Prudence: classical virtue, postmodern practice

"This volume brings together scholars in classics, political philosophy, and rhetoric to analyze prudence as a distinctive and vital form of political intelligence. Through case studies from each of the major periods in the history of prudence, the authors identify neglected resources for political judgement in today's conditions of pluralism and interdependency." "Three assumptions inform these essays: the many dimensions of prudence cannot be adequately represented in the lexicon of any single discipline; the Aristotelian focus on prudence as rational calculation needs to be balanced by the Ciceronian emphasis on prudence as discursive performance embedded in familiar social practices; and understanding prudence requires attention to how it operates thorough the communicative media and public discourses that constitute the political community."--BOOK JACKET.

Theory without modernity / Robert Hariman -- Cicero and the development of prudential practice at Rome / Robert W. Cape Jr. -- After Virt:̮ rhetoric, prudence, and moral pluralism in Machiavelli / Eugene Garver -- The "enlightenment project" revisited: common sense as prudence in the philosophy of Thomas Reid / Peter J. Diamond -- Edmund Burke's Letter to the sheriffs of Bristol and the texture of prudence / Stephen H. Browne -- Idioms of prudence in three antebellum controversies: revolution, constitution, and slavery / James Jasinski -- Fanny Wright and the enforcing of prudence: women, propriety, and transgression in nineteenth-century public oratory of the United States / Christine L. Oravec -- Prudence as republican politics in American popular culture / John S. Nelson -- Lyotard's postmodern prudence / Maurice Charland -- Prudence in the twenty-first century / Robert Hariman.