Doubly Damned, Rhetorical and Visual

Abstract

Rhetoric has long been in ill repute. This article traces its decline and the underlying social changes that hassened its slow and then precipitous fall from grace. The need for a reconstructed rhetoric is argued. Distrust of the visual is then faced head-on in order to create the context for considering a visual rhetoric and its larger role in design in general. The fundamental perspective put forth by the author is that abstraction and scientific reductionism fail to address and support issues of human agency. Design has the ability to create prototypes that demonstrate by example a possible future result. Further, these prototypes support discourse and decision making in direct and understandable ways. Such prototypes are rhetorical.