Abstract
Edmund Burke ranks among the most accomplished orators ever to debate in the British Parliament. But often his eloquence has been seen to compromise his achievements as a political thinker. In the first full-length account of Burke?s rhetoric, Paddy Bullard argues that Burke?s ideas about civil society ? and, particularly, about the process of political deliberation ? are, for better or worse, shaped by the expressiveness of his language. Above all, Burke?s eloquence is designed to express ethos or character. This rhetorical imperative is itself informed by Burke?s argument that the competency of every political system can be judged by the ethical knowledge that the governors have both of the people that they govern, and of them- selves. Bullard finds the intellectual roots of Burke?s ?rhetoric of character? in early modern moral and aesthetic philosophy. He traces its development through Burke?s parliamentary career to its culmin- ation in his masterpiece, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
