Scholastic philosophy is often associated with dialectical reasoning and the consideration of universal theses, in contrast to the variable and practical questions considered by disciplines such as politics and rhetoric. However, while the primacy of dialectical inquiry in Scholastic thought is difficult to deny, the movement also produced advances in rhetorical theory as well. Specifically, I argue that the works of Thomas Aquinas present a view of rhetorical reasoning and deliberation aligned closely with the virtue of prudence and dependent on (...) sensory experience ordered within the memory. Building from an understanding of rhetoric as an intellectual operation dedicated to the consideration of questions about... (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the role the household ( oikos) plays in Isocrates through an exegesis of the author's letters to his erstwhile student and current monarch of Salamis of Cyprus, Nicocles. The monarch's household has a threefold role in the relationship between the elite ruler and his subjects. First, as the locus of his ancestors and their achievements, it offers competitors to Nicocles to be surpassed and a known standard for his subjects to judge their ruler. Second, as (...) the source of the monarch's public outlay, the household is a means by which Nicocles can appear magnificent; at the same time, however, he should be wary lest his subjects judge him ostentatious. Third, Nicocles invites his subjects to judge his conjugal behavior, offering it as evidence of his moderation. I conclude my argument with a challenge to an interpretation of the relationship between the few and the many as a contract; rather, this relationship is better characterized through the metaphor of service ( therapeia) drawn from the household. Isocratean political thought treats private and public domains as continuous with one another, regarding participation in political institutions as neither necessary nor sufficient to achieving good political judgment. (shrink)