Arguing and Thinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology

At its second edition, this social psychology book is addressed to all those who love this field and who are open enough to accept other perspectives on this field. M. Billig offers a new approach to social psychological issues. Those who are inured to social psychology work would notice from the first pages that Arguing and Thinking is not written in the "rhetoric of the discipline". This book can't be read like the others. It doesn't present graphics, charts or numbers. The technical terms are rarely used in comparison to their plenty in other books of social psychology. M. Billig places familiar social psychological issues in a rhetorical or argumentative context which raises the problem of justification and criticism. The author wants to show that social psychologists have rarely discussed the rhetorical and controversial apects of numerous subjects in social psychology. In a recuperatory approach, this book illustrates the argumentative dimension in such phenomena as attitudes, roles, categorization and cognitive consistency. M. Billig traces the connections between ancient rhetorical ideas and modern social psychology and places argumentation and arguments in the core of his approach. He invites us to make some time for Protagoras, to stop working for Aristotle and for other names that made rhetoric famous. M. Billig's work is a tribute to old books, ideas and authors discovered on the forgotten shelves of the library. Rediscovering rhetoric can be seen as a postmodern project of redeeming value. I love this book because it is a piece of fine academic achievement and it will represent, i think, a continous source of inspiration for me and for all social psychology scholars. Beautifully written, this book puts togheter the humanistic and the scientific approach to social sciences.