ABSTRACT
How are we to understand cognitively modern human beings as rhetorical beings? The position taken by the author is that rhetorical theory can and should contribute substantially to the primary research agenda of cognitive science, provided that both cognitive scientists and rhetoricians develop coherent frameworks for solutions to six basic research problems in human cognition.
The author explores four issues from the perspectives of a distributed rhetorical theory. He begins with the unit of analysis problem, in which he debates over the boundaries of cognition and argues for an “enactive” and “extended” cognitive theory as most conducive for next generation rhetorical research. He then presents three areas of overlapping interest of cognitive scientists and rhetoricians: attention management, framing, and emotional disposition.
