Friendship, temperance and the probable: Erasmus, sermo rhetoric, and the early modern English civic state

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynette Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Civic Agency ◽  
Rhetorical Structures ◽  
The Impact ◽  
And Training

The essay explores Erasmus' development of a fourth category of rhetoric, the familiar, in its work as a rhetoric of the absent audience in both personal and sociopolitical contexts, and as a rhetoric resonant with early modern theories of friendship and temperance. The discussion is set against a background of Caxton's printing of the translation of Cicero's De Amicitia, because Erasmus casts friendship as the context for appropriate communication between people from quite different education and training, along with the probable rhetoric that enables appropriate persuasion. The probable rhetorical stance of temperate friendship proposes a foundation for a common weal1 based on a co-extensive sense of selfhood. This focus suggests that the familiar rhetoric set out in Erasmus' De Conscribendis epistolis draws on Cicero's rhetoric of sermo2 at the heart of friendship.3 It explores the effects of the rhetorical stance of probable rhetoric, both for personal and social writing, and for political action, and looks at the impact of sermo rhetoric on ideas of identity and civic politics in an age of burgeoning circulation of books (both script and print). The essay concludes with three post-Erasmian case studies in English rhetoric [Elyot, Wilson, Lever] that use probable rhetoric to document approaches to individual and civic agency and which offer insights into the Western neoliberal state rhetorical structures of today.

"Do no harm" - A Call for Greater Ethical Regulation of Innovation in Education and Training

CADMO ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 123-144
Author(s):  
Tim Oates
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
Management Of Innovation ◽  
Innovation In Education ◽  
Do No Harm ◽  
Complex Social Systems ◽  
And Training

- The paper examines the curious absence of ethical regulation of trialling and mass innovation in education and training, contrasting the management of innovation in education with management of innovation in the medical arena. The issues are explored through four case studies from the English context. Each case study illustrates a different approach to mass innovation and reveals acute limitations in the design of trials. The paper explores the debate regarding whether trailling is possible in complex social systems but argues that there has been a serious neglect of the rights of learners in respect of innovation. The breakdowns evident in the case studies provide the basis for an argument that there is a need for ethical regulation of trialling, and the paper tentatively presents some prototype criteria for such regulation.

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