A Study On Adam Smith’s Philosophy Of Rhetoric

Although extensive and profound researches have been carried out abroad concerning the topic of Adam Smith’s rhetoric thoughts, in China few scholars (whether in the field of rhetoric or economics) have studied this topic. Owing to the fact that little is known about Adam Smith’s rhetoric thoughts in China, this thesis attempts to first give a brief review of the main ideas of LRBL and related researches that so far have been done on it. Then by relating Smith’s rhetoric thoughts to his rhetoric practice (TMS is taken as an example), this thesis attempts to explore what unique insights could be provided for understanding Smith’s works from the rhetorical perspectives. Following that, Smith’s relevant remarks on rhetoric in his other works, such as TMS and WN, have been dicussed for a more thorough and systematic grasp of Smith’s philosophy of rhetoric. Finally, the implications of Smith’s rhetoric thoughts on current development of rhetoric in China have been suggested. The whole dissertation consists of five chapters as follows:Chapter1is mainly a review of the previous studies on Adam Smith’s rhetoric thoughts, together with their achievements and shortcomings. Based on these discussions, the research objectives for this dissertation have been raised.Chapter2first gives a brief introduction on the background information of LRBL. Then attention has been drawn to Smith’s openly published thesis named "Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages", which was originally just one part of LRBL. Based on the main ideas of this thesis, it has been pointed out that in this thesis Smith has constructed a language developmental model, with human principles as its foothold, and language development as a symbiotic evolutionary process together with human’s cognitive capacities to meet the demands of social development and the "desires" of human being. The different interpretations of different scholars concerning this model have been introduced as well. Then the main ideas of the other lectures in LRBL have been introduced by classifying them into two parts:"an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech" and "an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to persuasion or entertainment".Chapter3relates Smith’s rhetoric thoughts to his rhetorical practice (TMS is taken as an example), with a purpose to illustrate Smith’s stylistic characteristics and their functions in constructing his thoughts. The main focuses have been put on the connotation of the title; the interaction of different narrative views; the metaphor of "Life is theater", etc. In order to portray the rhetorical character which Smith aims to construct in TMS, a more detailed study on hedging devices employed in TMS has been carried out.Chapter4discusses the relevant illustrations on rhetoric in Smith’s other works, such as TMS and WN, in order to have a more thorough understanding of Smith’s philosophy of rhetoric. These relevant illustrations have shown that Smith has grasped the epistemological characteristic of rhetoric, and rhetoric has been taken by Smith as one of the human natural principles, which plays a very important role in human’s social life. With these insights, it is hoped that we could have a more thorough understanding of Smith’s philosophy of rhetoric and its status in the whole system of Smith’s thoughts.Chapter5puts forward the implications of Smith’s philosophy of rhetoric for current problems faced by the rhetoric studies in China. Smith’s philosophy of rhetoric has taken rhetoric in its broad-sense, which could help us reexamine our Chinese philosophy of rhetoric and its whole theoretical framework so that we could approach rhetoric from a more comprehensive and broader perspective. Only in this way could we really achieve cross-disciplinary studies in the field of rhetoric. Finally, a specific example (a theoretical account for the motivation of politeness based on the theory of sympathy) has been given to further illustrate what such cross-disciplinary rhetoric studies would be exactly like.