RHETORIC AND EXPERIENCE
IN John Locke’s POLITICAL THOUGHT
. . . . .
Torrey Shanks
The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shanks, Torrey, author.
Authority figures : rhetoric and experience in John Locke’s political thought / Torrey Shanks.
pages cm
Summary: “Examines the place of rhetoric in John Locke’s political and philosophical thought. Traces the close ties between rhetoric and experience as they form the basis for a theory and practice of judgment at the center of his work”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-271-06504-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Locke, John, 1632–1704—Views on political science.
2. Political science.
3. Rhetoric—Political aspects.
I. Title.
JC153.L87S53 2014
320.51'2092—dc23
2014019308
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For AMBARISH and JASPER, with love
CONTENTS
Rhetoric and Situated Political Critique
3
Material Words and Sensible Judgment
4
Feminine Figures and the Rhetoric of Critique
5
The Matter of Consent
Conclusion: Critical Temporalities
Notes
Bibliography
Index
In this book, I uncover the importance of rhetoric as figural and creative language for John Locke’s political and philosophical critique. This project may, at first glance, seem counterintuitive. Locke, after all, presents himself as a thinker and writer who should have little use for linguistic flourish: a man of science, a plain speaker, and a humble philosophical underlaborer. We need look no further than the epistle that opens An Essay Concerning Human Understanding to find this modest figure in search of knowledge when “Vague and insignificant Forms of Speech, and Abuse of Language, have so long passed for Mysteries of Science.”1 He expresses the hope that this book, composed of his “hasty and undigested Thoughts,” marked by repetitions and his “discontinued way of writing” (7), might help others to “avoid the greatest part of the Disputes and Wranglings they have with others” (14). While the author’s intentions are good, he confesses to an artlessness that would seem to prevent him from offering anything other than unadorned truth. “I have so little Affection to be in Print, that if I were not flattered, this Essay might be of some use to others, as I think, it has been to me, I should have confined it to the view of some Friends, who gave the first Occasion to it” (9). Would we expect anything different from the empiricist philosopher or the political theorist who returns to the first principles of natural right and law?
A certain skepticism is understandable. But if we take seriously Locke’s sober commitments to natural, to say nothing of moral and political, philosophy, then we must take a closer look at his own story of how the Essay came to be. The “History of this Essay,” featured in the epistle, depicts the personal situation that launched the pages that follow:
I should tell thee that five or six Friends meeting at my Chamber, and discoursing on a Subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the Difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled our selves, without coming any nearer a Resolution of those Doubts which perplexed us, it came into my Thoughts, that we took a wrong course; and that, before we set our selves upon Enquiries of that Nature, it was necessary to examine our own Abilities, and see, what Objects our Understandings were, or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the Company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed, that this should be our first Enquiry. (7)
What began as a private conversation among members of the Royal Society, interrupted and redirected by a sudden eruption of uncertainty, is transformed into a collective inquiry into epistemology, psychology, and language, undertaken with the assent of each participant. This project, the epistle shows, is a civil encounter, conducted with a care for the judgment of each individual and cognizant of their limited capacities. It is not only these five or six friends whom the author engages in inquiry, however. The epistle also invites the reader into his intimate circle by appealing to the reader’s own judgment: “If thou judgest for thy self, I know thou wilt judge candidly; and then I shall not be harmed or offended, whatever be thy Censure” (7). The invitation interpellates the reader in the same modest terms that the author has set out for himself: the Essay “was not meant for those, that had already mastered this Subject, and made a through Acquaintance with their own Understandings; but for my own Information, and the Satisfaction of a few Friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently considered it” (7). This is only the first such instance in which the Essay gestures toward the reader as fellow inquirer and ultimately fellow judge. Locke further encourages readers to compare their experience with the claims of the Essay, establishing a mirroring relation between author and reader, as in this early claim about the importance of clear language: “There are few, I believe, who have not observed in themselves or others, That what in one way of proposing was very obscure, another way of expressing it, has made very clear and intelligible” (8).
In presenting himself and the origins of his essay as lacking in eloquence and design,