Rhetoric and the politics of necessity
Item
-
Title
-
Rhetoric and the politics of necessity
-
Identifier
-
d_2009_2013:ed3a59ce7e5b:10237
-
identifier
-
10314
-
Creator
-
Skinner, Daniel R.,
-
Contributor
-
Joan C. Tronto
-
Date
-
2009
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Political science | Rhetoric | Mass communication | inevitability | law | medical necessity | necessity | political theory
-
Abstract
-
This dissertation casts the concept of necessity as a rhetorical form that is commonly used to shape what appears politically possible. I argue that engaging necessity as rhetoric helps not only to conceptualize key political concepts, such as freedom, but to mediate some perennial problems in politics. To make this argument, I undertake two basic tasks. First, I catalog a series of different kinds of necessity arguments that appear across the history of Western political thought. To show necessity's centrality to canonical political theory, I examine the work of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx and Arendt. I then apply this analysis to three examples, each of which illuminates a different kind of political problem: Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War illustrates the role necessity plays in producing the appearance of inevitable war; John Marshall's opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland shows necessity as a problem in legal interpretation; finally, contests over the meaning of medical necessity in American health care debates illustrate problems inherent in the relationship between medicine and politics.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
2009_2013.csv
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
Political Science
