Rhetoric and Human Understanding

For centuries, scholars have theorized and written about rhetoric and signs. In this new volume, the author synthesizes their work in an accessible manner, providing readers with a solid background to begin thinking about their experience as rhetorical beings. The book creates a context for understanding today's rhetoric by tracing the understandings of oral societies, early literate societies, and the emergence of logic and argumentation as the foundation for Western thinking. Challenges to the rational paradigm from the structural and postmodern movements and challenges to dominant societal understandings from alternative voices are explored. The reader is invited to join the conversation concerning rhetoric as an active participant--to think critically about accepted understandings, to develop refutations to theories presented, and to develop a personal rhetorical point of view.