Abstract

Since some important and effective forms of persuasion are stories, a task for those interested in argumentation, informal logic and critical thinking, is to consider stories as arguments. In this essay, I discuss three: Plato's "Myth of the Cave," Ay n Rand's Atlas Shrugged, and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. I suggest some responses to persuasive stories, including criticizing the plausibility of the story as story, developing counter stories, and considering the stories premises as g rounds for its conclusion. By doing so, I tentatively take steps towards a theory of story argument validity.