This book presents reflections on the relationship between narratives and argumentative discourse. It focuses on their functional and structural similarities or dissimilarities, and offers diverse perspectives and conceptual tools for analyzing the narratives’ potential power for justification, explanation and persuasion. Divided into two sections, the first Part, under the title “Narratives as Sources of Knowledge and Argument”, includes five chapters addressing rather general, theoretical and characteristically philosophical issues related to the argumentative analysis and understanding of narratives. We may perceive here how scholars in Argumentation Theory have recently approached certain topics that have a close connection with mainstream discussions in epistemology and the cognitive sciences about the justificatory potential of narratives. The second Part, entitled “Argumentative Narratives in Context”, brings us six more chapters that concentrate on either particular functions played by argumentatively-oriented narratives or particular practices that may benefit from the use of special kinds of narratives. Here the focus is either on the detailed analysis of contextualized examples of narratives with argumentative qualities or on the careful understanding of the particular demands of certain well-defined situated activities, as diverse as scientific theorizing or war policing, that may be satisfied by certain uses of narrative discourse.

Narrative Causalities offers both an argument and a methodology. The argument is that interpretations of the consequences and causes of events are contextual and that narratives, by determining the context in which events are perceived, shape interpretations. The methodology, on which the argument is based, is a theory of functions. A function, in this theory, is a position in a causal sequence. A set of functions provides a vocabulary to analyze and compare interpretations of the causes and consequences of events-in our world, in narratives about our world, and in fictional narratives.

Gregory Currie offers a reflection on the nature and significance of narrative in human communication. He shows that narratives are devices for manifesting the intentions of their makers in stories, argues that human tendencies to imitation and to joint attention underlie the pleasure of narrative, and discusses authorship, character, and irony.

This book addresses questions that have concerned rhetoricians, literary theorists, and philosophers since the time of the pre-Socratics and the Sophists: How do people come to believe and to act on the basis of communicative experiences? What is the nature of reason and rationality in these experiences? What is the role of values in human decision making and action? How can reason and values be assessed? In answering these questions, Professor Fisher proposes a reconceptualization of humankind as homo narrans, that all forms of human communication need to be seen as stories—symbolic interpretations of aspects of the world occurring in time and shaped by history, culture, and character; that individuated forms of discourse should be considered "good reasons"—values or value-laden warrants for believing or acting in certain ways; and that a narrative logic that all humans have natural capacities to employ ought to be conceived of as the logic by which human communication is assessed.

The present volume assembles a relevant set of studies of argument by analogy, which address this topic in a systematic fashion, either from an essentially theoretical perspective or from the perspective of it being applied to different fields like politics, linguistics, literature, law, medicine, science in general and philosophy. All result from original research conducted by their authors for this publication. Thus, broadly speaking, this is an exception which we find worthy of occupying a special place in the sphere of the bibliography on the argument by analogy. In effect, most of the contexts of the publications on this topic focus on specific areas, for example everyday discourse, science or law theory, while underestimating or sometimes even ignoring other interdisciplinary scopes, as is the case of literature, medicine or philosophy. The idiosyncrasy of this volume is that the reader and the researcher may follow the development of different theoretical outlooks on argument by analogy, while measuring the scope of its (greater or lesser) application to the aforementioned areas as a whole.

Storylistening makes the case for the urgent need to take stories seriously in order to improve public reasoning. Dillon and Craig provide a theory and practice for gathering narrative evidence that will complement and strengthen, not distort, other forms of evidence, including that from science. Focusing on the cognitive and the collective, Dillon and Craig show how stories offer alternative points of view, create and cohere collective identities, function as narrative models, and play a crucial role in anticipation. They explore these four functions in areas of public reasoning where decisions are strongly influenced by contentious knowledge and powerful imaginings: climate change, artificial intelligence, the economy, and nuclear weapons and power. Vivid performative readings of stories from The Ballad of Tam-Lin to The Terminator demonstrate the insights that storylistening can bring and the ways it might be practised. The book provokes a reimagining of what a public humanities might look like, and shows how the structures and practices of public reasoning can evolve to better incorporate narrative evidence. Storylistening aims to create the conditions in which the important task of listening to stories is possible, expected, and becomes endemic. Taking the reader through complex ideas from different disciplines in ways that do not require any prior knowledge, this book is an essential read for policymakers, political scientists, students of literary studies, and anyone interested in the public humanities and the value, importance, and operation of narratives.

Persuasion has long been one of the major fields of interest for researchers across a wide range of disciplines. The present volume aims to establish a framework to enhance the understanding of the features, manifestations and purposes of persuasion across all Greek and Roman genres and in various institutional contexts. The volume considers the impact of persuasion techniques upon the audience, and how precisely they help speakers/authors achieve their goals. It also explores the convergences and divergences in deploying persuasion strategies in different genres, such as historiography and oratory, and in a variety of topics. This discussion contributes towards a more complete understanding of persuasion that will help to advance knowledge of decision-making processes in varied institutional contexts in antiquity.