L'Optique du discours au XVIIe siècle: De la rhétorique des jésuites au style de la raison moderne (Descartes, Pascal) (review)

The history of the development of rhetoric in early modern France and the history of changes in scientific method from Thomism–Aristotelianism to Cartesianism are well charted. The degree to which science and knowledge of the world relate to the demands of the language of their communication is less well studied. This is the focus of Blanchard's discussion. His subject has particular interest in that two opposing languages emerge, that employed by the Jesuits and that employed by Descartes, a former Jesuit pupil. Blanchard argues that the 'asianism' of Cicero, a rhetorical style drawing on sensual aspects of language, is well suited to descriptions of the material world since it recognizes the combination of body and soul constitutive of the human condition. Thus, language possesses a materiality reflecting the material world. Moreover, all descriptions of the material world possess an ethical or moral dimension in that they embody praise of the divine creation. The relation of the materiality of discourse to science and knowledge of the world lies in the linguistic description reflecting the emphasis on what is observable. Blanchard makes a further contextual connection of language and knowledge in relating such rhetorical discourse to vision at a time when text and image combine through emblems or other forms of writing and when advances in optics and optical instruments are being made. Jesuit discourse, because of the inscription of the divine image within it, is subject not only to the 'prudence' necessary to regulate the body in the fallen state of mankind, but also to the Church's authority. Contrasted with this projection of a 'ready-made' world through rhetoric is the challenge to language represented by infinity, essentially ineffable. A rhetoric based on accommodating circumstance must make way for a language reflecting what we cannot know, that is to say what is beyond vision and the observable. Mediation is opposed to the immediate represented by intuition or imagination. Descartes's Discours de la méthode is the ultimate example of the requirement to discover a communicative eloquence distinct from Jesuit discourse represented by 'asianism'. Recourse is therefore had to a form of 'atticism', a less imagistic language more dense at the level of thought, although Descartes remains rooted in having recourse to the visual. Blanchard surprises us, however, in returning us to the reconciliation of body and soul through Descartes's development of scientific discourse as a form of conversation in the social body. As opposed to the 'ready-made' and received version of the world by the reader, Descartes, and indeed Pascal, employ a language which must be 'performed' by the reader in the act of reading. Passivity yields to interpretation. This book is not for the faint-hearted. The argument is dense and, for the purposes of explanation, takes two steps back for one step forward. This means that the end point, Descartes, takes a while to arrive at, although the immense amount of information supplied, ready-made in some cases, is in itself fascinating. It also means that the end is rather rushed.