"Stephen Toulmin" from Foss, Foss and Trapp, CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON RHETORIC

Stephen Toulmin is a professional philosopher who began his career without any interest in rhetoric, but as his career has progressed, has come to see importance of rhetoric for his ideas of philosophy. One of his first ideas was that traditional logic is incomplete as a tool of rationality, and published Uses of Argument to expand on this. His chief purpose in writing this was to relate traditional philosophical paradoxes to the standing contrast between substantive and formal aspects of reasoning and argument. His book was received poorly in England, where he was from, but in the United States, Wayne Breckriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced his work to communication scholars. They interpreted his work as being useful to scholars of rhetoric and argumentation. They said that it provided "an appropriate structured model of rhetorical arguments to be laid out for analysis and criticism, and also a system for classifying artistic proofs which employs arguments as a central and unifying construct." Throughout Toulmin's entire career, his primary interest was and continues to be questions concerning rationality of human enterprises. Three things he is most famous for are his comparison between substantial and analytic arguments, his concept of argument fields, and his layout of an argument.

Throughout his works, Toulmin has contrasted substantial and analytic arguments. The main difference he argues is that substantial, or practical arguments involves inference to data or evidence to the conclusion of the argument; but in analytic, or theoretical arguments, the conclusion is based completely on material contained in its premises. Substantial arguments base claims in context of a situation rather than in the abstract, where as analytic arguments base claims on unchanging and universal principles. Analytic argument is consistent with Plato's ideal of formal logic, meaning that regardless of context, it leads to universal truth. Substantial argument is more like the ideas of Aristotle, where matters of probability are dealt with rather than universal truths, and it varies according to context. This is also the same idea as rhetorical theory, because rhetoric deals with probable truths also.

One of the most useful concepts according to Toulmin is argument fields. These fields he says come from substantial arguments. Aspects of arguments that vary from field to field he calls field-dependent. An example using this field is extention of Randall Parkway. If we do or do not expand Randall Parkway is not a question that if wrongly answered will cause a major catastrophe. If it is done and it is bad, then sure it will be inconvenient, but it will not personally harm us. All we have to go on are the opinions of people and our intuitions of what we think will happen. We cannot say for sure that it will be a success or a failure until we actually expand it. Aspects of arguments that are the same from one field to another he calls field-invariant. This is where you have to go by the same standards in order to get the right answers. Examples of this are deciding on where to place a nuclear power plant or the FDA deciding whether or not to approve a new medicine, things that could actually have a fatal impact on people. If someone decides to put up a nuclear power plant and it malfunctions, you cannot just say oops. It would kill a lot of people. The same idea goes with the FDA. When they decide what should or should not be approved, they have to go by the same standards for everything, because if they do not, they it could be harmful to a lot of people. He says that the ideal of formal logic assumes that all arguments are field-invariant, but this is not the case. Toulmin believes that you can use analytic argument to solve mathematics and problems like this, but this type of argument is irrelevant to the practical world and everyday problems. He feels that neither absolutism nor relativism is the appropriate way to handle arguments, because there are exceptions to a lot of things. He feels that there needs to be a middle ground.

The middle ground of argument that Toulmin talks about brings about his layout of an argument. This layout's primary use is to justify claims rather than infer claims from evidence. There are six interrelated components to Toulmin's layout. The first three, claim, grounds, and warrant, are the most basic, and the next three, backing,, modal qualifier, and rebuttal modify the first three. The claim is the conclusion of the argument that a person is seeking to justify. The grounds of an argument are the facts or other information that the argument is based on. The warrant authorizes our movement from the grounds to the claim. The fourth component, backing, is used to give additional information to the warrant. The modal qualifier indicate the strength of the step taken from data to warrant. They include words such as probably and certainly. The final component is the rebuttal, which refers to specific examples where the warrant does not justify the claim. The following is an example of Toulmin's layout of an argument. BACKING The following statutes and other legal provisions: WARRANT A man born in Bermuda will generally be a British citizen GROUNDS MODALITY CLAIM Harry was born so, Harry is a in Bermuda presumably British citizen REBUTTAL Unless both his parents were aliens or he has become a naturalized American

Another path in the middle of absolutism and relativism is casuistry, or case ethics. By reviving this, Toulmin says that we could resolve moral problems without resorting to analytic argument. This type of argument can be used when the possible solutions clash with universal moral principles. An example is an extremely premature infant who is on a breathing machine with a questionable chance of survival. The decisions conflict with the universal principles, whether to keep her on life support, and if she survives, have a lifetime of physical pain and be seriously handicapped, or they can take her off and let her die. He and Jonsen, another man interested in this, came up with a practical reasoning model of dealing with these problems. The layout below is an example of the practical reasoning model. GENERAL WARRANT Borrowed objects should be returned after use. GROUNDS CLAIM I borrowed this gun I should give it and no longer have a back to the owner. use for it. REBUTTAL Except that the owner threatens to shoot his wife the moment he gets the gun back.

Toulmin is for the most part applauded by the rhetoric scholars. In addition to his layout being used by those studying argumentation and debate, it has also gained approval by those who teach communication. It has been used as a model for argumentative speeches, and has been called, the most adequate available model. His work has especially been important the last quarter of the century, and has helped rhetoricians break away from formal logic and directing a path in between absolutism and relativism.

Angela Toney,ADT4511