School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe morality of rhetoric in Pico della Mirandola's Oration( 2004-10)Rhetoric and philosophy enjoyed a somewhat awkward relationship in late fifteenth century Italy. Pico’s work shows both the skill and love of eloquence, and the scorn for rhetoric as mere artifice and deceit, which were common in his milieu. Historians have puzzled over this ambivalent view of rhetoric, especially as it appears in Pico’s correspondence with Ermolao Barbaro in 1485, eighteen months before the Oration. Quirinus Breen argues that in the letters Pico was railing not against rhetoric per se but against its abuse. While I concur with Breen’s analysis, the link between Pico’s attitude in the letters and in the Oration has not yet been satisfactorily examined. This thesis attempts to clarify the link between the letters’ use of rhetoric and that of the Oration. I will argue that the ‘paradoxical’ attitude to rhetoric and philosophy in the letters led Pico to construct a theory in the Oration that allowed rhetoric to serve moral ends. This approach continues to be fruitful to debates on the value of rhetoric in modern society. As the title of this thesis suggests, my primary focus is not to analyse ‘the rhetoric of morality’ but the ‘morality of rhetoric’ in the Oration, that is, how Pico negotiated his ambivalence toward rhetoric. This thesis has three parts. First I intend to trace the development of the ambivalence toward rhetoric as art and as artifice in the Quattrocento, and outline the direction in which Pico was beginning to negotiate it in the letter to Barbaro. Second, I want to analyse how Pico addressed philosophy and rhetoric in the Oration. Third, I suggest how Pico’s rhetoric in the Oration relates to the development of humanist rhetorical debates, Renaissance historiography, and to contemporary debates around language in the public sphere.