In Stephen Toulmin's early works, the term "rhetoric" appeared rarely and when it did, it was never a central feature of his writing.¹ In fact, as late as 1975, Richard D. Rieke and Malcolm O. Sillars claimed that "Toulmin has no expressed interest in the process of communication or with the development of ways to construct claims and reasons to win adherence."² Nevertheless, because his work had so many implications for the field of rhetoric, many communication scholars began to view Toulmin as an influential thinker in the field of rhetoric. His more recent work is beginning to take a more rhetorical bent, probably due to his association with people like Rieke and others in the field of communication. In his most recent work, Toulmin writes,

Since the mid1960s, rhetoric has begun to regain its respectability as a topic of literary and linguistic analysis. . . . Many American colleges and universities have departments devoted to "communication studies," or "speech." These departments are responsible for college debating teams, but their faculty members do serious research on different aspects of oral communication and argumentation.³

Thus, Toulmin is a professional philosopher who began his career without an interest in the field of rhetoric but who, as his career has progressed, has come to see the importance of rhetoric for his ideas about philosophy.

Stephen Edelson Toulmin was born in London, England, on March 25, 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin.⁴ He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and physics from King's College in 1942. From 1942 to 1945, he was a junior scientific officer for the Ministry of Aircraft Production. He first was employed at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany, where he did technical intelligence work. At the end of World War II, he returned to England to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a Doctorate of Philosophy degree in 1948 from Cambridge University. "From the start," he wrote, "my couriosity drew me toward the subject of 'rationality.'" Wondering if knowledge really were certain and enduring, he asked himself if "intelligent fish learned to do science, . . . must they in the long run end up with the same body of ideas as human beings?"⁵ His first major attempt to deal with this issue was his doctoral thesis, "Reason in Ethics,"⁶ in which he compared and contrasted the ways humans reason about moral and scientific issues.

Toulmin's career as an educator and philosopher began when he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Oxford University in 1949. He published The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction⁷ in 1953 and remained at Oxford until 1954. He then was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia from 195455. He served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds in England from 1955 to 1959.

Pursuing his belief that traditional logic is incomplete as a tool of rationality, Toulmin published Uses of Argument in 1958.⁸ His "chief purpose in writing The Uses of Argument in the late 1950s was to relate traditional philosophical paradoxes to the standing contrast between 'substantive' and 'formal' aspects of reasoning and argument." Because philosophers were so entrenched in the study of formal logic, the book was received poorly in England. Toulmin lamented that Richard Braithwaite, his graduate advisor at Cambridge, "was deeply pained by the book, and barely spoke to me for twenty years; while one of my colleagues at Leeds, Peter Alexander described it as 'Toulmin's anti-logic book.'" In fact, wrote Toulmin, "a great hush fell upon my colleagues in England. After that, I assumed that the book would (in Hume's words) 'fall stillborn from the press,' so I was a little surprised when it continued to sell in worthwhile numbers: it took me some time to find out why."⁹

In 1959, Toulmin came to the United States, where he was a visiting professor at New York, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. At approximately this time, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin's work to communication scholars in this country.¹⁰ They interpreted his work as being useful to scholars of rhetoric and argumentation because it provided "an appropriate structural model by means of which rhetorical arguments may be laid out for analysis and criticism . . .[and provided]. . . a system for classifying artistic proofs which employs arguments as a central and unifying construct."¹¹

Since the introduction of Toulmin's work into the United States, rhetoricians have found his ideas about rationality relevant to their own thinking about rhetoric. The successes of The Uses of Argument was due not to professional philosophers but to rhetoricians. In fact, Toulmin learned that the people in the United States who had been purchasing his book were the same people who had been keeping the study of practical argumentation and rhetoric alive at the time he was lamenting its death. While in his early writings, he claimed that the study of practical argumentation was dead, he later admitted: "I met people from Departments of Speech and Communication up and down the country, who told me that they used it as a text on rhetoric and argumentation. So, the study of practical reasoning was kept alive after all; but this was done only outside the Departments of Philosophy, under the wing of Speech or English, or at Schools of Law."¹²

In 1960, Toulmin briefly returned to London, where he was the director of the Unit for History of Ideas of the Nuffield Foundation. He returned to the United States again in 1965 to become a Professor of the History of Ideas and Philosophy at Brandeis University (196569) and later a Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University (196972). Seven years later, he accepted a position as Professor of Humanities at the University of California at Santa Cruz (197273) and published the first of what is to be a three-volume set entitled Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts.

The next year, in 1973, he published Wittgenstein's Vienna with Alan Janik¹³ and became Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago (197386). From 1975 until 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning.¹⁴ When he left the University of Chicago, he moved to Northwestern University as the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities, where he remains today. His latest work, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), proposes a radical revision of our ideas about modernity.

While in the United States, Toulmin held visiting professorships and lectureships at schools such as Dartmouth College, Southern Methodist University, and Bryn Mawr College. He also has been a Phi Beta Kappa national lecturer, a senior visiting scholar at the Hastings Center, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Throughout his entire career, Toulmin's primary interest was and continues to be in questions concerning the rationality of human enterprises.

Theoretical and Practical Argument

Throughout many of his works, Toulmin has contrasted two types of arguments. In Uses of Argument, he distinguishes between "substantial and analytic arguments." A substantial argument involves an inference from some data or evidence to the conclusion of the argument; the conclusion of an analytic argument, in contrast, goes no farther than the material contained in its premises. Individuals using analytic arguments attempt to base their claims on unchanging and universal principles. Those who use substantial arguments, on the other hand, ground their claims in the context of a particular situation rather than in abstract, universal principles. Jonsen and Toulmin describe a similar distinction between what they call theoretical and practical arguments; "theoretical" is their term for analytic argument and "practical" is their term for substantive argument. They claim that the distinction between these two types of argument lies at the base of "two very different accounts of ethics and morality: one that seeks eternal, invariable principles, the practical implications of which can be free of exception or qualifications, and another which pays closest attention to the specific details of particular moral cases and circumstances." Thus, an argument that "seeks eternal, invariable principles" is an analytic one, while an argument that "pays closest attention to the specific details of particular moral cases and circumstances" is a substantial argument.¹⁵

In summary, these types of argument represent idealized formal logic on the one hand and practical, everyday reasoning on the other. Theoretical or analytic argument is consistent with Plato's ideal of formal deductive logic. It leads to universal truths regardless of context; in other words, it is decontextualized. Practical or substantial argument, on the other hand, conforms more closely to the ideas that Aristotle developed in the Topics and the Rhetoric. It is judged not by its correspondence to deductive form but by its substance. It deals with matters of probability rather than with universal truths, and it varies according to context; it is contextualized.

Toulmin offers both a critical and an historical account of theoretical and practical argument. The critical account shows the irrelevance of theoretical argument to human affairs, and the historical account shows why the dominance of the universalist approach to argument was not broken from classical Greece throughout modernity.

A Critical Account of Theoretical and Practical Argument

Toulmin's starting point involves the irrelevance of theoretical argument to the assessment of practical argument. During much of the history of the Western world, particularly the Modern Period (approximately 16501950), philosophers presupposed the existence of prior and immutable standards to judge the adequacy of concepts, especially scientific ones. According to Toulmin, these presuppositions "imposed on philosophy a certain epistemic picture of Man the Rational Knower facing Nature the Unchanging Object of Knowledge."¹⁶ At various times throughout history, philosophers have rebelled against this notion of immutable standards but have been unable to provide standards that are not completely relativistic.

Responses to this problem have been either to develop standards that can distinguish "correct" arguments from "incorrect" ones or to admit that such standards are relative to the people, times, and places in which the arguments are developed. The works of two scholars in the later part of the Modern Period, Gottlob Frege and R. G. Collingwood, represent two major attempts to come to grips with the question of how the worth of scientific concepts is to be judged. Frege is described by Toulmin as an absolutist who argues that adequacy of concepts ought to be modeled on mathematics. Collingwood, on the other hand, is forced into relativism in his attempts to avoid the problems of absolute standards. Toulmin criticizes these approaches because although Frege may have succeeded in explaining mathematics in absolutist terms, absolutist notions such as his are more difficult to sustain when we leave the discipline of mathematics for, say, political theory. In Toulmin's words:

The absolutist reaction to the diversity of our concepts, thus emancipates itself from the complexities of history and anthropology only at the price of irrelevance. . . . [while the relativistic reaction of Collingwood]. . . takes good care to avoid the defects of historical irrelevance, but in doing so (as we shall see) it ends in equal difficulties by denying itself any impartial standpoint for rational judgement.¹⁷

The choice, then, is seen as between a completely absolutist and a completely relativistic position--a choice which Toulmin views as untenable. In Human Understanding, and, for that matter, in his entire line of work, Toulmin attempts to develop standards for assessing the worth of ideas that are neither absolutist nor relativistic. His purpose is to form a "new 'epistemic self-portrait': that is, a fresh account of the capacities, processes, and activities, in virtue of which Man acquires an understanding of Nature, and Nature in turn becomes intelligible to Man."¹⁸

In summary, Toulmin contrasts theoretical and practical argumentation in order to cast light on his claim that theoretical arguments are irrelevant to most of the important aspects of human affairs. At the same time, he is unwilling to go to the other extreme, which trades the completely absolute for the completely relative. He sees the idea of practical argument as one of the ways to find a middle ground between absolutism and relativism. In order to understand this middle ground, we first must understand Toulmin's specific objections to absolutism and relativism.

Objections to Absolutism. Jonsen and Toulmin claim that theoretical or analytic arguments are not relevant to the world of practical affairs because too many situations are not covered by appeals to a single universal principle. The problems we face in everyday life are not simple because they vary according to the details of the situation. For example:

If I go next door and borrow a silver soup tureen, it goes without saying that I am expected to return it as soon as my immediate need for it is over: that is not an issue and gives rise to no problem. If, however, it is a pistol that I borrow and if, while it is in my possession, the owner becomes violently enraged and threatens to kill one of his neighbors as soon as he gets back the pistol, I shall find myself in a genuinely problematic situation. I cannot escape from it by lamely invoking the general maxim that borrowed property ought to be returned promptly.¹⁹

An analytic argument will not solve this problem because no universal, absolute principle exists that will allow us to resolve it.

Jonsen and Toulmin use the abortion issue as an example of a controversy that cannot be resolved by an analytic argument. They claim that the activists in the abortion controversy have focused their public rhetoric on "universal laws and principles, which they could then nail to their respective masts."²⁰ By focusing on analytic argument and absolutism, Jonsen and Toulmin argue, these activists have made the abortion debate unresolvable.

The absolutist position is seen in the belief that the syllogism is the only appropriate way to substantiate claims to knowledge. The syllogism is a method of reasoning that produces absolute knowledge from the combination of two premises. A classic syllogism is the one that combines the major premise, "All people are mortal," with the minor premise, "Socrates is a person," to arrive at the conclusion "Socrates is bound to die." In addition to Toulmin's objections to the absolutist nature of this type of logic, he is able to point to several technical confusions in syllogistic logic. Although many of his objections to the syllogism are beyond the scope of our interest, through a complex analysis of logic, he shows how what formal logicians call "premises" actually serve different functions and thus cannot satisfactorily be grouped together.²¹

One of the most fundamental concepts in Toulmin's perspective is that of argument fields. Practical argument, he asserts, is a tool that is used in a variety of different fields, and some aspects of arguments vary from field to field. These he calls "field-dependent" aspects of argument. Other elements of argument are the same from one field to another; Toulmin calls these elements "field invariant." Toulmin believes that the ideal of formal logic assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant. Formal logic assumes that mathematics (particularly geometry) is the standard by which arguments in all fields can be judged:

These special characteristics of their first chosen class of arguments [mathematics] have been interpreted by logicians as signs of special merit; other classes of argument, they have felt, are deficient in so far as they fail to display all the characteristic merits of the paradigm class. . . . Many of the current problems in the logical tradition spring from adopting the analytic paradigm--argument as a standard by comparison with which all other arguments can be criticized.²²

But since all fields of human activity are not based on assumptions identical to those of mathematics and geometry, logical arguments are largely irrelevant to the practical world of rationality.

Because they are derived from mathematical fields, analytic arguments are highly impersonal. The person "doing" logic is no more important to formal logic than the person "doing" mathematics is to the formula for determining the circumference of a circle, for example. In contrast, the person engaging in argument is extremely important in rational assessment in the practical world. Rational procedures, according to Toulmin, "do not exist in the air, apart from actual reasoners: they are things which are learned, employed, sometimes modified, on occasion even abandoned, by the people doing the reasoning."²³

Toulmin does not conclude that analytic logic needs to be abandoned completely; he simply sees its range of applicability as much narrower than many philosophers have claimed: "This is not to say that the elaborate mathematical systems which constitute 'symbolic logic' must now be thrown away; but only that people with intellectual capital invested in them should retain no illusions about the extent of their relevance to practical arguments."²⁴

Another reason Toulmin considers formal logic to be largely irrelevant to practical argument is that formal logic assumes concepts do not change with time. For an argument to be considered valid in formal logic, "it must surely be good once and for all."²⁵ Toulmin believes, however, that most argument fields cannot accommodate "timeless" claims to knowledge. He phrases this claim in a question to which he provides the answer: "Can one cast into a timeless mathematical mould the relations upon which the soundness and acceptability of our arguments depend, without distorting them beyond recognition? I shall argue that this cannot be done."²⁶ Even in a highly specialized science such as astronomy, the requirement that analytic arguments be "timeless" is problematic:

Consider the confident predictions of astronomers. What grounds have they for making them? A vast collection of records of telescopic observations and dynamical theories tested, refined and found reliable over the last 250 years. This answer may sound impressive, and indeed from the practical point of view, it should do so; but the moment a philosopher begins to demand entailments, the situation changes. For, in the nature of the case, the astronomers' records can be no more up-to-date than the present hour; and, as for their theories, these will be worth no more to the epistemologist than the experiments and observations used to test their adequacy--experiments and observations which, needless to say, will also have been made in the past.²⁷

One difficulty with the application of absolutism to practical problems is that answers are either "correct" or "incorrect" instead of "probably correct" or "probably incorrect." Many of the questions that rational procedures are designed to answer cannot be answered with certainty. Did Lyndon Johnson lie to the American public when he claimed the United States was winning the war in Vietnam? Did George Bush lie to the American public when he said, "Read my lips--no new taxes"? These answers are probably, but not certainly, yes.

But the difficulty goes beyond philosophical speculation about truth and falsity or right and wrong. Because analytic arguments are used to analyze situations that are properly the domain of substantial arguments, many of our social debates, such as the abortion controversy, are not resolvable. Jonsen and Toulmin claim that "the zealot's concentration on universal and invariable principles" has condemned us to a "practical deadlock" from which we cannot escape.²⁸

Since Toulmin considers absolutism to be in the mainstream of modern thinking, he voices greater objections to it than he does to relativism. Before reviewing an historical account of the theoretical and practical arguments, however, we will look briefly at Toulmin's objections to relativism.

Objections to Relativism. Toulmin's general objection to absolute standards of argument is that they are so strict that they are irrelevant to the practice of rational criticism. On the other hand, his objection to relativistic standards of argument is that they are so relative that they constitute no standards at all. The field of anthropology is one that has been tempted to go in the direction of relativism since anthropologists noticed that rational arguments vary from culture to culture. According to Toulmin, these relativistic standards preclude anthropologists from developing adequate standards of judgment:

If a tribe with a long tradition of sympathetic magic insists on using homeopathic medicines in preference to antidotes, must the anthropologist necessarily accept this as "rational" behavior? No doubt, the members of the tribe will give their own reasons for doing so--reasons which seem to them good and sufficient--yet in judging the adequacy of those procedures, what attitude should the anthropologist himself adopt? Confronted by this question, anthropologists were for a long time tempted to change the subject. It was easier to take the relativist way out: of considering only what was regarded as rational by any particular tribe, and avoiding the question whether that attitude was sound or unsound, well-founded or groundless.²⁹

Toulmin's concern, then, is that a completely relativist point of view provides no basis for distinguishing between a good or a poor argument. Toulmin's historical account of argument helps clarify his positions and consequent perspectives.

A Historical Account of Theoretical and Practical Argument

If the absolutist position out of which the ideal of theoretical argument flows is irrelevant to humanity, as Toulmin suggests, why has it survived from the classical age of Greece? This is one of the questions that Toulmin pursues in Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity.

An absolutist position was held by Plato, who argued that an absolute truth could be produced by dialectic and that the rhetoric of probability as taught by the sophists was wrong. But prior to 1600, "no one questioned the right of rhetoric to stand alongside logic in the canon of philosophy; nor was rhetoric treated as a second-class--and necessarily inferior field."³⁰ During the Renaissance period, the realm of the theoretical and the practical both were regarded as legitimate. According to Toulmin, "theoretical inquiries were balanced against discussions of concrete practical issues, such as the specific conditions on which it is morally acceptable for a sovereign to launch a war, or for a subject to kill a tyrant."³¹ The context in which these discussions were held legitimated the place of rhetoric in human affairs.

Since the end of the Renaissance, most philosophers have been committed to abstract, universal theory to the exclusion of practical issues. A shift occurred "from a style of philosophy that keeps equally in view issues of local, timebound practice, and universal, timeless theory, to one that accepts matters of universal, timeless theory as being entitled to an exclusive place in the agenda of 'philosophy.'"³² Toulmin's thesis is that the doctrine of absolutism that persisted throughout the entirety of the Modern Period resulted from the "'theory-centered' style of philosophizing--i.e. one that poses problems, and seeks solutions stated in timeless, universal terms"³³ advocated by René Descartes.

The story of the dominance of absolutism begins with an assassination. Assassinations of public figures frequently have affected the course of history, and the assassination of Henri IV of France in 1610 was no exception. During the reign of Henri IV, the conflict between the French Catholics and Protestants was becoming intolerable. Because Henri IV wanted to build a kingdom that balanced Catholicism and Protestantism, he was perceived as the only person who had any chance of resolving the situation. Toulmin suggests that "Henri's murder came as the final confirmation of people's worst fears. His disappearance from the scene dashed the last hope of escaping from irresoluble conflicts."³⁴ After his murder, the tide turned against religious pluralism, and the Thirty Years' War ensued.

The Thirty Years' War created so much uncertainty in Europe that an escape was needed. Toulmin noted that "if uncertainty, ambiguity, and the acceptance of pluralism led, in practice, only to an intensification of the religious war, the time had come to discover some rational method for demonstrating the essential correctness or incorrectness of philosophical, scientific, or theological doctrines."³⁵ Descartes, a young student at La Fleche, was to be the one who would provide that method.

Descartes' ideas resulted from the historical context in which he lived, which included both the assassination of Henri IV and the Thirty Years' War. The latter was a major catastrophic event that lasted most of Descartes' adult life, beginning when he was in his early twenties and ending only two years before his death. Descartes' attempt to avoid relativism and skepticism involved finding a "single certain thing," the cognito, that made certainty possible. Toulmin notes that "fifty years later, for a generation whose central experience was the Thirty Years' War, and a social destruction that had apparently become entirely out of hand, the joint appeal of geometric certainty and 'clear and distinct' ideas helped Descartes' program to carry a new conviction."³⁶ Descartes' position had such influence on intellectual thought in Europe that it lasted well into the twentieth century.

In the twentieth century, almost as quickly as the Renaissance was transformed into modernity, the scaffolding of modernity was dismantled and foundation for the Post-Modern Period was begun. In Toulmin's words,

The intellectual and cultural situation in Europe and North America was just as deeply transformed, between the 1920s and the 1970s, as it was from the 1590s to the 1640s, but in reverse. . . . By 1910 . . . [the authority of the Modern Period] was weakening, but its grip outlasted another thirty years of warfare among the nations of Europe, and people were ready to suspend the Quest for Certainty, acknowledge the demolition of modern cosmopolis, and returned belatedly to the humane and liberal standpoint of the late Renaissance, only when the Second World War was well behind them.³⁷

Toulmin draws numerous interesting parallels between the beginning and ending of the Modern Period. In fact, as the assassination of Henri IV ushered in modernity, Toulmin claims that the undoing of modernity "was framed by a new emblematic assassination"³⁸--the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

One result of the ideas that dominated the Modern Period, according to Toulmin, was that philosophy made very little progress during these 300 years. He claimed that:

the formal doctrines that underpinned human thought were practiced from 1700 on followed a trajectory with the shape of an Omega, i.e. After 300 years we are back close to our starting point. Natural scientists no longer separate the "observer" from the "world observed", as they did in the heyday of classical physics; sovereign nation-states find their independence circumscribed; and Descartes' foundations ambitions are discredited, taking philosophy back to the skepticism of Montaigne.³⁹

In summary, an approach to philosophy was born that had no place for a rhetoric based in probability rather than certainty; this philosophy continued for three hundred years, ending only mid-way through this century. Such is Toulmin's historical account of why the philosophical community settled on an absolutist, theoretical approach to philosophizing that was to last until approximately the 1950s. Since we have accepted universalist rules and principles as central to all aspects of human knowledge and values, "no middle way can be found between absolutism and relativism."⁴⁰ Of course, Toulmin's job is not complete until he provides just such a middle ground, and that is the topic we will consider in the next section.

In order to avoid the dilemma of absolutism versus relativism, Toulmin proposes to study how concepts change and how those conceptual changes are judged to be worthy or not worthy in particular fields. Thus, Toulmin analyzes practical arguments in various disciplines, ranging from the physical sciences to ethics, in order to develop a position between the extremes of absolutism and relativism.

Elements of Practical Argument

As we saw in the previous section, Toulmin believes that the contest between absolutism and relativism was decided in favor of absolutism, a situation that he finds less than desirable. The solution, he believes, is not to return to complete relativism but to find a middle road between these two extremes. Between the years of 1958 and 1990, Toulmin has authored or co-authored four books, each of which has something to say about this goal. All four are connected in their concern for practical rather than theoretical argument and in their concern for contextualized rather than decontextualized analysis. In this section, we will discuss Toulmin's layout of argument, his evolutionary model of conceptual change, his analysis of modern casuistry, and his hope for humanizing modernity.

Layout of Argument

The element of Toulmin's theory that is most well known is his layout of practical argument, which he believes avoids formal logic without resorting to relativism.⁴¹ This layout of argument was developed from his concern for the justificatory function of substantive argumentation.⁴² The primary use of substantive arguments is to justify claims rather than to infer claims from evidence. Justification is a retrospective activity, while inference is a prospective one. In other words, justification of a claim involves producing reasons for a claim after the fact of arriving mentally at that claim. Inference, on the other hand, refers to the uses of reasons to arrive at a claim and is the province of analytic argumentation. From the perspective of justification,

reasoning is less a way of hitting on new ideas for that we have to use our imaginations--than it is a way of testing and sifting ideas critically. It is concerned with how people share their ideas and thoughts in situations that raise the question of whether those ideas are worth sharing. It is a collective and continuing human transaction.⁴³

Even in the sciences, where one of argument's functions is discovery (or inference), justification plays an important role in argument. "The making of discoveries," Toulmin claims, "may be one facet of the scientist's professional work, but the justifying of his discoveries--by the presentation of 'acceptable' supporting arguments--is another, complementary facet of this same work."⁴⁴

The idea that the function of argument is justification leads Toulmin to discuss the standards by which arguments succeed or fail to provide justification for claims. An argument is sound if it is able to survive the criticism offered by those who participate in the rational enterprises of various fields. In his words, a "sound argument, a well-grounded or firmly-backed claim, is one which will stand up to criticism, one for which a case can be presented coming up to the standard required if it is to deserve a favourable verdict."⁴⁵

Because Toulmin perceives justification as critical in argument, a prerequisite to comprehending Toulmin's approach to the layout of argument is his consideration of modal terms. Modal terms are terms that frequently occur in arguments, such as "possible," "probable," "impossible," "certainly," "presumably," "as far as the evidence goes," or "necessarily." Toulmin claims that modal terms are characterized by two different aspects--"force" and "criteria." The force of an argument refers to the strength or power of the claim. The claim that a person who jumps from a tall building certainly will hit the ground has a greater degree of force than the claim that a person taking an airline trip from New York to Los Angeles probably will survive the trip or that a person reading this book possibly will find it interesting. The first claim has a higher degree of certainty than the last two claims. Criteria for an argument refer to the standards used to justify the claim. As we have indicated, the standards used to judge the adequacy of a work of abstract art are not the same standards as those used to judge the adequacy of a scientific theory or the wisdom of the President's speech. According to Toulmin, a modal term's force is "field invariant," while its criteria are "field dependent."⁴⁶ Arguments from various fields may carry similar force, but the criteria for assessing them differ greatly.

To better explain "field variant" and "field dependent," we will examine Toulmin's notion of "argument fields."⁴⁷ While other perspectives assume that arguments are the same regardless of the field, Toulmin argues that some elements of argument differ from one field to another. One of the questions Toulmin pursues is which aspects of arguments are field dependent and which are field invariant. In what ways, for example, is an argument designed to justify the conclusion that Picasso was a great artist similar to an argument designed to justify the claim that liberty is a more important value than life, or that Darwin's theory of evolution is a useful explanation for the existence of human life on the planet Earth? In other words, Toulmin is searching for ways to explain how some portions of arguments remain the same, regardless of field, while other portions of arguments vary from field to field. While formal logicians believe the criteria for judging the adequacy of arguments should be the same, regardless of field, Toulmin disagrees:

As we move from the lunch counter to the executive conference table, from the science laboratory to the law courts, the "forum" of discussion changes profoundly. This kind of involvement that the participants have with the outcome of the reasoning is entirely different in the different situations and so also will be the ways in which possible outcomes of the argument are tested and judged.⁴⁸

Arguments vary from field to field in a variety of ways.⁴⁹ Some arguments vary according to the degree of formality required in different fields. The degree of formality in an argument between film critics such as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert about the quality of My Left Foot is much less than that of an argument between defense attorney F. Lee Bailey and the prosecutor about the admissibility of lie-detector evidence. Arguments also differ according to the degree of precision required in different fields. The amount of precision in an argument about theoretical physics is much greater than that in an argument concerning which applicant for a job is more qualified. Fields of arguments also differ with regard to the modes of resolution that are required. The United States judicial system, for example, functions with an adversarial mode of resolution, where one party wins and the other loses. Negotiation between labor and management, on the other hand, uses a compromise or consensus mode of resolution. These are a few of the ways in which practical argument differs from one field to another.

According to Toulmin, one of the ways that arguments do not vary from field to field is that they all may be analyzed according to his layout of argument.⁵⁰ This layout is based on an analog of motion: "an argument is movement from accepted data, through a warrant, to a claim."⁵¹ Making an argument is, therefore, analogous to taking a trip. One is trying to "get someplace" from "someplace else." We will pursue this analogy further as we explore the different parts of his layout.

Toulmin's layout of an argument involves six interrelated components. The first three components, the most basic elements, are claim, grounds, and warrant. The next three components--backing, modal qualifier, and rebuttal--modify the first three.

The first component is called a "claim." The claim is the conclusion of the argument that a person is seeking to justify. It is the answer to the question, "Where are we going?" The claim is the destination of the trip. Toulmin calls the second component of an argument "grounds." The grounds of an argument are the facts or other information on which the argument is based. Grounds provide the answer to the question, "What do we have to go on?" The grounds constitute the vehicle by which we reach the destination. The third component of an argument is called the "warrant." This portion of the argument authorizes our movement from the grounds to the claim. It answers the question, "How do you justify the move from these grounds to that claim? What road do you take to get from this starting point to that destination?"⁵² The warrant assesses whether or not our "trip" from grounds to claim is a legitimate one. These three components are the primary elements of an argument, and in simple arguments, they may be the only components visible.

The three elements of Toulmin's layout can be depicted spatially as follows:

One of the examples Toulmin uses to illustrate his layout concerns a man named Harry and a claim that Harry is a British citizen:⁵³

Warrant : A man born in Bermuda will be a British Citizen

Grounds: Harry was born in Bermuda

Claim : Harry is a British Citizen

Alone, these three primary elements fail to distinguish analytic from practical arguments. We could transform, for instance, Toulmin's example into a formal syllogism:

Major Premise: A man born in Bermuda will be a British citizen.

Minor Premise: Harry was born in Bermuda.

Conclusion: Harry is a British citizen.

Three additional elements complete the layout of an argument by showing how practical arguments are contextualized and, thus, are different from analytic arguments. The first of these is called "backing." In formal logic, the major premise requires no support because it is seen as a universal principle. In practical argument, sometimes the movement called for in the warrant is not obvious; backing or additional support for a warrant may be required. While the warrant answers the question, "What road do you take?" the backing answers the question, "Why is this road a safe one?"

The next element in Toulmin's layout of an argument is called a "modal qualifier." Modal qualifiers indicate the strength of the step taken from data to warrant. Analytic arguments do not require modal qualifiers because the conclusion drawn from an analytic argument is structurally certain. Some arguments include qualifiers like "probably" or "certainly," indicating the strength of the relationship between the data and the warrant. Strength also is indicated when, for example, we hear the weather reporter give a prediction that the chances of rain are seventy percent or a scientist claim results that are significant at the .05 level of confidence. Modal qualifiers answer the question, "How certain are we of arriving at our destination?"

The final element of an argument is called the "rebuttal," which refers to specific circumstances when the warrant does not justify the claim. When using rebuttal, an arguer is presenting claims with a degree of caution. For example, the weather reporter might say that tomorrow will bring rain unless the Pacific front gets stalled over the Rocky Mountains. The rebuttal answers the question, "Under what circumstances should we decide against taking this trip?" This element emphasizes how practical argument, as opposed to analytic argument, is contextualized--how it is grounded in the specifics of the situation.

The complete diagram of Toulmin's layout of argument is as follows:

Warrant

Grounds

Modality

Backing

Rebuttal

Claim

Toulmin's example of Harry, presented earlier, is completed in the following layout:

Warrant: A man born in Bermuda will generally be a British Citizen

Backing: The following statues and other legal provisions:

Grounds : Harry was born in Bermuda

Modality : so, presumably

Claim: Harry is a British citizen

Rebuttal: Unless both his parents were aliens or he has become a naturalized American

Thus, these six elements, considered as parts of an interdependent whole, constitute Toulmin's layout of an argument. Toulmin claims his layout is based on legal argument rather than formal logic. His layout is modeled on the kind of arguments that typically occur in the courtroom.

When Toulmin first described the layout in Uses of Argument, he did not emphasize and, in fact, did not realize, the implications this layout had for the field of rhetoric. He did not recognize, for example, that his layout could be adapted to provide a model of how people communicate arguments. Only after he was introduced to rhetoricians by Brockriede and Ehninger, after he moved to the United States, and after he published Introduction to Reasoning with Rieke and Janik were the rhetorical implications of his layout of argument stated explicitly.

Evolutionary Model of Conceptual Change

The publication of Uses of Argument was followed in 1972 by Toulmin's book, Human Understanding, which presents an evolutionary model of conceptual change. Human Understanding, like Uses of Argument, shows how argument in science is conducted by practical, contextualized argument rather than by formal, analytic argument. Concepts in all fields, Toulmin claims, are constantly in a process of evolution, and argument is a part of the process of evolutionary change.

Prior to discussing his own perspective on conceptual change, Toulmin criticizes the approach of Thomas S. Kuhn, who attempts to account for conceptual change in his seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.⁵⁴ Kuhn's thesis is that concepts change when the current scientific paradigm no longer is able to provide a useful answer to questions that confront them. At such a time, Kuhn claims, a scientific revolution occurs, and new paradigms compete to replace the old. The actors in the competing paradigms are so different that they are unable to communicate clearly with one another.

Toulmin believes that Kuhn's notion of the scientific revolution continues to suffer from the earlier problems of relativism since concepts are not comparable from one paradigm to another. In contrast to Kuhn, Toulmin claims:

The merits of intellectual "revolutions" cannot be discussed or justified in rational terms--since no common set of procedures for judging this rationality are acceptable, or even intelligible, to both sides in the dispute. So the considerations operative within a revolutionary change must apparently be interpreted as causes or motives, rather than as reasons or justifications.55

As opposed to Kuhn, Toulmin believes that conceptual change is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and that scientists from competing paradigms are able to--and, in fact, do--argue about the merits of the competing ideas:

The so-called "Copernican Revolution" took a century and a half to complete and was argued out every step of the way. The world-view that emerged at the end of this debate had--it is true--little in common with earlier pre-Copernican conceptions. Yet, however radical the resulting change in physical and astronomical ideas and theories, it was the outcome of a continuing rational discussion.⁵⁶

Toulmin believes that concepts develop according to a pattern of evolution in much the same way that organisms evolve biologically. In fact, he uses Darwin's model of biological evolution to explain conceptual evolution. The development of concepts involves two processes: innovation and selection. Innovative factors account for the appearance of variations in populations of plants and animals as well as for the appearance of variations in scientific theories, while selective factors account for the perpetuation of the healthiest plants and animals and the soundest scientific theories.

Innovation occurs when professionals in a particular discipline come to view their concepts in ways that differ from those in which concepts traditionally have been viewed. These innovative concepts then are subjected to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin calls a "forum of competition." This "forum of competition" involves the process of selection. The ideas that survive the competition are selected as replacements for or revisions of the traditional concepts. As Toulmin explains, "suitable `forums of competition' . . . [must exist] . . . within which intellectual novelties can survive for long enough to show their merits or defects; but in which they are also criticized and weeded out with enough severity to maintain the coherence of the discipline."⁵⁷

In science, the selection process includes both disciplinary and professional aspects. The disciplinary aspects of a science--the ideas and objects of the science--insure evolution as old theories no longer are able to offer adequate explanations for those objects of that science. These disciplinary concerns do not comprise, however, all of the factors involved in the evolution of ideas. Professional factors that influence evolution include such things as the political nature of professional organizations, the needs of society for the "products" of the particular science, and the organization and editorship of journals for publishing scholarly work. Toulmin explains these professional factors:

Individuals and organizations in fact exercise as real a power and influence over the development of science as they do in any other sphere of human life. Correspondingly, the roles, offices, and positions of influence within a scientific profession are worth fighting for--and are, in practice fought for--as singlemindedly, methodologically, and even deviously, as in any other sphere.⁵⁸

Thus, an event like the nature of the person elected to office in a professional organization can affect the development of concepts in that scientific discipline. Toulmin claims that these selection processes are rational when "rational enterprises" provide forums of criticism for ideas that are neither absolute nor relative. In the court of rationality, clear-headed people

with suitable experience are qualified to act as judges or jurors. Within different cultures and epochs, reasoning may operate according to different methods and principles, so that different milieus represent (so to say) the parallel "jurisdictions" of rationality. But they do so out of a shared concern with common "rational enterprises," just as parallel legal jurisdictions do with their common judicial enterprises.⁵⁹

As concepts change from one period of time to another or from one culture to another, they are either "valid" or "invalid" from an absolutist point of view. From a relativistic approach, one concept is neither better nor worse than a competitive concept from a different culture or milieu. From Toulmin's perspective, such "evaluations are always a matter of comparison. The operative questions are never of the form, `Is this concept uniquely "valid" or "invalid"?'. . . Instead, the operative form is `Given the current repertory of concepts and available variants, would this particular conceptual variant improve our explanatory power more than its rivals?'⁶⁰

The fact that Toulmin's approach to argumentation does not distinguish absolutely between the "valid" and "invalid" might lead some to the conclusion that he believes that the rational evaluation of ideas is purely subjective and thus not rational at all. Toulmin disputes this view by introducing a concept he calls the "impartial rational standpoint." The impartial rational standpoint is a significant part of Toulmin's attempt to explain how concept evaluation can be objective without falling prey to the criticisms of absolutism. The impartial rational standpoint is, in his words, "an `objective one,' in the sense of being neutral as between the local and temporary views of different historico-cultural milieus; but its conclusions are always subject to reconsideration, and it does not divorce itself from the actual testimony of history and anthropology."⁶¹ It is, thus, simultaneously objective and contextual; it is objective in the sense of being neutral and contextual in the sense of considering the relevant facets of history and anthropology. The evolutionary model of argument, then, is Toulmin's attempt to explain how "rational enterprises" evaluate concepts through a process of criticism and evaluation of those concepts. Toulmin claims that through such a process, persons are able to achieve an "impartial standpoint of rationality."

The Revival of Casuistry

By reviving casuistry, or case ethics, Toulmin believes we will find a path between the extremes of absolutism and relativism. Casuistry, widely used in the medieval and Renaissance times, fell into disrepute during the Modern Period but is being revived in the Post-Modern Period.⁶² In The Abuse of Casuistry, Jonsen and Toulmin show how the process of casuistry was an effective form of practical argumentation in Medieval and Renaissance times: "Human experience long ago developed a reasonable and effective set of practical procedures for resolving the moral problems that arise in particular real-life situations. These procedures came to be known as `casuistry' and those who employed these procedures were `casuists.'⁶³

Casuistry is a procedure used to resolve moral problems without resorting to analytic argument. An analytic approach to moral problems begins by specifying absolute moral principles and then applying a specific case to the principle. If the sanctity of life is an absolute moral principle and if abortion involves the taking of a life, then abortion is immoral. The approach of casuistry is different. Casuistry begins by using what Jonsen and Toulmin call "type cases" or "paradigm cases" as objects of reference in moral arguments. These type cases create an initial presumption of moral action for cases which do not contain exceptional circumstances. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case in an attempt to determine whether the specifics of the individual case are comparable to the type case.

Type cases serve as the final objects of reference. For instance, "willfully using violence against innocent and defenseless human beings, taking unfair advantage of other people's misfortunes, deceiving others by lying to them, damaging the community by your disloyalty, and acting--in general--inconsiderately toward your fellows" were type cases in the classical period of Greece and Rome and continue to be so today. In casuistry, "these type cases are the markers or boundary stones that delimit the territory of `moral' considerations in practice."⁶⁴ Using the type case of willful violence against the innocent, we can see how willful violence against a child is easily called into question on moral grounds. Thus, the type case is the starting point for a moral discussion.

In some cases, additional facts surrounding the context may refute the presumption of the rules embedded in the type case. Jonsen and Toulmin discuss three problematic examples: first, the situation when the type case fits the individual case ambiguously; second, the situation when two or more type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; and third, the situation when an individual case is so unprecedented that it defies resolution in terms of existing type cases. In each of these cases, analytic argument is inappropriate because the universal moral principle, like the type case, fits the situation only ambiguously, clashes with another universal moral principle, or does not apply at all to the situation. We will present one case that illustrates both the first and second examples and then will present a second case to illustrate the third.

The first and second situation that Jonsen and Toulmin discuss can be illustrated by their example of a specific situation occasionally faced by a doctor in a neonatal intensive care unit. Medical science has developed to the point that we now have the technical capacity to maintain the breathing of very small, premature infants who, a few years ago, certainly would have died. This doctor is faced with deciding whether Nancy, a very premature infant, should be treated or should be allowed to die without treatment. The procedures that the doctor will have to follow will have certain serious side effects; even if Nancy survives, she may live a lifetime of physical pain, or she may be seriously handicapped.

We will choose as a type case that of terminally ill patients who have asked to have their treatments discontinued. The comparison of this type case to the specific case of Nancy illustrates Jonsen and Toulmin's first example of a problematic moral case because Nancy's case fits the type case ambiguously. Certainly, the question faced in Nancy's case is similar to the one doctors face in the cases of these terminally ill patients. Should Nancy be treated, or should she be allowed to die? Should these terminally ill patients be forced to endure weeks of pain and suffering associated with being tied to mechanical life-support systems, or should they be allowed to die?

Since the type case selected to resolve this dispute involves the presumptive rule that a physician should "mercifully refrain" from saving the life of a terminally ill patient who has asked to die, the type case fits Nancy's case ambiguously--the primary difference being that Nancy, unlike terminally ill patients, has no way of telling us whether she would prefer to have her life prolonged or would prefer to be allowed to die. Many other ambiguities exist, such as the fact that as an infant, Nancy cannot reflect on her physical pain nor can she anticipate the duration of suffering ahead of her. Terminally ill patients, on the other hand, may be fully cognizant and reflective about their painful physical circumstances.

Nancy's case also can be used to illustrate Jonsen and Toulmin's second example of a problematic moral case. This second example occurs when two different type cases apply to the specific case in conflicting ways. The first type case--the type case we have just discussed--involves the presumptive rule that a doctor should not take extraordinary measures to save the lives of those patients who choose death over further pain and suffering. The second type case involves a contrary presumptive rule stated in the doctor's oath to "act to preserve life." These two paradigms or type cases apply to Nancy's example in competing ways. The first suggests that the doctor let Nancy die; the second suggests that the doctor attempt to save Nancy's life. To make the situation even more difficult, Congress recently has passed legislation that categorizes "withholding care from the newborn" as "child abuse." Thus, a third paradigm is introduced into Nancy's situation. The dilemma posed when two or more type cases apply to a specific case in conflicting ways is solved not by analytic argument but by personal decision: which type case best fits the specific situation and under what circumstances should the rules of the type case be set aside?

The third problematic situation involves a moral discussion that is so unprecedented that no paradigm exists to resolve it. Jonsen and Toulmin's example concerns a man married for eight years with three children. He decides to have hormone therapy and a sex-change operation. This case raises many interesting and unprecedented issues, not the least of which is whether or not this man and his wife still have mutual sexual obligations.

Each of these problematic situations must be resolved by practical argument rather than by analytic argument. In Jonsen and Toulmin's words:

The heart of moral experience does not lie in a mastery of general rules and theoretical principles, however sound and well reasoned those principles may appear. It is located rather, in the wisdom that comes from seeing how the ideas behind those rules work out in the course of people's lives: in particular, seeing more exactly what is involved in insisting on (or waiving) this or that rule in one or another set of circumstances.⁶⁵

Jonsen and Toulmin offer a model of practical argument that explains the procedures of casuistry.⁶⁶ This model, similar to the one developed in Uses of Argument, is presented below:

This model is similar to Toulmin's original layout of argument in many respects. This model has four elements rather than the original six; backing and modality are incorporated into other elements. In this model, the authors have eliminated backing by making grounds apply to the general warrant as well as to the claim. Modality, or the degree of certainty, has been incorporated into the claim, as we can see by the phrase, "presumably so." One of Jonsen and Toulmin's examples involves whether or not a person has a moral obligation to return a borrowed pistol to a man who claims that he will shoot his wife as soon as he gets the pistol back. The grounds in this case involve data from the context of the particular situation. In this example, the warrant is a general maxim (one should return borrowed property) developed from type cases or paradigm cases. The warrant developed from these type cases is that borrowed property ought to be returned. The claim, a provisional conclusion about the present case, is that he ought to return the pistol. But this argument hinges on the rebuttal, where the differences in the specific case and the paradigm case are considered. Thus, the procedures of casuistry involve the interaction of a general warrant developed from a paradigm case, data based on the particulars of the present case, and rebuttals concerning exceptional circumstances that exist in the present case. The conclusion of the argument serves as a guide to future action. Jonsen and Toulmin show how the example of the borrowed pistol is analyzed using the model of practical argument:⁶⁷

Jonsen and Toulmin claim that since the 1960s, casuistry has been revived:

[I]n the practical quandaries of everyday life, the use of case analysis continues uninterrupted. Friends and colleagues, psychotherapists and agony columnists, parents and children, priests and ministers: anyone who has occasion to consider moral issues in actual detail knows that morally significant differences between cases are as vital as their likenesses.⁶⁸

Since the 1960s, they claim, discussion of issues of professional ethics in fields such as medicine, business, and law has begun using the methods and principles of casuistry. In addition, "the 1960s and 1970s saw people enter the moral debates about medicine, legal practice, social policy, nuclear war, and a half a dozen such problems." These debates, they maintain, always return to the particular situation in which a person faces a moral problem, rather than returning to universal moral principles. In summary, their claim is that "our inquiry confirms what Aristotle taught long ago: that ethical arguments have less in common with formal analytic arguments than they do with topical or rhetorical ones."⁶⁹

Humanizing Modernity

In order to humanize modernity, Toulmin believes that we need to "balance the hope for certainty and clarity in theory with the impossibility of avoiding uncertainty and ambiguity in practice."⁷⁰ This process, already well underway in science and beginning in philosophy, does not involve tossing out all of the progress that was made during the Modern Period; it involves reconciling these advances with humanism. As Toulmin states: "We are not compelled to choose between 16th-century humanism and 17th-century exact science: rather, we need to hang on to the positive achievements of them both." The task, therefore, is neither to reject modernity nor to cling to it in its historic form: it is "rather, to reform, and even reclaim, our inherited modernity, by humanizing it."⁷¹

Toulmin believes that the process of humanizing modernity is well underway in the sciences. Today's sciences, Toulmin believes, "are deeply grounded in experience; while, increasingly, their practical use is subject to criticism, in terms of their human impact."⁷² The lines dividing the moral from the technical and the applied from the pure have become less and less distinct. As evidence, he cites the changing in the consciousness of the physicists who worked to produce the atom bomb at White Sands Missile base in New Mexico: "The immediate consequence of this change was the founding of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which still gives a monthly, transnational nongovernmental commentary on the politics of nuclear weapons and related topics."⁷³ The humanization of the sciences is, he suggests, responsible for bringing questions about ecology to center stage.

If science can be humanized, then so can philosophy. Today, matters of life and death challenge philosophers--specifically, problems of nuclear war, medical technology, and the claims of environment that cannot "be addressed without bringing to the surface questions about the value of human life, and our responsibility for protecting the world of nature, as well as that of 'humanity.'"⁷⁴

Toulmin claims that modernity will focus on four elements that were elements of focus prior to the seventeenth century's turn from humanism to rationalism. These elements, which largely were considered unimportant during the Modern Period, are the oral, the particular, the local, and the timely. For our purposes, the oral is the most important of these four elements, so we will discuss it more fully than the other three.

The oral was rejected by modern philosophers; the scholarly focus was on the printed page. This came from the desire of literary critics "to isolate literary works, as products, from facts about historical situations and personal lives of their authors, as producers--i.e., to decontextualize the text." Prior to the 1950s, philosophical analysis rejected the oral for the written because logical propositions, and hence rationality, were analyzed more easily in written form. But since the 1950s, Toulmin claims, "questions about oral utterances have displaced questions about written propositions."⁷⁵ The return to the oral is, according to Toulmin, one of the reasons for the resurgence of rhetoric as an academic field since the 1950s.

In addition to the return to the oral, we are also returning to the particular, the local, and the timely. The return to the particular is signaled by the revival of casuistry, which we discussed earlier. The return to the local has caused us to reject "Descartes' belief that factual realms of human study like history and ethnography lack intellectual depth, and can teach us nothing of intellectual importance."⁷⁶ The return to the timely has meant that, in addition to addressing questions that are timeless, philosophers are concerned with questions of the here and now. In addition, the humanization of modernity brings with it "a renewed acceptance of practice, which requires us to adapt action to the special demands of particular occasions."⁷⁷

Toulmin's perspective, then, is that during the Modern Period, analytic argument replaced practical argument and absolutism replaced relativism. Toulmin argues that we need to find a path that rejects complete absolutism while avoiding total relativism. Between 1958 and 1990, he has pursued the goal of describing such a path. To date, he has argued that practical argument, an evolutionary view of science, the revival of casuistry, and the humanization of modernity demonstrate the possibility of such a path.

Responses to Toulmin

Initially, Toulmin's perspective was not well accepted by philosophers.⁷⁸

The specific responses of philosophers are beyond the scope of our discussion here since many of them deal with arguments concerning the nature of formal logic rather than rhetoric or practical logic. In general, however, philosophers believe that Toulmin has defined logic too narrowly and that if defined more broadly, it is more relevant to everyday discourse than Toulmin claims. Lewis summarizes this response: "(1) Toulmin erred in his interpretation of traditional logic, (2) his logic was not new since previous logicians had dealt with the problem and, (3) some of the concepts of his `new logic' were erroneous."⁷⁹

Despite the negative reading of Uses of Argument by philosophers, the book generally is applauded by scholars of rhetoric. One sign of Toulmin's wide acceptance among rhetoricians in the United States is the number of argumentation textbooks that have adopted the Toulmin layout in part or in whole.⁸⁰ In addition to persons interested in argumentation and debate, Toulmin's layout has gained approval from those who teach communication. For example, McCroskey shows how the Toulmin layout can be used in the basic speech course as an aid to audience analysis and speech organization.⁸¹

Bettinghaus, searching for an adequate model for argumentative speeches, claims that Toulmin is the "most adequate available model."⁸²

Others have used the Toulmin layout of argument as a way to explain the process of persuasion and attitude change. D'Angelo demonstrates that attitude theories, particularly the theory of Sherif, Sherif, and Nebergall,⁸³ can be incorporated within the Toulmin layout of argument in order to provide a more adequate approach to the study of persuasion.⁸⁴ Another attempt to integrate the Toulmin layout of argument into a theory of attitude change can be seen in Cronkhite's paradigm of persuasion.⁸⁵ Even more recently, Toulmin's approach has been shown to be relevant to argumentation in interpersonal communication. For instance, Burleson extends Toulmin's conception of warrants to show how they are applicable to social reasoning processes evident in argumentation in interpersonal interaction.⁸⁶

Not all communication scholars are equally enamored of Toulmin's ideas. Just as he has critics among philosophers, he has them among communication professionals. Trent, for example, asserts that logic still has some relevance to argument and that Toulmin's ideas should not be allowed to divorce formal logic and practical argument completely.⁸⁷ Burleson, in an article comparing Toulmin's approach to rationality with that of Habermas, finds Toulmin's "impartial standpoint of rationality" unable to accomplish the goal of avoiding the perils of both absolutism and relativism. In Burleson's analysis, Toulmin's system lapses into the relativism it was intended to avoid.⁸⁸ Anderson and Mortensen, on the other hand, applaud and extend Toulmin's idea that context-invariant forms of logic are not relevant to argument in the "marketplace."⁸⁹

Toulmin's most vocal critic in the field of rhetoric is Willard, who claims that Toulmin's approach to the analysis of argument is inadequate for building a descriptive model of argument. Willard claims that the layout contains three sources of distortion: "(1) the process of translation--translating the message into analytic premises; (2) the linguistic bias of argument models; and (3) the model's intrinsic isolation of context--both linguistic and sociopolitical."⁹⁰

Willard's claim started a debate among Kneupper, Burleson, and Willard. This debate, which extended over a series of convention papers and articles,⁹¹

has enabled Willard to create a credible attack on Toulmin's approach to argumentation as outlined in Uses of Argument. Willard claims that the study of argument ought to begin with a description of argument as a social phenomenon rather than as a prescription of ways to produce "good arguments." Without denying that prescriptions have their place, he argues that they should flow from carefully constructed descriptions of arguments. Willard believes that a substantial error in Toulmin's entire project may be that he begins with an attempt to distinguish good reasons from bad ones without first describing the nature of reason giving as a social process.⁹²

Another area of criticism of Toulmin's perspective on rhetoric concerns his concept of argument fields.⁹³ Some writers praise the concept, insisting that it "offers considerable promise for empirical and critical studies of argumentation,"⁹⁴ while others, who claim that it is of little value, retort that its "most attractive feature . . . is owed to the fact that it can be made to say virtually anything."⁹⁵

Toulmin's work has been an important aspect of rhetoric in the last quarter of a century. Despite his initial lack of awareness of the relationship of his ideas to rhetoric and lack of consensus on the validity of all aspects of his program of practical argumentation, many rhetoricians have found his ideas instrumental in allowing them to break away from the grip of formal logic. Toulmin's work, particularly his most recent ideas about casuistry and modernity, may be useful in pointing the direction to a path between absolutism and relativism.

Notes

¹See, for example, Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding: Volume 1: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 111, 313.

²Richard D. Rieke and Malcolm O. Sillars, Argumentation and the Decision Making Process (New York: John Wiley, 1975), p. 19. The fact that this statement is not included in later editions of Rieke and Sillars may be taken to indicate that they believe Toulmin's later work has taken a more direct interest in the process of communication.

³Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: Free, 1990). p. 187.

⁴Unless otherwise noted, biographic information on Toulmin was obtained from the following sources: Ann Avory, ed., Contemporary Authors (Detroit: Gale Research, 1982), p. 533; Who's Who in America, 42nd ed. (Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1982), II, 3354; and Jacques Cattel Pres, ed., Directory of American Scholars, 8th ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982), IV, 541.

⁵Stephen Toulmin, "Logic and the Criticism of Arguments," in James L. Golden, Goodwin F. Berquist, William E. Coleman, The Rhetoric of Western Thought, 4th ed. (1976; rpt. Dubuque: Kendall-Hunt, 1989), p. 374.

⁶Stephen Toulmin, An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950).

⁷Stephen Toulmin, The Philosophy of Science: An Introduction (London: Hutchison University Library, 1953).

⁸Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958).

⁹Toulmin, "Logic and the Criticism of Arguments," p. 375.

¹⁰Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger, "Toulmin on Argument: An Interpretation and Application," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 46 (February 1960), 4453; and Douglas Ehninger and Wayne Brockriede, Decision by Debate (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963), especially chpt. 8.

¹¹Brockriede and Ehninger, p. 44.

¹²Toulmin, "Logic and the Criticism of Arguments," p. 395.

¹³Stephen Toulmin and Allan Janik, Wittgenstein's Vienna (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973).

¹⁴Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

¹⁵Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 2.

¹⁶Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 23.

¹⁷Toulmin, Human Understanding, pp. 6566.

¹⁸Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 25.

¹⁹Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 7.

²⁰Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 3.

²¹Toulmin, Uses of Argument, pp. 10722.

²²Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 145.

²³Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 212.

²⁴Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 185.

²⁵Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 184.

²⁶Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 182.

²⁷Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 220.

²⁸Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 5.

²⁹Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 92.

³⁰Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 30.

³¹Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 24.

³²Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 24.

³³Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 11.

³⁴Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 48.

³⁵Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 55.

³⁶Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 62.

³⁷Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 16061.

³⁸Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 161.

³⁹Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 167.

⁴⁰Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 6.

⁴¹The information for this section is taken from: Toulmin, Uses of Argument, chpt. 3; and Stephen Toulmin, Richard Rieke, and Alan Janik, An Introduction to Reasoning (1979; rpt. New York: Macmillan, 1984), chpts. 27. The information in both sources is similar, although a few terms have been changed. For example, the term "data" in Uses of Argument is "grounds" in Introduction to Reasoning. Since Introduction to Reasoning is the most recent of Toulmin's writings on the subject, we have used the language of Introduction to Reasoning. This decision was not an easy one since the older source, Uses of Argument, was authored by Toulmin alone, while the more recent source was co-authored with Rieke and Janik. To determine exactly how much the thinking of Rieke has influenced the difference in these two sources is impossible, but the increased emphasis on communication in Introduction to Reasoning is probably more than coincidental.

⁴²Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 6.

⁴³Toulmin, Rieke, and Janik, p. 10.

⁴⁴Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 313.

⁴⁵Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 8.

⁴⁶Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 36.

⁴⁷Toulmin, Uses of Argument, chpt. 1.

⁴⁸Toulmin, Rieke, and Janik, p. 8.

⁴⁹Toulmin, Rieke, and Janik, chpt. 25.

⁵⁰Toulmin, Uses of Argument, p. 175.

⁵¹Brockriede and Ehninger, p. 544.

⁵²Toulmin, Rieke, and Janik, p. 26.

⁵³The content of this and all other examples of the layout of argument are from Uses of Argument, while the form is consistent with Introduction to Reasoning.

⁵⁴Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (1962; rpt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

⁵⁵Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 102.

⁵⁶Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 105.

⁵⁷Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 140.

⁵⁸Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 267.

⁵⁹Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 95.

⁶⁰Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 225.

⁶¹Toulmin, Human Understanding, p. 50.

⁶²The revival of casuistry is discussed in Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry, pp. 30432.

⁶³Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 10.

⁶⁴Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 307.

⁶⁵Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 314.

⁶⁶Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 35.

⁶⁷Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 324.

⁶⁸Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 14.

⁶⁹Jonsen and Toulmin, p. 327.

⁷⁰Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 175.

⁷¹Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 180.

⁷²Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 181.

⁷³Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 182.

⁷⁴Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 186.

⁷⁵Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 187.

⁷⁶Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 188.

⁷⁷Toulmin, Cosmopolis, p. 192.

⁷⁸For a summary of the responses of logicians, see Albert L. Lewis, "Stephen Toulmin: A Reappraisal," Central States Speech Journal, 23 (Spring 1972), 4855.

⁷⁹Lewis, p. 50.

⁸⁰For instance, see Ehninger and Brockriede, chpts. 815; Austin J. Freeley, Argumentation and Debate: Rational Decision Making (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1976), pp. 13842; Halbert E. Gulley, Discussion, Conference and Group Process (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), pp. 14654; Gerald R. Miller and Thomas R. Nilsen, Perspectives on Argumentation (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1966); Glen E. Mills, Reason in Controversy: On General Argumentation (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1968), pp. 110111; John F. Wilson and Carroll C. Arnold, Public Speaking as a Liberal Art (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1964), pp. 13942; Russell R. Windes and Arthur Hastings, Argumentation and Advocacy (New York: Random, 1965), pp. 15786; Richard D. Rieke and Malcolm O. Sillars, Argumentation and the Decision-Making Process (New York: John Wiley, 1975), pp. 1619; and Richard E. Crable, Argumentation as Communication: Reasoning with Receivers (Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1976).

⁸¹James C. McCroskey, "Toulmin and the Basic Course," Speech Teacher, 14 (March 1965), 91100.

⁸²Erwin P. Bettinghaus, "Structure and Argument," in Miller and Nilsen, pp. 13055.

⁸³Carolyn W. Sherif, Muzafer Sherif, and Roger E. Nebergall, Attitude and Attitude Change: The Social Judgement-Involvement Approach (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1965).

⁸⁴Gary D'Angelo, "A Schema for the Utilization of Attitude Theory within the Toulmin Model of Argument," Central States Speech Journal, 22 (Summer 1971), 10009.

⁸⁵Gary Cronkhite, Persuasion: Speech and Behavioral Change (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969).

⁸⁶Brant R. Burleson, "A Cognitive-Developmental Perspective on Social Reasoning Processes," Western Journal of Speech Communication, 45 (Spring 1981), 13347. See also Marcus L. Ambrester and Glynis Holm Strause, A Rhetoric of Interpersonal Communication (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1984), pp. 31015.

⁸⁷Jimmie D. Trent, "Toulmin's Model of and Argument: An Examination and Extension," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 54 (October 1968), 25259.

⁸⁸Brant R. Burleson, "On the Foundations of Rationality: Toulmin, Habermas, and the a Priori of Reason," Journal of the American Forensic Association, 16 (Fall 1979), 11227.

⁸⁹Ray Lynn Anderson and C. David Mortensen, "Logic and Marketplace Argumentation," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 53 (April 1967), 14350.

⁹⁰Charles Arthur Willard, "On the Utility of Descriptive Diagrams for the Analysis and Criticism of Arguments," Communication Monographs, 43 (November 1976), 314.

⁹¹See for instance, Charles W. Kneupper, "On Argument and Diagrams," Journal of the American Forensic Association, 14 (Spring 1978), 18186; Brant R. Burleson, "On the Analysis and Criticism of Arguments: Some Theoretical and Methodological Considerations," Journal of the American Forensic Association, 15 (Winter 1979), 13747; and Charles Arthur Willard, "The Status of the Non-Discursiveness Thesis," Journal of the American Forensic Association, 17 (Spring 1981), 190214.

⁹²Charles Arthur Willard, Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1983), especially chpt. 3; and Charles Arthur Willard, A Theory of Argumentation (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989).

⁹³See, for example, Robert Rowland, "Argument Fields," in Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation, ed. George Ziegelmueller and Jack Rhodes (Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1982), pp. 5679.

⁹⁴David Zarefsky, "Persistent Questions in the Theory of Argument Fields," Journal of the American Forensic Association, 18 (Spring 1982), 191.

⁹⁵Charles Arthur Willard, "Field Theory: Cartesian Mediation," in Dimensions of Argument: Proceedings of the Second Summer Conference on Argumentation. ed. George Ziegelmueller and Jack Rhodes (Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1982), pp. 2143.