The title and packaging of Winning Arguments suggests a manual for prevailing in fights with your spouse, but I've read enough Stanley Fish to know that's not what it offers. The quote from Richard Rorty on the dedication page nicely summarizes the book's theme: "There is no such thing as non-discursive access to truth." Or, as Fish puts it in his introduction:
Fish's writing style has become less thickly academic in recent years, and he draws examples from pop culture to supplement his references to Milton. So Winning Arguments may be better targeted at a general audience than his earlier books. However, its arguments are less forceful as a result.
Knowledge and truth rather than presiding over the field of argument are what emerge in the course of argument, and because it is argument and not Reality with a capital R that produces them, truth and knowledge are always in the process of being renegotiated.Fish outlines numerous attempts across the ages to escape from this conclusion, because transcending it is a fundamental human desire.
Fish's writing style has become less thickly academic in recent years, and he draws examples from pop culture to supplement his references to Milton. So Winning Arguments may be better targeted at a general audience than his earlier books. However, its arguments are less forceful as a result.
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