Campbell (the rhetorician, not the soup)

Up until George Campbell’s time, the study of rhetoric was focused heavily on logos, or the logic and message of a speaker. But Campbell was interested in studying logic along with the newly developing study of psychology.

Campbell was interested in the audience of rhetoric, and how individuals might respond differently to the same message. He explained that there are two parts to persuasion: creating desire, and connecting with the audience. According to Campbell, there are four faculties of the mind that rhetoric must address in order to persuade:

1. Understanding (purpose: to inform and convince)
2. Imagination (purpose: to please)
3. Passion (purpose: to move)
4. Will (purpose: to persuade)

Each faculty also has its own form, which must be used together to produce persuasion.

Campbell also breaks down arguments into two categories; scientific and moral. Scientific arguments, he explained, are absolutely true or false, measurable, and simple. It’s math, it’s 1+4=5. It’s authoritative, because it can’t truly be argued against.

However, moral arguments are different. He gives the examples of “Caesar overcame Pompey” and “The sun will rise tomorrow.” These arguments can be debated:

The opposite assertions, though untrue, are easily conceivable without changing, in the least, the import of the words, and therefore do not imply a contradiction…In moral reasoning we ascend from possibility, by an insensible gradation, to probability, and thence, in the same manner, to the summit or moral certainty. (1000)

In other words, moral arguments can never achieve absolute truth, only probability. So, no one ever argues that 1+4 is, in fact, not 5. But if you wanted, you could argue that there’s no way to tell if the sun really will rise tomorrow until, well, you see the sunrise.

Campbell also categorizes pathos, or emotions (which affect the previously mentioned faculty of passion) into categories in relation to persuasion. Ineffective emotions, he says, are sorrow, fear, shame, and humility. Effective emotions are hope, patriotism, ambition, emulation, and anger. Intermediate emotions are joy, love, esteem, and compassion. Finally, auxiliary emotions are justice, public good, and glory. He spends more time discussing the intricacies of pathos than any previous rhetorician.

Quote citation: Bizzell, Patricia. “George Campbell.” Edited by George A. Kennedy. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, Bedford/St. Martin’s, Boston, 2020.