When I hear the word “argument,” an image comes to mind. Really, a series of images.
Gritted teeth. Shaking heads. Red faces. Arms crossed. Tears. Two people squaring off against each other, pits in their stomachs. Words as weapons.
But that’s a limiting view of argument.
I’ve been reading through, of all things, a textbook on rhetoric in argument co-authored by Jeanne Fahnestock, a scholar whose lucid writing on rhetorical devices I really admired.
The textbook makes the case for a broader definition, one that stretches the bounds of what we would think of as an “argument.”
In this view, an argument is any activity that forms our beliefs and influences our activities.
If that feels very broad, almost worryingly so, that’s because it is. Argument, in this view, is everywhere.
Argument is an inescapable part of modern life. The textbook observes that we swim in a deluge of argument—whether it’s advertising or social media posts or emails from our colleagues or even requests from our kids. It’s all argument.
And the kernel of every argument is the basic structure of claim, reason, and warrant.
A claim is an assertion about something. Let’s go to the museum today.
A reason is support for your claim. You’ll get to touch dinosaur bones!
A warrant is the “next level” that lurks—sometimes unspoken—behind the reason. You love dinosaurs.
But…not all claims have solid reasons. (Or any reasons at all—this is why toddlers can be so frustrating.)
The root of much misunderstanding, I realize, is “bad” arguments—where claims are unsupported or warrants are not obvious.
Taylor Coe 