Author: Suzanne Manon GregoirePublisher:
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Languages : en
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Book Description
What does it mean to be true to oneself? This dissertation historicizes the question by examining how the epistemological and literary works of Francis Bacon, John Milton, and René Descartes negotiate the relationship between truth and self through the novel concept of "sincerity." The modern fascination with this ideal has its origins in the well-worn Shakespearean adage, "this above all: to thine own self be true," but we often forget the original motivation to be sincere so that "thou canst not then be false to any man." In contrast to the individualism of contemporary "authenticity" culture, in the early modern period being true to oneself was not yet a worthy end in its own right, but a means of being true to others. I examine how and why these authors' public arguments for new scientific, political, and philosophical epistemologies are staged in a surprisingly subjective voice. I argue that in the process of developing new ways of knowing they deploy a rhetoric of sincerity that draws on their culture's social understanding of identity, but that anticipates and makes possible the premises of modern authenticity. Following the Introduction's discussion of the historical emergence of sincerity, Chapter One considers Bacon's subjective presentation of his theories for an objective empiricism, and argues that he stages his own suffering as a form of identity for the new science. Chapter Two examines Milton's revolutionary political prose, analyzing in particular his appeal to seventeenth-century discourses of zeal, and his presentation of his anger as a model of political enfranchisement. Chapter Three considers the Discourse on the Method as a paradoxically anonymous autobiography, and reveals how Descartes frankly presents his own story as a philosophical liberation that is freely available to his reader. In each case, the candour and conviction of the writer exemplifies, is perhaps even constitutive of, the method described. These authors' arguments for epistemology appeal to a social rhetoric of sincerity, even as their theories lay the groundwork for the authenticity to come. They provide an important corrective to our understanding of early modern identity, and the origins of our own sense of self.