When people think of the term sympathy people have a feeling of compassion for other people. They try to feel what the other person is feeling.
However Campbell’s philosophy is not concerned with this but it is concerned with finding a connection with the audience through truthfulness and honesty. Campbell is concerned with the principle of sympathy as it’s implications for the transference of passions, ideas, and morals to the audience. Campbell wants to make the audience and speaker form a type of bond. He wants the speaker to form a trust with his/her audience, a sort of relationship with them.
As stated in the article, the audience-speaker relationship was more important then the formal argument. Campbell wants to appeal to the audience in a way where they feel the same passions, emotions, and trust the speaker feels. He wasn’t interested in the type of words but how they effected the audience.
For Campbell sympathy was a natural inclination of man which attecheth us to the concerns of others; sympathy is also characterized as the common tie of human souls. Campbell believed that the truth was a major part of the rhetorical design and like every art, the accomplishment of a certain end. Truth was the key element through which an audience was able to trust a speaker. The principle of sympathy also provides a basis upon which any actions of the audience can be judged or evaluated.
The article states that Campbell’s treatment and application of the principle of sympathy is novel and contributes significantly toward marking the philosophy of rhetoric unique among 18th century rhetoric’s. Campbell was alone in relating the communicative principle to the process where by a speaker attempts to engage the belief and action of an audience. In applying the principle of sympathy to moral rhetorical reasoning, Campbell operated knowlingly within a philosophical milieu which gave credence to sympathy as a fundamental moral principle which guided behavior.
Campbell’s belief in the truth as necessary for an audience and speaker to feel sympathy for each other is his philosophy of rhetoric. His belief in finding a connection with the audience has moved us into a new realm of public speaking. One which has made truth and knowing your audience essential to a successful speech.
Jaimie N. Samelko, JNS1984@uncwil.edu