Forms and Uses of Argument

This volume is the result of transdisciplinary studies conducted by professors and researchers of the Department of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. It cross-applies neuro-scientific, aesthetic, linguistic and rhetorical methods to focus on the concept of argumentation, much studied during the 20th century and then forsaken. The common thread that links the essays is the concept of figurative language intended as an argumentative tool, while throughout the 20th century it was believed that in every field of human knowledge formal approaches should prevail: only the form, it was thought, constitutes the purest essence, the “net weight” of things. In contrast to this, “Forms and Uses of Argument” intend to demonstrate that the figurative language - and first of all the metaphors – are in fact rather an archetypal “propellant” for the most widespread argumentative logics.