The Argument is comprised of four figures, pointedly facing away from each other. Wright’s work during this period had a figurative focus as he was captivated by the groups of people he viewed in York. Speaking in a documentary filmed by the Yorkshire Arts Association in 1970, Wright explained that:

‘I found the activity of watching people as they passed me in the street, or watching people assemble to get on board buses, the fascinating patterns of contiguity and separation between individuals and none of this seemed meaningless, it worked itself out in the course of time in a number of sculptures which were using this idea of the space between a unit in the group.’