When we say that a style or perspective is classical, what we mean properly is that there is a center around which thoughts, ideas, or figures revolve. The study of logic, or critical thinking, will talk about a universe of discourse, meaning the subject under discussion and the one idea in relation to which all other ideas must turn. In the study of grammar, the central point of such mental gravity is also commonly called a subject, but very often what we are taught to identify as the subject of a clause is really a subject phrase—not one word but many. Every subject phrase, however, will have one word which is logically naming the substance, or sheer idea, onto which other ideas are frequently compounded. This substance and its verb comprise the skeleton of a clause.
A simple sentence will illustrate this: Athens was famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning. If we remember that the first technical step in analyzing a clause is to see where to place a vertical bar separating subject from predicate (that section where the verb resides), then identifying the subject of this particular clause is an easy matter: Athens | was. These two words constitute the skeleton of this sentence. Because the subject, Athens, comprises only one word, understanding what the sentence is about is an uncomplicated affair. But what happens if I compose the sentence differently: The city of Athens was famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning. Now the subject of the clause has become a subject phrase, the city of Athens, and the critical question arises whether I am talking about a city or about Athens.
Although notionally, of course, I mean Athens, the noun city is in fact the logical substance, or basic entity, about which I am making an assertion. Perhaps I chose in this revision to write the subject phrase the city of Athens instead of the single noun Athens for rhetorical or stylistic or even rhythmical reasons, but our surgically logical minds will have none of that indirection: given the way you composed your sentence, logic will advise, you are ultimately predicating the idea of being famous in the fifth century for its brilliant culture and learning of a city, and only then do you further define that city as Athens. Our thinking mind always wants to identify the substance of an assertion, so that it can remain aware of any rhetorical implications which may fuel our emotions prematurely and perhaps unconsciously.
To our everyday practical mind, all that will appear to be making fine distinctions without any real difference, and in a sentence as simple as that example, logical surgery might not have been necessary in the first place. But what about a sentence like this: Menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties called for decisive action to redress their grievances. The division of subject from predicate here lies between parties and called for, which means the subject phrase comprises the nine words menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties. So what exactly is this sentence about? Or to ask the same question differently, who is doing what?
With a sentence of this conceptual complexity, logical surgery might now very well help us keep ourselves focused on the bare assertion, the skeleton—that factions called for something. From that axis we can then observe and give ourselves an interval to question the accuracy of the additions which radiate from it: that these factions are said to be menacing (are they? how?); that they arise from the extremes (extreme in what way? views? number?); and that they are limited to the two major (both) parties (are there no other parties to consider?). Even in the predicate, this kind of surgical analysis will help us see more clearly what was called for (decisive action) and the purpose of that demand (to redress their grievances).
To return to the subject, though, there is an important logical difference to be seen between a subject phrase and the substance of that subject phrase. Any grammarian will agree that the subject of that sentence can be said to be menacing factions from the extremes of both political parties, but a grammatical analysis is not a logical analysis. And just because these two disciplines do not conflict with, but complement, each other, we will be the better prepared to sail stormy conceptual seas, where grammar and logic churn against emotions, if we have some command over the practical techniques of both the intellectual procedures.
The French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul published an important and influential work in the 1960s entitled Propaganda, and he makes there this chilling observation:
Remember that propaganda seeks to induce action, adherence, and participation—with as little thought as possible. According to propaganda, it is useless, even harmful for man to think; thinking prevents him from acting with the required righteousness and simplicity. Action must come directly from the depths of the unconscious; it must release tension, become a reflex.
The answer to mindlessness is a critical mind, and developing that unique human instrument is the very work and purpose of the study of language, both its art of grammar and its art of logic. The possibility that we may reflexively give ourselves over unthinkingly to rhetorical effusions declared in an uproar of emotion should give us pause, and incite us to dedicate ourselves again to the hard work of understanding.
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