The Secret Lives of Arguments

Abstract

My discussion advances a conception of rhetorical argument by considering respectively the type of rhetoric and the type of argument involved, along with the hidden information that is contained. What does an argument conceal? Its assumptions; its prejudices; its construction of the normal, with all that involves; its values and cultural determinations; and more. Arguments teach us about the arguers themselves and the ways audiences are imagined. All this awaits unpacking, and rhetoric provides the means to do so, making present what is otherwise absent and layering flesh across logic’s skeletal frame.