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.