Arguing and Thinking

Michael Billig’s rhetorical approach has been key to the discursive turn in the social sciences. His witty and original book examines argumentation and its psychological importance in human conduct and traces the connections between ancient rhetorical ideas and modern social psychology. It also offers a novel approach to contemporary social psychological issues. Citing examples from a wide range of sources, Michael Billig illustrates the argumentative dimension in such phenomena as attitudes, roles, categorizations, etc., and, in so doing, he is able to stress the theoretical importance of rhetoric. He suggests that modern psychology has overlooked the study of arguments, and seeks to repair this gap by turning to the very earliest social psychologists -- the ancient theorists of rhetoric, Aristotle, Cicero and especially Protagoras. In a new Introduction, he offers further reflections on rhetoric and social psychology, discusses the scholarship which has emerged in response to the original publication of Arguing and thinking, and allows some forgotten voices in the history of rhetoric to be heard.