Art and Argument: What Words Can't Do and What They Can

by Bruce E. Fleming

Overview

The title of this book is Art and Argument, however, these two subjects are treated in reverse order, first argument, then art. Art and Argument is an engagingly written work about how words work in the world and in art. Its freewheeling considerations range from everyday examples to speculative metaphysics, touching along the way on written works from columns by the advice doyenne Ann Landers to literature by D.H. Lawrence, the Japanese Modernist Soseki, and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Steven Dunn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761826996
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/17/2003
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Bruce E. Fleming is Professor, Department of English, United States Naval Academy.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Ineffability of Language
Chapter 2 Worlds and the World
Chapter 3 Sex and Silence
Chapter 4 The Boundary Between Words and Silence
Chapter 5 What Art Is, and What It Isn't
Chapter 6 True, False, or Gray
Chapter 7 How to Do Things With Literature
Chapter 8 Endnotes
Chapter 9 Bibliography
Chapter 10 About the Author
Chapter 11 Index

Editorial Reviews

The book attempts to analyze how language works and how it fails and how we might manage to deal with it, provided we see it as succeeding and failing in communication. In generally straightforward language, and with examples from ordinary acts of communication, Fleming attempts to find out what is at the root of the multidimensionality of communication. We do need more such readable books in this subject.

Review of Metaphysics - Sudhakar Marathe

This work contains some wonderful insights into everyday occurrences and helps make certain life experiences seem simple again, in a field that tends to complicate some of the most basic such experiences.

Philosophy in Review - Adam Melinn

This work contains some wonderful insights into everyday occurrences and helps make certain life experiences seem simple again, in a field that tends to complicate some of the most basic such experiences.--Adam Melinn, Philadelphia University "Philosophy in Review "

The book attempts to analyze how language works and how it fails and how we might manage to deal with it, provided we see it as succeeding and failing in communication. In generally straightforward language, and with examples from ordinary acts of communication, Fleming attempts to find out what is at the root of the multidimensionality of communication. We do need more such readable books in this subject.--Sudhakar Marathe, University of Hyderabada "Review of Metaphysics "

From the Publisher

This work contains some wonderful insights into everyday occurrences and helps make certain life experiences seem simple again, in a field that tends to complicate some of the most basic such experiences.
— Adam Melinn, Philadelphia University

Philosophy in Review

The book attempts to analyze how language works and how it fails and how we might manage to deal with it, provided we see it as succeeding and failing in communication. In generally straightforward language, and with examples from ordinary acts of communication, Fleming attempts to find out what is at the root of the multidimensionality of communication. We do need more such readable books in this subject.
— Sudhakar Marathe, University of Hyderabada

The Review Of Metaphysics