This introductory book on George Campbell discusses details of his life and his intellectual milieu, including his role in the Scottish Enlightenment in Aberdeen. In addition, Arthur E. Walzer provides a thorough examination of Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, the most important work in rhetorical theory of the Enlightenment. Brief analyses of Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles and Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence are also given.

Though Campbell's (1719-96) Philosophy of Rhetoric is well represented and respected in the current literature on rhetoric, he is little studied. Walzer (rhetoric, U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities) explains some of the reasons for the neglect, and seeks to inspire scholars to correct it. Annotation (c) B

In this collection edited by Alan G. Gross and Arthur E. Walzer, scholars in communication, rhetoric and composition, and philosophy seek to "reread" Aristotle's Rhetoric from a purely rhetorical perspective. So important do these contributors find the Rhetoric, in fact, that a core tenet in this book is that "all subsequent rhetorical theory is but a series of responses to issues raised by the central work."

The essays reflect on questions basic to rhetoric as a humanistic discipline. Some explore the ways in which the Rhetoric explicates the nature of the art of...