1. Introduction

This article is interested in the historical dimension of the idea of “free speech,” a term mainly used in the 20th century and following time in Western culture. But we have former documents in culture history giving us impressions about the state of free speech in ancient Greek and Roman cultures and the later cultural heritage of the ancient education in European culture, from where it spread to other countries. Important is here the time of Enlightenment and its rhetoric is the place where speech issues where placed in the academic system. When we read Kant’s An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? we find in the often as anti-rhetorical considered philosophy of the Enlightenment a testimonial for the description of individual person’s decision making process based upon a reasoning and ability to speak for himself/herself. Our investigation starts with the question: In how far is the modern term ‘free speech’ related to the ancient concept of rhetoric and its genres of speech? In how far can we trace the term ‘free speech’ back to the achievements of the Enlightenment?

2. Kant’s Rhetoric of Speak-ability

When Kant in 1784 wrote his essay An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? , he used a German term Unmündigkeit. If we read the German original text, we understand the rhetorical impact of a thinker considered anti-rhetorical: ‘selbst verschuldete Unmündigkeit’, literally the inability to speak due to ones own failure (literally: self-indebted un-speak-ability), we see Kant’s point of view where the process of emancipation through enlightenment starts. Kant notices in his essay that a high number of persons prefers rather to live not in freedom based upon and caused by their putridness and cowardice.

Kant’s An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784) begins with the following definition:

Enlighment is the exit of the human being from his/her self-caused inability to speak for himself/herself. Inability to speak for oneself is the inability to practice reasoning without using the help of another person. This inability to speak for himself/herself is selfindebted, if the cause is not because of the lack of the understanding, but the resolution and the courage to use it without the help of another person. Sapere aude! Be encouraged to use your own reasoning! is thus the guideline of the Enlightenment. Putridness and cowardice are the causes why such a large number of humans after they remain in natural freedom (more naturaliter maiorennes) nevertheless gladly stay in servile inability to speak for oneself.

Königsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784

In original German:

Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?

Immanuel Kant

Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Sapere aude! Habe Mut dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist also der Wahlspruch der Aufklärung.

Faulheit und Feigheit sind die Ursachen, warum ein so großer Teil der Menschen, nachdem sie die Natur längst von fremder Leitung frei gesprochen (naturaliter maiorennes), dennoch gerne zeitlebens unmündig bleiben.¹

Mündigkeit is a derivate from ‘Mund’ (mouth) and meant in its primary meaning the ability to speak and have the responsibility for this speech. Today, also a juridical, political and philosophical term Mündigkeit exists. Following his The Critique of Judgment rhetoric as the ars oratoria stands for Kant in opposite to art of persuasion.² Kant’s thesis on Enlightenment developed from the ground of his studies of critical methods. In Germany Kant showed in his writings Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, and Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll that the critical method is a tool in the field of philosophy. About the idea and organization of a special science under the concept of a ‘criticism of the pure reason’ Kant speaks in Kritik der reinen Vernunft en detail analyzing the methods of reasoning.³ Kant uses the term Kritizismus for a distinction between dogmatism and scepticism. The Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) is the major work by Kant that was first published 1781 followed by a second edition in 1787. The form critique is here used as an attempt to establish the capabilities and limits of “pure reason.” Pure reason therefore is to be used to create synthetically a priori-knowledge. Key terms used in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) include “conception” — pure or empirical — as the “the power of cognizing” by means of the representations, which are received using the faculty of intuition. A pure conception contains only the form of the thought of an object, while empirical conception requires the presence of a specific object. Kant derived from his theory a saying that there is an ubiquity of moral obligation, which he called the “Categorical Imperative.” Kant thought that the moral law is a principle of reason itself in a person and the natural law (Critique of Pure Reason, A806/B834). Kant thought that a moral obligation applies to all rational agents and the ‘Categorical Imperative’ is an unconditional obligation.

In the 18th century in Germany rhetoric became a method of training for the leaders of society who developed the foundations for democracy in the modern world in a time when monarchy in France and the United States was stopped or never archived a place in public space.⁴ Early German romantics such as Johann Georg Hamman and Johann Gottfried von Herder had ageneral view on science and poetics. In his Letter to Christian Jacob Kraus Johann Georg Hamann used the term Unmündigkeit and reflects Kant’s writing from September 1784. Hamann writes here that he prefers to get explanations for Enlightenment rather from an esthetical standpoint than from a didactical one by the allegory of the, un-ability to speak’, even when this is no an explanation, but an extended interpretation. The original German text is as follows:

Königsberg, 18. Dezember 1784.

Clarissime Domine Politice!

Einen Profeßor der Logik u Kritiker der reinen Vernunft an die Regeln der Erklärung zu erinnern, wäre beynahe Hochverrath; da Sie mir überdem Ihren Hutchinson fortgenommen ohne seine Moral widererstattet zu haben; besitze ich kein anderweitiges Organon in meinem armseel. Büchervorrath. Eben so wenig bin ich imstande den Zufall jüdischer und christlicher Einstimmigkeit in vormundschaftlicher Denkungsfreiheit mir aufzuklären, weil der königl. Bibliothekar den zweiten Jahrgang auf eine höchst unbarmherzige Art und Weise mir vorenthalten; so sehr ich auch aus allen meinen Kräften zur Geburtshülfe des kosmopolitischplatonischen Chiliasmus durch Wünsche, Erinnerungen, Vorbitte und Danksagung beygetragen.

Daher laß ich es mir gern gefallen die Aufklärung mehr ästhetisch als dialectisch, durch das Gleichnis der Unmündigkeit u Vormundschaft, zwar nicht erklärt doch wenigstens erläutert und erweitert zu sehen. Nur liegt mir das proton pseudos (ein sehr bedeutendes Kunstwort, das sich kaum unflegelhaft in unsere deutsche Muttersprache übersetzen läßt,) in dem vermaledeyten adiecto oder Beywort selbstverschuldet.

Unvermögen ist eigentlich keine Schuld, wie unser Plato selbst erkennt, und wird nur zur Schuld durch den Willen und deßelben Mängel an Entschließung und Muth - oder als Folge vorgemachter Schulden.

Wer ist aber der unbestimmte andere, der zweymal anonymisch vorkommt. Sehen Sie hier, Domine Politice wie ungern die Metaphysiker ihre Personen bey ihrem rechten Namen nennen, und wie die Katzen um den heißen Brei herumgehen; doch ich sehe die Aufklärung unsers Jahrhunderts nicht mit Katzen- sondern reinen und gesunden Menschenaugen, die freylich durch Jahre und Lucubrationen und Näschereyen etwas stumpf geworden, mir aber zehnmal lieber sind als die bey Mondschein aufgeklärten Augen einer Athene glaukopis.⁵

Hamann considers here Kant’s perspective as an esthetical one, using Unmündigkeit as an allegory. Hamann put here a stress on the sensual methods Kant used in his philosophy. The critical method of philosophy first used by Descartes was later modified by Kant to admit sensual experience as a factor of rational knowledge followed by Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831). Kant developed the idea of linking ‘beauty’ with the finite and the ‘sublimity’ with the infinite. Taste according to the Critique of Judgment (1790) is individual, but it claims universality and appeals to common sense. Kant writes in the preface of the Critique of judgement in 1790:

The faculty of knowledge from a priori principles may be called pure reason, and the general investigation into its possibility and bounds the Critique of Pure Reason. This is permissible although “pure reason, ” as was the case with the same use of terms in our first work, is only intended to denote reason in its theoretical employment, and although there is no desire to bring under review its faculty as practical reason and its special principles as such. That Critique is, then, an investigation addressed simply to our faculty of knowing things a priori. Hence it makes our cognitive faculties its sole concern, to the exclusion of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure and the faculty of desire; and among the cognitive faculties it confines its attention to understanding and its a priori principles, to the exclusion of judgement and reason, (faculties that also belong to theoretical cognition,) because it turns out in the sequel that there is no cognitive faculty other than understanding capable of affording constitutive a priori principles of knowledge. Accordingly the critique which sifts these faculties one and all, so as to try the possible claims of each of the other faculties to a share in the clear possession of knowledge from roots of its own, retains nothing but what understanding prescribes a priori as a law for nature as the complex of phenomena-the form of these being similarly furnished a priori. All other pure concepts it relegates to the rank of ideas, which for our faculty of theoretical cognition are transcendent.⁶

The connection between knowledge, reason and the ability to speak for oneself is in general developed in the Enlightenment, even though at this time and place we find still the political concept of “feudalism” and “monarchy” in Europe.

3. The Heritage of the artes liberales

Freedom of speech as a part of a nation’s constitution is definatly an invention of modern times. Regarding the case of Socrates we find the punishment of a public speaker not fitting into the belief-system of his time. In the Roman Empire e. g. the edicts of the censors are documents limiting the power and practice o the sophists, wandering speakers teaching in public for money regarding a variety of fields.⁷ In Marcus Tullius Cicero’s De Partitio Oratione we find the term oratio libera:

C. F. Quomodo igitur duo genera ista dividis? C. P. Quae sine arte putantur, ea remota appello, ut testimonia. C. F. Quid insita? C. P. Quae inhaerent in ipsa re. C. F. Testimoniorum quae sunt genera? C. P. Divinum et humanum: divinum, ut oracula, ut auspicia, ut vaticinationes, ut responsa sacerdotum, haruspicum, coniectorum, humanum, quod spectatur ex auctoritate et ex voluntate et ex oratione aut libera aut expressa: in quo insunt scripta, pacta, promissa, iurata, quaesita.⁸

Among the two divisions of genres of testimonies there are divine ones and human ones. In the last group Cicero divides between the genres ex oratione aut libera aut expressa. Here we see the connection with Kant: Testimonies could be delivered as free speech or forced. From antiquity to present day, rhetoric in Europe was transmitted by schooling. The European universities preserved the ancient tradition and are until today the place of rhetorical education. Before Enlightenment, as a discipline within classical Greek and Roman curricula rhetoric was still in use as the medieval trivium. Within Renaissance humanist curricula, rhetoric had a central place. Part of rhetorical pedagogy was the idea that the observation of successful speaking or writing precedes and improves one’s own speaking or writing. The European countries keep the heritage of ancient rhetoric in manuals, handbooks and teaching advices. On the other hand there was a need for speeches in public life.

In Kant’s 18th century in Europe the conditions of communications were limited to the literary and oral media for the delivery of information. The beginning of the democratic ideas leads to the change of the needs of public rhetoric from the traditional hierarchy of the rhetoric system based on the Virgilian Circle and — more or less adapted — on the system of monarchy or medieval societies. Oral tradition in Europe was more and more reduced to the areas of local ethnic groups and locally limited areas as oral mouth to mouth communication and the literary versions of this mostly anonymously transferred communication in myths, legends and other narratives as the heritage of a culture.

The age of Enlightenment refers to either the 18th century in European philosophy, or the longer period including the 17th century and the Age of Reason. The historical intellectual movement called Enlightenment exemplified by Kant advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, and logic, which was supposed to allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the universe. Emboldened by the revolution in physics Enlightenment thinkers argued that the same kind of systematic thinking could apply to all forms of human activity. In terms of rhetoric, the Enlightenment was conservative; speech and its production followed ancient guidelines. The stylistic patterns were concerned the study of tropes and figures. Elocutionary rhetoric is a form that prescribed methods of delivery for public speaking in stage acting and polite conversation influenced by the rise of modern science.

Starting in France the philosophers thought that science could reveal nature. The term “natural law” came up as an incentive to extend scientific methods into every field of inquiry, laying the groundwork for the development of the modern social sciences. Descrates introduces pre-Enlighenment ideas in French philosophy.⁹ Its lasting heritage has been its contribution to the literature of human freedom embodying facets of modern governmental, education and philanthropy.¹⁰ L’Eloquence du corps of Joseph A. Dinouart was published in Paris in the year 1761. L’Eloquence du Temps written by Joseph Leven de Templery was publicized in Paris and Liege in the year 1707.¹¹ Though based largely on the notion of language as representation and persuasion, classical rhetoric showed consideration of rhetorical elements of the writing process such as audience, purpose, and invention. In the 18th century a more classical conception of rhetoric recovered invention, arrangement, and audience.

In England during the 18th century many handbooks of rhetoric were made for academic purpose.¹² In England the philosophers Adam Smith, Hugh Blair and George Campbell were chief proponents.¹³ Classical rhetoric and logic remained influential throughout the 18th century. Classical logic from Aristotle aimed to deduce new truths from those already known and to communicate them to a learned audience. In contrast the new logic presented by Francis Bacon and John Locke worked inductively.¹⁴ Rhetoric claimed to be a general concept of communication learned as well as popular advocating inductive reasoning and plain style. Adam Smith and George Campbell were its chief proponents.¹⁵ The logic of the Enlightenment propounded by Francis Bacon and John Locke worked inductively testing ideas against perceived reality. Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689):

If we would speak of Things as they are, we must allow, that all the Art of Rhetorick, besides Order and Clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats. (Book III, ch. 10, § 34).¹⁶

For empiricists like the English philosophers Francis Bacon and John Locke the main source of knowledge was experience. Kant tried to solve an argument between Locke and David Hume, the last of the British empiricists.¹⁷ Hume allowed analytic propositions.¹⁸ Educational school-rhetoric until recent time was the dominant approach in American schools developed in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Rhetoricians like George Campbell and Richard Whately rejected classical rhetoric’s invention schemes. Also the Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) written by the Scottish theologian Campbell and the Elements of Rhetoric (1828) by the British logician Whately were famous. There still existed at this time theorists of the ancient rhetorical system of Aristotle and Cicero. In the early 18th century rhetoric declined in importance although more on its theoretical than on its practical side. The political arena and the debating platform continued to furnish numerous opportunities for effective oratory. John Ward’s system of oratory was composed for academic lectures at the Gresham College in the year 1759 and is a good example for the parts of the rhetorical system in the 18th century.

• Of the rise and progress of oratory¹⁹
• Of the nature of oratory²⁰
• Of the division of oratory²¹
• Of invention in general, and particularly of common places²²
• Of external topics²³
• Of the state of controversy²⁴
• Of arguments suited to demonstrative discourses²⁵
• Of arguments suited to judicial discourse²⁶
• Of the character and address of the orator²⁷
• Of the passions²⁸
• Of disposition in general, and particularly of the introduction²⁹
• Of narration³⁰
• Of the proposition³¹
• Of confirmation by syllogism³²
• Of confirmation by induction and example³³
• Of confutation³⁴
• Of digression, transition, and amplification³⁵
• Of elocution in general, and particularly of Elegance and purity³⁶
• Of perspicuity³⁷
• Of composition, and particularly of period³⁸
• Of order³⁹
• Of dignity, and particularly of tropes⁴⁰
• Of a metaphor⁴¹
• Of a metonymy⁴²

From the 17th to the late 19th century a main issue in epistemology was logic versus experience and empirical knowledge. These ideas of Enlightenment brought a new culture to all European cultures. For the pre-Kantian rationalists such as the French philosopher Rene Descartes, the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and the German philosopher Gottfried von Leibniz, the main source of knowledge was deductive reasoning based on self-evident ideas.

In handbook of this time the writer used the five classical canons of rhetoric in their work to gather ideas, organize them, and writing an effective text. The author gave his text a form and style presenting his ideas clearly to the audience. The author also used his judgment skills to write the paper. The Lectures on Rhetoric (1783) by the Scottish clergyman Hugh Blair achieved popularity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. John Walker mentions the difficulty of grammar in A rhetorical grammar, or Course of Lessons in Elocution, which was in London in the year 1785 publicized, this way:

The difficulty of finding out an easy and rational plan of introducing youth, in reading and speaking, has been one great cause of the neglect of this part of education […] but reading and speaking, depending more on habit than science, are naturally not so susceptible of rules as the other arts, and consequently, the progress in them is neither so pleasant nor so perceptible.⁴³

An influential book from the Edinburgh school was Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres published in 1783. Blair’s text was widely used in American colleges and secondary schools until the end of the 19th century. Americans found Blair’s emphasis on the moral qualities of belletristic taste particularly important.⁴⁴ In John Walker’s A Rhetorical Grammar, or Course of Lessons in Elocution published in the year 1785 shows the different terms of rhetorical tropes.

• Metaphor⁴⁵
• Allegory⁴⁶
• Metonymy⁴⁷
• Synechdoche⁴⁸
• Hyperbole⁴⁹
• Catachresis⁵⁰
• Ekphrasis⁵¹
• Erotesis⁵²
• Aparihmesis⁵³
• Epanaphora⁵⁴
• Prolepsis⁵⁵
• Syncoresis⁵⁶
• Epanorthosis⁵⁷
• Anastrophe⁵⁸
• Apostrophe⁵⁹
• Asyndethon and Polisyndeton⁶⁰
• Enatiosis⁶¹
• Paraclepsis⁶²
• Anacoenosis⁶³
• Hypotyposis⁶⁴
• Vision⁶⁵

The Lectures on Rhetoric written in the year 1783 by Blair achieved considerable popularity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Also the Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) by the Scottish theologian George Campbell and the Elements of Rhetoric (1828) by the British logician Richard Whately were successful. Lectures concerning oratory are published by John Lawson in Dublin in the year 1759. Cicero Redivivus was publicised by John Twells in London in the year 1688. Some instructions concerning the art of oratory are published by Obadiah Walker in London in the year 1659. The Alliance of Music, Poetry and Oratory was published in London in the year 1789 by Anselm Bayly. Joseph Priestley wrote The Rudiments of English Grammar; a Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language, Universal Grammar and On Oratory and Criticism in 1817. The teachings of the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke are a foundation upon which the study of elocution in English speaking countries could be built. Like Kant, Locke also connected esthetical phenomena with theories. For Locke words were the signs of ideas and tones serve as the signs of passions. Besides Blair’s, the most important rhetorical treatises of the period were George Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776) and Richard Whately’s Elements of Rhetoric (1828).

A later rhetorician in the Scottish tradition was Alexander Bain, who showed the importance of psychology for achieving goals of persuasion in English Composition and Rhetoric. In A Manual (1866) Bain argued that persuasive discourse is organized by associating ideas in a way that produces desired emotion in the audience.⁶⁶ But most of the handbooks were formalized collections of rhetorical means, and the question of freedom of speech was in no way discussed.

Important for modern English rhetoric was the Scottish rhetorician George Campbell, whose Philosophy of Rhetoric was written in 1776. Campbell in 1776 gives as definition for rhetoric ‘the art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end’. In order to get the response he desires, the rhetor should be aware of sentiments, passions and human dispositions.⁶⁷ Campbell wrote in The Philosophy of Rhetoric:

In speaking there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer. The word eloquence in its greatest latitude denotes, that art of talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end; (Quintilian). (Book I, ch. 1)

Exercises in writing and speech, called progymnasmata, provided the rhetorical link to the humanities throughout much of Western history. This comprehensive notion of rhetoric was articulated by Campbell in the 18th century.⁶⁸ The Edinburgh rhetoricians connected the study of persuasion with the scientific discipline of psychology adapting ornamentation from Cicero to correct the emphasis on plain style. The Enlightenment’s rhetoricians used as well rhetorical invention as a new knowledge by discovery and also as a heuristic method to improve and shape knowledge.⁶⁹ Criticism was an often used method in combination with rhetoric.⁷⁰ Kant is the most important scholar for this method. Kant definies rhetoric as the art of deluding by means of a fair semblance as ars oratoria. For Kant oratory (ars oratoria) is the art of playing for one’s own purpose upon the weaknesses of men merits no respect whatever. The 18th and 19th centuries were periods for rhetorical education and practice in Britain and America. At the end of 18th century in Europe the Enlightening provoked criticism which is a scientific method.⁷¹ The rhetoric literature is now available as well in traditional neo Latin language and in contempory local languages. Studies in characteristics of human nature have an influence on dramatic literature theory of 18th century from German authors like Gellert, Lessing, Johann Elias Schlegel and Wieland.⁷² In the 19th century rhetorical literature was written in local national languages. Traditional philosophy arrives at an important admission: rational language cannot reach ‘passions’. What is ‘true’ language? The model provided by German romantic thought recognizes an essentially literary character. For the poet Novalis language is a game. Language does not occur for the determination of beings.

By the late 18th century the Aristotelian world view had been replaced by a Newtonian one. In 18th century rhetoric invention was replaced by scientific observation. Romantic rhetoric did not challenge 18th-century rhetoric’s dominance until the end of the 19th century. In the 18th century an on the classic scholarship based conception of rhetoric recovered invention, arrangement and audience for written literature and spoken word. English became the contempory language of formal academic disputation. The idea of mental faculties developed in the 18th century and found a solid place in the discipline of rhetoric, in theoretical treatises as well as textbooks. Oratory relating to legal matters is called forensic oratory and had a definite structure, and when Kant used the term Unmuendigkeit he also contributes to the terminology of forensic rhetoric.

Edmund Burke is regarded as an example of an 18th century English political orator. Burke’s psychology bases on the senses, imagination, and judgment. Taste is developed through natural sensibility, knowledge, and training. The emotions, joined to the senses, produced sublimity.⁷³ 18th-century theorists of rhetoric such as Adam Smith and Hugh Blair made gendered distinctions into pedagogical commonplaces. The philosophes of Enlightenment saw themselves as continuing the work of the 17th-century thinkers Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Leibniz, Isaac Newton, and John Locke.⁷⁴ These philosophers thought that science could reveal nature as it truly is with scientific methods into every field of inquiry. The writers of the Enlightenment built on and extended the rationalistic, republican, and natural-law theories. Kant writing represents the new type of writing of the Enlightenment elaborating novel doctrines of popular sovereignty and individualism. Historical works shared a common viewpoint considering that each nation and every age also had distinctive characteristics that made it unique. Thus, the methods they use were inter-changeable and discourses were open in the European lingua franca Latin.

4. From the Enlightenment to the contemporary Genre ‘Free Speech’ and democracy

The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The right of freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without interference by the government. In the U.S. the right of freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment is similar to the right to freedom of speech allowing individuals to express themselves through publication as a part of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression. It does not give members of the media any special rights or privileges. The idea of personality is known only in the Western world where the idea of the person (persona) is part of the ancient Greek and Roman world. Accordingly, other cultures in some cases do not see the demand of a free speech of the individual person, when in a part of the world there is no individualism or personality or even human rights known.⁷⁵

In Europe in 1644 Areopagitica was a pamphlet by the poet John Milton arguing against restrictions of freedom of the press stating ‘He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself. ‘ In 1689 the Bill of Rights granted ‘freedom of speech in Parliament’ after James II was overthrown and William and Mary installed as co-rulers. William Shakespeare in Measure for Measure (act 1, scene 1, line 77ff.) writes a dialogue where a person is addressed to “have a free speech” with the speaker:

Escal. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave To have free speech with you; and it concerns me To look into the bottom of my place: A power I have, but of what strength and nature I am not yet instructed.⁷⁶

Jesuit Jacob Masen in his Familiarum Argutiarum Fontes writes in chapter IV with the title Mordax dicendi libertas in argute et jocose dictis est devitanda that a mordacity of the dicendi libertas can exist:

CAPUT IV. Mordax dicendi libertas in argute et jocose dictis est devitanda.

Mordacitas in hac quoque argute dicendi ratione cavenda est, ne, dum oblectare volueris, laedas, dum prodesse, noceas, dum placere, displiceas. Quanquam nonrunquam eveniat, ut, quo multis places, pluribus etiam displiceas; aur quo nonnullos recreas, occulto alios vulnere saucies, quod tanto profundius figitur, quanto argutius jacitur, aut majorem auditoribus risum excutit. Jucundum.⁷⁷

In 1789 The Declaration of the Rights of Man as a fundamental document of the French Revolution provided for freedom of speech. In 1791 The First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights guaranteed freedoms of religion, speech, the press and the right to assemble. In 1859 the essay On Liberty written by the philosopher John Stuart Mill argued for toleration and individuality. The enlightened literati had an interest in popular education and the rhetoric of the 18th century was part of the scholarly system.⁷⁸ A Russian ideal has an east Christian rhetoric origin that is close to Plato and Socrates. Rhetoric (ritorika) in Russia shares the tradition of ancient cultures. The 17th century was dominated by efforts to restructure Russian society and religion. Russia also expanded its territories in the 17th century, notably into the Ukraine and Poland, which added diversity within Russian lands. In monasteries monks taught languages and rhetoric. Science followed a medieval arts-and-letters curriculum. Catherine II (l762-1796) was a German princess who became Empress of Russia. Although Catherine liked to use the liberal rhetoric of the Enlightenment, she actually ruled Russia in the monarchical way. Rhetoric in Russia is a branch of philology studying the relevance of thinking to its linguistic expression. In Russia Russian and foreign languages, comparative study of languages, theory of translation, monolingual and bilingual terminology and terminography), theory of speech communication consisting of general and practical rhetoric, language of mass media, textology of intellective communication, communication and marketing) were practiced.

The History of the Department of Classics in Moscow University began in 1795 immediately after its foundation by the Empress Elizabeth. The faculty of philosophy contained a department of rhetoric where the professors of rhetoric taught the Greek language, Latin stylistics, and Greek and Roman antiquities. From 1755 to 1804 rhetoric was taught by N. N. Popovski, A. A. Barsov, C. -F. Mattei and R. F. Timkovski. The humanities formed the core of the educational system. Michail Vasilevic Lomonosov’s Ritorika was publicated in 18th century in Russia. In 1744 Lomonosov a first version with the title Kratkoe rukovodstvo k ritorike na pol’zu ljubitelej sladkorecija socinennoe (Short Introduction into Rhetoric for the Use of Lovers of Eloquence), which was rejected by the academic conference. Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky in 18th-century Russia was the first Russian professor of Russian and Latin eloquence. The development of the discipline of rhetoric in Russia in the humanities departments was at the higher educational levels of secular institutions of learning. In the 18th century Russian rhetoric in the vernacular appeared. Rhetoric began to be taught as a secular discipline at Russia’s first learned society and its two Universities. Argumentation (argumentacija), interpretation (interpretacija) and rhetoric (ritorika) are terms also introduced into Russian. Institutiones Rhetoricae. A Treatise of a Russian Sentimentalist of Michail N. Muravev was edited in 1995.

In the 20th century ‘democratic’ became the meaning of a political system set up so that people can participate with their own views. Liberal democracy is a representative democracy along with the protection of minorities, the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. The U.S. can be seen as the first liberal democracy. The United States Constitution protected rights and liberties and was adopted in 1788. Already in the colonial period before 1776 most adult white men could vote. We must consider the term ‘free speech’ as a development of a recent debate concerning democracy in the Western world. We can classify it as a typical genre developed upon the thinking of the Western society, namely the U.S. American society. The concept of the liberal arts historically is related to the free Roman citizen able to study the free arts (artes liberales). The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech. The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government can prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. Other countries developed similar methods to ensure right for free speech.⁷⁹ The topic of ‘free speech’ is one of the most contentious issues in a liberal society. If liberty of expression is not valued, freedom of expression is endangered to be curtailed in favor of other competing values. Reglementations prior to this public delivery as a prohibition would mean censorship.⁸⁰ Mündigkeit in contemporary Austrian law means the right of a person accepting his/her ability to act reasonable. This right begins depending on the age and field of law in most cases with the age of 18 (§ 2 iVm § 106 BGB), but Mündigkeit for punishment begins with the 14th year (§ 19 StGB). Today democracy is often assumed to be liberal democracy. While the term democracy is often used in the context of a political state, the principles are also applicable to other bodies, such as universities, labor unions, or civic organizations.

We will now look at some cases of free speech in media and academia. In the context of modern speech genres we can classify “hate speech” as a genre which came up in the U.S. “Hate speech” causes profound and personal offense. Some argue that speech can be limited for the sake of other liberal values, particularly the concern for democratic equality.⁸¹ In the U.S. the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) receives complaints that television and/or radio networks, stations or their employees or guests have broadcast extreme, incorrect, or somehow improper political, economic or social statements. Consumers complain that certain broadcast statements may endanger the U.S. or its people, or threaten our form of government, our economic system, or established institutions like family or marriage. They consider these attacks “un-American” and an abuse of freedom of speech. The FCC also receives complaints that some broadcast statements criticize, ridicule, ‘stereotype’ or demean individuals or groups because of the religion, race, nationality, gender or other characteristics of the group or individual. The FCC’s responsibility is to protect communication rights barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view. The Communications Act prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcast material, and from making any regulation that would interfere with freedom of speech. The FCC cannot suppress such expressions. According to an FCC opinion on this subject ‘the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views’ ensuring that the most diverse and opposing opinions will be expressed. The commission does have enforcement responsibilities in certain limited instances.

In the U.S., academic freedom is generally taken as the notion of academic freedom defined by the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which was jointly authored by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges (AAC). Academic freedom is the freedom of teachers, students, and academic institutions to pursue knowledge without undue or unreasonable interference.⁸² Academic freedom involves the freedom to engage in the range of activities involved in the production of knowledge. Academic freedom has limits. In the U.S., according to the 1940 Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure teachers should be careful to avoid controversial matter that is unrelated to the subject. When they speak or write in public, they are free to express their opinions without fear from institutional censorship or discipline showing restraint and clearly indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. The concept of academic freedom as a right of faculty members (’Lehrfreiheit’ in German) is an established part of German, English, French and American culture with the right of a faculty member to pursue research and publish their findings without restraint. These countries differ in regard to the professor’s freedom in a classroom situation.

In the U.S., the freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which states that the Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. It is often regarded as an integral concept in modern liberal democracies.⁸³ The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed under international law through numerous human rights instruments, notably under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The synonymous term `freedom of expression` is sometimes preferred, since the right is not confined to verbal speech but is understood to protect any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas. In the wake of 9/11 the Patriot Act gives the U.S. government new powers to investigate individuals suspected of being a threat, raising fears for civil liberties.⁸⁴ These recent discussions we can face under the aspect of the contrary positions between cultures with liberal conceptions of democracy and free speech and societies with a low level of free speech interest. When tracing back the history of free speech, we find it connected with the idea of democracy, even though democracy is not a common term with equal meanings in past and present end among different democratic systems. But in general we can see a homogeneous culture of speech compared to societies, which run upon other political and social systems.

We can summarize that the right of free speech is a political constitutional right, which comes with a democratic framework. Kant’s treatise on Enlightenment is a philosophical writing, which implements the legal terminology later still in use in German language speaking countries. Here we find the link to the ancient Roman and Greek culture of rhetoric, which contained also the forensic rhetoric. Within the system of rhetoric, it was possible to speak in public having a common framework of communication. Today, we can trace back he statement of individual liberty to the Enlightenment as a concept of human existence exposed by Kant. The protection of free speech was a process following directly in this time — the end of the 18th century — enduring until today.