John Locke and the rhetoric of modernity / Philip Vogt.

"John Locke and the Rhetoric of Modernity corrects "a persistent distortion in our understanding of Locke and thus in our understanding of what it means to be modern." Philip Vogt reassesses specific aspects of Lockean rhetoric; the theory and use of analogy, the characteristic tropes, and the topoi that connected Locke with his original and later audiences. He argues that Locke was not, as is commonly supposed, opposed to figuration in language; that he did not rely on scientific societies to police linguistic innovation in science, but trusted instead the authority of normal usage; that he was not a naive empiricist who viewed the mind as a tabula rasa; and that his commitment to the mechanical philosophical was not unconditional."--BOOK JACKET.