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A history of the breakdown of logos and its component forms of discourse concludes with the proposition of a new model in which these components are reunited by the concept of humans as stonjtellers.In the beginning was the word or, more accurately, the logos. And in the beginning, logos meant story, reason, rationale, conception, discourse, and/or thought. Thus, all forms of human expression and communication-from epic to architecture, from biblical narrative to statuary-came within its purview. At least this was the case until the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato, and Aristotle. As a result of their thinking, logos and mythos, which had been conjoined, were dissociated; logos was transformed from a generic term into a specific one, applying only to philosophical (later technical) discourse; poetical and rhetorical discourse were relegated to a secondary or negative status in regard to truth, knowledge, and reality; poetic was given province over mytlaos; rhetoric was delegated the realm where logos and mythos reign in dubious ambiguity; and a historic hegemonic struggle ensued that lasts to this day among proponents of each of the three forms of discourse.The story of these events, which I will sketch in this article, is germane to an understanding of the narrative paradigm, the essential postulates of which are: Walter R. Fisher is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California. This discussion of the narrative paradigm was begun in Comtn utiicution Monographs 51 and elaborated in Communicution Monogruplis S2.

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