PR 50.2_03_Loveridge.indd Page 178 28/03/17 1:57 AM P Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2017 Copyright © 2017 he Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA PR 50.2_03_Loveridge.indd Page 178 28/03/17 1:57 AM P Rhetorical Deliberation, Memory, and Sensation in the hought of homas Aquinas Jordan Loveridge abstract his article explores homas Aquinas’s interrelated views of rhetoric and deliberation, particularly through his commentaries on Aristotle and his Summa theologiae. It argues that while articulating a largely Boethian understanding of rhetoric as consideration of uncertain matters, Aquinas also advances a theory of delibera- tion indebted to Aristotelian theories of sensation and phantasia. Building from previous work on phantasia in Aristotle’s works, I argue that, in Aquinas’s view, rhetorical deliberation is dependent on sensory information experienced through phantasia. Gathered through time and experience, sensory information serves as the foundational material for other forms of reasoning, such as deliberation and practi- cal wisdom. In articulating Aquinas’s views of rhetoric and deliberation, I suggest that the relationship between rhetoric and logic within Aquinas’s system of thought be reconsidered, with rhetoric playing a prominent role in the consideration of vari- able and human phenomena. Keywords: memory, sensation, deliberation, phantasia, homas Aquinas introduction Scholastic philosophy is often associated with dialectical reasoning and the consideration of universal theses, in contrast to the variable and practical questions considered by disciplines such as politics and rhetoric. However, while the primacy of dialectical inquiry in Scholastic thought is diicult to