Abstract

AbstractPlato's confrontation with Dionysius I, the so-called “tyrant of Sicily,” became famous as a cautionary tale of the perils of offering unwelcome advice to a powerful prince. Within early modern England, this tale took on added currency in the context of humanists' ambitions to serve as counselors in the court of Henry VIII. The humanist scholar Thomas Elyot (1490–1546), who briefly and unsuccessfully served at Henry's court, re-created Plato's exchange with Dionysius I in his dramatic dialogue The Knowledge Whiche Maketh a Wise Man (1533). In his dialogue, Elyot imagines Plato returning to Athens after his brief period of enslavement, where he meets the philosopher/rhetorician Aristippus. Aristippus challenges Plato by positing that Plato's dangerous words to Dionysius violated rhetorical tenets of propriety and timing. In the course of their extended exchange, two different versions of the rhetoric of counsel surface—one based on principles of philosophy and one based on strategic rhetoric.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2012-03-01
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.45.1.0024
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 9 works outside this index ↓
  1. Caven, Brian. 1990. Dionysius I: War-Lord of Sicily. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  2. Conrad, F. W. 1992. “The Problem of Counsel Reconsidered: The Case of Thomas Elyot.” In Political Thought and…
  3. Foucault, Michel. 2010. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collége de France, 1982–1983. Ed. …
  4. Guy, John S. 1993. “Henrician Age.” In The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500–1800. Ed. J. G. A. Po…
  5. Guy, John S. 1995. “The Rhetoric of Counsel in Early Modern England.” In Tudor Political Culture, ed. Dale Ho…
  6. Howland, Jacob. 2002. “Aristotle's Great-Souled Man.” Review of Politics: 64 (1): 27–56.
  7. Lehmberg, Stanford E. 1961. “English Humanists, the Reformation, and the Problem of Counsel.” Archiv für Refo…
  8. Mann, Wolfgang-Rainer. 1996. “The Life of Aristippus.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 78: 97–119.
  9. Sipiora, Phillip. 2002. “Introduction: The Ancient Concept of Kairos.” In Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in Hist…
CrossRef global citation count: 5 View in citation network →