Izvorni znanstveni članak
Petrich's criticism of (classical) rhetoric
Franjo Zenko
Sažetak
The aim of this study is the analysis of Petrich's treatis e in dialogue form »Della retorica dieci dialoghi« (1526) as a radical criticism of classical rhetoric and as an attempt by the humanists with Petrarca as a leader, to create a humanistic culture through the revival of classical rhetoric. Classical rhetoric as an art is based on reflection and on the experience in connection with the subject about which a speaker has to speak, and not on his knowledge of »all the causes« linked with it. As a philosophical discipline classical rhetoric did not go beyond the codification of the »rules« summarized from its historically limited, that is, classical experience of rhetoric art, consequently, it could not be based on the perfect »knowledge of all the causes« of rhetoric art. Based on the perfect »knowledge of causes« true rhetoric according to Petrich, would be at one and the same time »perfect art« and »perfect science«.
The second chapter of this study reconstructs Petrich's theory of the genesis of the rhetorical phenomenon itself, which arose when man lost his clear insight into the essence of the inception of things in the great »fall«. Consequently, he started to call them by names out of all proportion to their essence. That was the creation of metaphor, the immanent basis of speech itself and the reason for poetic and rhetorical phenomena. Rhetors took their advantage of this methaphor, which was born out of the ancient split in the inward unity of speech and knowledge, logos and episteme, as a powerful tool to disguise their ignorance about the matters they discussed for money in front of the ignorant folk. Next comes Petrich's critical socio-genetic and socia-political approach to the rhetorical phenomenon both in his reconstruction of the basic rhetorical situation and the socio-genesis of ancient rhetoric, and in his criticism of the humanistic, renaissance rhetors who tried to revive clasical rhetoric without an adequate socio-political, republican-democratic background. In connection with the chapter just mentioned the further aim of this study is to point out Petrich's antirhetoric attitude in his reflections on the relation between rhetoric and politics.
Petrich's criticism of classical rhetoric, and with it his criticism of the rhetorical-literary foundation of the humanistic renaissance spiritual and intellectual world itself, is motivated by the. Platonic anti-rhetorical spirit. But this very spirit led and directed Petrich towards the same philosophical-scientific tendency so evident in the works of other renaissance thinkers such as Ficino, Leonardo da Vinci, Pico de la Mirandola, Paracelsus, Melanchton, Cardanus, Telesio, Bruno and others, who created the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere out of which Copernicus, Galileus and Decartes were born. The latter only formulated more clearly the principles of a new, already existing philosophical-scientific spirit.
Ten dialogues on Rhetoric is one of the most outstanding documents which threw light on all the possible ways in which the spirit of modern science and philosophy arose and was propagated. Like other of Petrich's early works. this treatise on rhetoric in dialogue form bears witness to the distinctive development of its author, who as an authetic son of humanistic rhetorical-philosophical culture self-critically got even with the tradition from which he e-merged and fought his way towards the modern philosophical-scientific spirit. What is unique about the treatise in dialogue form is that it marks the ceasure in the Petrich's works as a whole; as the last work in the series of his early works it testifies to a completed process of intelectual »conversion«, followed by a characteristic, evident crisis marked by a nearly ten-year silence by the philosopher from the island of Cres. But through this period, however, in his Odysseian wanderings he matured into a genuine and typical renaissance thinker who was later to write, among other things, his two capital works of renaissance philosophy: Discussiones peripateticae in 1581 and Nova de universis philosophia in 1591.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
89381
URI
Datum izdavanja:
7.12.1982.
Posjeta: 972 *