ABSTRACT
This paper explores some of the developments in grammar, logic and rhetoric that took place in Europe in the seventeenth century. These disciplines were traditionally seen as belonging together, as they each dealt with language in a particular way. For this reason, they were called the ‘artes sermocinales’, or arts of discourse. The seventeenth century was a period of radical changes in intellectual history at large, and this paper investigates how the arts of discourse were affected by these changes. In particular, it was a period in which the prestige of the arts of discourse declined, and in which some influential figures argued that much of what they had to offer was of little use. Yet these arts contained a number of doctrines which proved to be so deeply entrenched that they survived almost unscathed in the next centuries. Thus, as usual, we find both change and continuity, and the challenge is to get a clear view of what this consisted of.
