S-J Savonius, Selwyn College, Cambridge

Jean Le Clerc's and John Locke's assault upon ‘false rhetoric’, c.1688-c.1702

This paper will focus on the anti-authoritarian thinking of two Protestant writers knit together by their close friendship and common interests. They both opposed absolutist, clerical, and ‘enthusiastic authoritarianism, and defended what they perceived as the principles of the English Revolution of 1688-9. Both of them left England in the midst of the tory reaction with which Charles II's reign ended, and settled in Amsterdam in 1683. While Le Clerc settled there permanently, Locke returned to England in 1689, where his Two Treatises and Essay soon appeared in print. Arguably, any early impact Locke's English-language works made on the Continent relied heavily on Le Clerc as a carrier of their ideas into francophone discussion.

In my paper I shall draw together Le Clerc's and Locke's defence of the Revolution and their attempt to reform rhetoric. I shall argue that their opposition to ‘false rhetoric’ can be situated in the context of a wider response to the problems of royal, clerical, and religious hubris. The ‘false rhetoric’ cultivated at the Stuart and Bourbon courts, and taught at universities, was seen to underpin absolutism. On the other hand, Le Clerc and Locke feared that a student versed in ‘false rhetoric’ might equally well begin supporting the opposite of absolutism, enthusiastic ‘republicanism’. Thus, in their view, a primarily political change, such as that of 1688-9 which toppled James II's allegedly absolutist government, was not enough to overthrow the cultural elements which underpinned authoritarian governance: what was needed, additionally, was the demolition of such cultural and educational practices as ‘false rhetoric’. Accordingly, the Revolution of 1688-9 would be consummated only after rhetoric had been purified.

Methodologically, my paper will be conditioned by the so-called Cambridge approach to the study of intellectual history.