Stephen Toulmin
Encyclopedia
Stephen Edelston Toulmin (25 March 1922 - 4 December 2009) was a British
philosopher, author
, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein
, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning
. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments
which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues
. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric
for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin Model of Argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing argument
s, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication
, and in computer science
.
, England
, on March 22 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge
in 1942. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany
. 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 from Cambridge University. While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
, whose examination on the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language
shaped much of Toulmin’s own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science
at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote his first book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia
from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds
from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic
. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin’s anti-logic book" by Toulmin’s fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States
, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York
, Stanford
, and Columbia Universities
in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin’s work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London
to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas
of the Nuffield Foundation. He was married to June Goodfield
and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science
.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States
, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson
, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz
, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of concept
ual change. In this book, Toulmin uses the unprecedented comparison between conceptual change and Darwin
’s model of biological evolution to purport the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University
, to publish Wittgenstein’s Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato
’s idealized formal logic
, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 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 (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities
at Northwestern University
, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality
underlying modern science
.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia
, Dartmouth
, Michigan State
, Northwestern
, Stanford
, the University of Chicago
, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations
.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture
, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity
in rationalism
and humanism
, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational," and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown." The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past."
On December 4, 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California .
(represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato
’s idealized formal logic
, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin asserts that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To reinforce his assertion, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields; in The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin states that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called “field-dependent,” while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called “field-invariant.” The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments; in other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the “field-dependent” aspect of arguments, and becomes unaware of the “field-invariant” elements. In an attempt to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to Descartes and Hobbes, and lauds Dewey
, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology
to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism
consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular, or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely. from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments
(also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists’ theoretical arguments, Toulmin’s practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim: A conclusion whose merit must be established. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be “I am a British citizen.” (1)
Ground (Evidence, Data): A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data “I was born in Bermuda.” (2)
Warrant: A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, “I was born in Bermuda,” to the claim in 1, “I am a British citizen,” the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.” (3)
Backing: Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions as backing statement to show that it is true that “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.”
Rebuttal: Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. The rebuttal is exemplified as follows: “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy of another country.”
Qualifier: Words or phrases expressing the speaker’s degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include “probably,” “possible,” “impossible,” “certainly,” “presumably,” “as far as the evidence goes,” and “necessarily.” The claim “I am definitely a British citizen” has a greater degree of force than the claim “I am a British citizen, presumably.”
The first three elements, “claim,” “data,” and “warrant,” are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, “qualifier,” “backing,” and “rebuttal,” may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, the Goal Structuring Notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety case
s, and argument maps and associated software.
of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer
because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
(also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism
and relativism
. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance
to resolve moral issues. Although it largely fell silent during the modern
period, casuistry is being revived in the post-modern period. In The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen
to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentations during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called “type cases” or “paradigm
cases,” without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
’s account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
. Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn’s thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn’ made the relativists’ error of overemphasizing the “field variant” while ignoring the “field invariant” or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn’s revolutionary
model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin
’s model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a “forum of competitions.” The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists’ point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists’ perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin’s perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
philosopher, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and educator. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of moral reasoning
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
. Throughout his writings, he sought to develop practical arguments
Practical arguments
Practical arguments are a logical structure used to determine the validity or dependencies of a claim.See argument for uses and general information.-Overview:An argument can be thought of as two or more contradicting tree structures....
which can be used effectively in evaluating the ethics behind moral issues
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. His works were later found useful in the field of rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
for analyzing rhetorical arguments. The Toulmin Model of Argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components used for analyzing argument
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
s, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, and in computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
.
Biography
Stephen Toulmin was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on March 22 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
in 1942. Soon after, Toulmin was hired by the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior scientific officer, first at the Malvern Radar Research and Development Station and later at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. At the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1947 and a Doctorate of Philosophy from Cambridge University. While at Cambridge, Toulmin came into contact with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
, whose examination on the relationship between the uses and the meanings of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
shaped much of Toulmin’s own work.
After graduating from Cambridge, he was appointed University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
at Oxford University from 1949 to 1954, during which period he wrote his first book, The Philosophy of Science: an Introduction (1953). Soon after, he was appointed to the position of Visiting Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
from 1954 to 1955, after which he returned to England, and served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
from 1955 to 1959. While at Leeds, he published one of his most influential books in the field of rhetoric, The Uses of Argument (1958), which investigated the flaws of traditional logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
. Although it was poorly received in England and satirized as "Toulmin’s anti-logic book" by Toulmin’s fellow philosophers at Leeds, the book was applauded by the rhetoricians in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where Toulmin served as a visiting professor at New York
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, and Columbia Universities
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1959. While in the States, Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger introduced Toulmin’s work to communication scholars, as they recognized that his work provided a good structural model useful for the analysis and criticism of rhetorical arguments. In 1960, Toulmin returned to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to hold the position of director of the Unit for History of Ideas
History of ideas
The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history...
of the Nuffield Foundation. He was married to June Goodfield
June Goodfield
June Goodfield is a British scientist and writer of fiction and non-fiction.She was born at Stratford on Avon in 1927. She read zoology at Nottingham and undertook research at Oxford. She married Stephen Toulmin and collaborated with him on a series of books on the history of science...
and collaborated with her on a series of books on the history of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
.
In 1965, Toulmin returned to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he held positions at various universities. In 1967, Toulmin served as literary executor for close friend N.R. Hanson
Norwood Russell Hanson
Norwood Russell Hanson was a philosopher of science. Hanson was a pioneer in advancing the argument that observation is theory-laden – that observation language and theory language are deeply interwoven – and that historical and contemporary comprehension are similarly deeply interwoven...
, helping in the posthumous publication of several volumes. While at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
, Toulmin published Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972), which examines the causes and the processes of concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
ual change. In this book, Toulmin uses the unprecedented comparison between conceptual change and Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
’s model of biological evolution to purport the process of conceptual change as an evolutionary process. The book confronts major philosophical questions as well. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with Allan Janik, a philosophy professor at La Salle University
La Salle University
La Salle University is a private, co-educational, Roman Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the school was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. As of 2008 the school has approximately 7,554...
, to publish Wittgenstein’s Vienna, which advanced a thesis that underscores the significance of history to human reasoning: Contrary to philosophers who believe the absolute truth advocated in Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
’s idealized formal logic
Formal logic
Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...
, Toulmin argues that truth can be a relative quality, dependent on historical and cultural contexts (what other authors have termed "conceptual schemata").
From 1975 to 1978, he worked with the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, established by the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
. During this time, he collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen to write The Abuse of Casuistry
Casuistry
In applied ethics, casuistry is case-based reasoning. Casuistry is used in juridical and ethical discussions of law and ethics, and often is a critique of principle- or rule-based reasoning...
: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), which demonstrates the procedures for resolving moral cases. One of his most recent works, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990), written while Toulmin held the position of the Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, specifically criticizes the practical use and the thinning morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
underlying modern science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
.
Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Dartmouth
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is one of five campuses and operating subdivisions of the University of Massachusetts . It is located in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States, in the center of the South Coast region, between the cities of New Bedford to the east and Fall River...
, Michigan State
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
, Northwestern
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, and the University of Southern California School of International Relations
University of Southern California School of International Relations
The University of Southern California School of International Relations is the 3rd oldest school of international relations in the world...
.
In 1997 the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
(NEH) selected Toulmin for the Jefferson Lecture
Jefferson Lecture
The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."-History of...
, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. His lecture, "A Dissenter's Story" (alternatively entitled "A Dissenter's Life"), discussed the roots of modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
in rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, the "contrast of the reasonable and the rational," and warned of the "abstractions that may still tempt us back into the dogmatism, chauvinism and sectarianism our needs have outgrown." The NEH report of the speech further quoted Toulmin on the need to "make the technical and the humanistic strands in modern thought work together more effectively than they have in the past."
On December 4, 2009 Toulmin died of a heart failure at the age of 87 in Los Angeles, California .
Objection to absolutism & relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin pointed out that absolutismUniversality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
(represented by theoretical or analytic arguments) has limited practical value. Absolutism is derived from Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
’s idealized formal logic
Formal logic
Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...
, which advocates universal truth; accordingly, absolutists believe that moral issues can be resolved by adhering to a standard set of moral principles, regardless of context. By contrast, Toulmin asserts that many of these so-called standard principles are irrelevant to real situations encountered by human beings in daily life.
To reinforce his assertion, Toulmin introduced the concept of argument fields; in The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin states that some aspects of arguments vary from field to field, and are hence called “field-dependent,” while other aspects of argument are the same throughout all fields, and are hence called “field-invariant.” The flaw of absolutism, Toulmin believes, lies in its unawareness of the field-dependent aspect of argument; absolutism assumes that all aspects of argument are field invariant.
In Human Understanding (1972), Toulmin suggests that anthropologists have been tempted to side with relativists because they have noticed the influence of cultural variations on rational arguments; in other words, the anthropologist or relativist overemphasizes the importance of the “field-dependent” aspect of arguments, and becomes unaware of the “field-invariant” elements. In an attempt to provide solutions to the problems of absolutism and relativism, Toulmin attempts throughout his work to develop standards that are neither absolutist nor relativist for assessing the worth of ideas.
In Cosmopolis (1990), he traces philosophers' "quest for certainty" back to Descartes and Hobbes, and lauds Dewey
Dewey
-Places:*Dewey, Arizona*Dewey, Illinois*Dewey, Oklahoma*Dewey, Utah*Dewey Square, Boston, Massachusetts*Dewey, Wisconsin , multiple places*Dewey Beach, Delaware*Dewey County, Oklahoma*Dewey County, South Dakota*Dewey Marsh, Wisconsin...
, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Rorty for abandoning that tradition.
Humanizing modernity
In Cosmopolis Toulmin seeks the origins of the modern emphasis on universality (philosophers' "quest for certainty"), and criticizes both modern science and philosophers for having ignored practical issues in preference of abstract and theoretical issues. The pursuit of absolutismUniversality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
and theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is, in his view, one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed a thinning of morality in the field of sciences, which has diverted its attention from practical issues concerning ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
to the production of the atomic bomb. To solve this problem, Toulmin advocated a return to humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
consisting of four returns: a return to oral communication and discourse, a plea which has been rejected by modern philosophers, whose scholarly focus is on the printed page; a return to the particular, or individual cases that deal with practical moral issues occurring in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles that have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to concrete cultural and historical contexts; and, finally, a return to the timely. from timeless problems to things whose rational significance depends on the time lines of our solutions. He follows up on this critique in Return to Reason (2001), where he seeks to illuminate the ills that, in his view, universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing, among other things, the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
The Toulmin Model of Argument
Arguing that absolutismUniversality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
lacks practical value, Toulmin aimed to develop a different type of argument, called practical arguments
Practical arguments
Practical arguments are a logical structure used to determine the validity or dependencies of a claim.See argument for uses and general information.-Overview:An argument can be thought of as two or more contradicting tree structures....
(also known as substantial arguments). In contrast to absolutists’ theoretical arguments, Toulmin’s practical argument is intended to focus on the justificatory function of argumentation, as opposed to the inferential function of theoretical arguments. Whereas theoretical arguments make inferences based on a set of principles to arrive at a claim, practical arguments first find a claim of interest, and then provide justification for it. Toulmin believed that reasoning is less an activity of inference, involving the discovering of new ideas, and more a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification.
Toulmin believed that for a good argument to succeed, it needs to provide good justification for a claim. This, he believed, will ensure it stands up to criticism and earns a favourable verdict. In The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
Claim: A conclusion whose merit must be established. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be “I am a British citizen.” (1)
Ground (Evidence, Data): A fact one appeals to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in 1 can support his claim with the supporting data “I was born in Bermuda.” (2)
Warrant: A statement authorizing movement from the ground to the claim. In order to move from the ground established in 2, “I was born in Bermuda,” to the claim in 1, “I am a British citizen,” the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between 1 and 2 with the statement “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.” (3)
Backing: Credentials designed to certify the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant in 3 as credible, the speaker will supply the legal provisions as backing statement to show that it is true that “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.”
Rebuttal: Statements recognizing the restrictions which may legitimately be applied to the claim. The rebuttal is exemplified as follows: “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and has become a spy of another country.”
Qualifier: Words or phrases expressing the speaker’s degree of force or certainty concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include “probably,” “possible,” “impossible,” “certainly,” “presumably,” “as far as the evidence goes,” and “necessarily.” The claim “I am definitely a British citizen” has a greater degree of force than the claim “I am a British citizen, presumably.”
The first three elements, “claim,” “data,” and “warrant,” are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the second triad, “qualifier,” “backing,” and “rebuttal,” may not be needed in some arguments.
When Toulmin first proposed it, this layout of argumentation was based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom. Toulmin did not realize that this layout could be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Only after Toulmin published Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
Toulmin's argument model has inspired research on, for example, the Goal Structuring Notation (GSN), widely used for developing safety case
Safety case
A safety case is a structured argument that presentsevidence that is intended to demonstrate that a system issafe. More specifically, a safety case aims to showthat specific safety claims are met....
s, and argument maps and associated software.
Good Reasons approach
In Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a Good Reasons approachGood reasons approach
The Good Reasons approach is a meta-ethical theory that simply states ethical conduct is justified if the actor has good reasons for that conduct...
of ethics, and criticizes what he considers to be the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers such as A. J. Ayer
Alfred Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....
because, in his view, they fail to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving casuistryCasuistry
In applied ethics, casuistry is case-based reasoning. Casuistry is used in juridical and ethical discussions of law and ethics, and often is a critique of principle- or rule-based reasoning...
(also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of absolutism
Universality (philosophy)
In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...
and relativism
Relativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
. Casuistry was practiced widely during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
to resolve moral issues. Although it largely fell silent during the modern
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
period, casuistry is being revived in the post-modern period. In The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988), Toulmin collaborated with Albert R. Jonsen
Albert R. Jonsen
Albert R. Jonsen Ph.D., is a biomedical ethicist and author. He is Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987-1999, and currently is Co-Director of the Program in...
to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentations during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Casuistry employs absolutist principles, called “type cases” or “paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
cases,” without resorting to absolutism. It uses the standard principles (for example, sanctity of life) as referential markers in moral arguments. An individual case is then compared and contrasted with the type case. Given an individual case that is completely identical to the type case, moral judgments can be made immediately using the standard moral principles advocated in the type case. If the individual case differs from the type case, the differences will be critically assessed in order to arrive at a rational claim.
Through the procedure of casuistry, Toulmin and Jonsen identified three problematic situations in moral reasoning: first, the type case fits the individual case only ambiguously; second, two type cases apply to the same individual case in conflicting ways; third, an unprecedented individual case occurs, which cannot be compared or contrasted to any type case. Through the use of casuistry, Toulmin demonstrated and reinforced his previous emphasis on the significance of comparison to moral arguments, a significance not addressed in theories of absolutism or relativism.
The Evolutionary Model
In 1972, Toulmin published Human Understanding, in which he asserts that conceptual change is an evolutionary process. This book attacks Thomas KuhnThomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
’s account of conceptual change in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , by Thomas Kuhn, is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge and it triggered an ongoing worldwide assessment and reaction in — and beyond — those scholarly...
. Kuhn believed that conceptual change is a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticized the relativist elements in Kuhn’s thesis, arguing that mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison, and that Kuhn’ made the relativists’ error of overemphasizing the “field variant” while ignoring the “field invariant” or commonality shared by all argumentation or scientific paradigms.
In contrast to Kuhn’s revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
model, Toulmin proposed an evolutionary model of conceptual change comparable to Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
’s model of biological evolution. Toulmin states that conceptual change involves the process of innovation and selection. Innovation accounts for the appearance of conceptual variations, while selection accounts for the survival and perpetuation of the soundest conceptions. Innovation occurs when the professionals of a particular discipline come to view things differently from their predecessors; selection subjects the innovative concepts to a process of debate and inquiry in what Toulmin considers as a “forum of competitions.” The soundest concepts will survive the forum of competition as replacements or revisions of the traditional conceptions.
From the absolutists’ point of view, concepts are either valid or invalid regardless of contexts. From the relativists’ perspective, one concept is neither better nor worse than a rival concept from a different cultural context. From Toulmin’s perspective, the evaluation depends on a process of comparison, which determines whether or not one concept will improve explanatory power more than its rival concepts.
Works
- An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (1950) ISBN 0-226-80843-2
- An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (1953)
- The Uses of Argument (1958) 2nd edition 2003: ISBN 0-521-53483-6
- Metaphysical Beliefs, Three Essays (1957) with Ronald W. Hepburn and Alasdair MacIntyreAlasdair MacIntyreAlasdair Chalmers MacIntyre is a British philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and political philosophy but known also for his work in history of philosophy and theology...
- The Riviera (1961)
- Seventeenth century science and the arts (1961)
- Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961) ISBN 0-313-23345-4
- The Architecture of Matter (1962) with June GoodfieldJune GoodfieldJune Goodfield is a British scientist and writer of fiction and non-fiction.She was born at Stratford on Avon in 1927. She read zoology at Nottingham and undertook research at Oxford. She married Stephen Toulmin and collaborated with him on a series of books on the history of science...
ISBN 0-226-80840-8 - The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics (1963) with June GoodfieldJune GoodfieldJune Goodfield is a British scientist and writer of fiction and non-fiction.She was born at Stratford on Avon in 1927. She read zoology at Nottingham and undertook research at Oxford. She married Stephen Toulmin and collaborated with him on a series of books on the history of science...
ISBN 0-226-80848-3 - Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
- The Discovery of Time (1966) with June GoodfieldJune GoodfieldJune Goodfield is a British scientist and writer of fiction and non-fiction.She was born at Stratford on Avon in 1927. She read zoology at Nottingham and undertook research at Oxford. She married Stephen Toulmin and collaborated with him on a series of books on the history of science...
ISBN 0-226-80842-4 - Physical Reality (1970)
- Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts (1972) ISBN 0-691-01996-7
- Wittgenstein’s Vienna (1972) with Allan Janik
- Knowing and Acting: An Invitation to Philosophy (1976) ISBN 0-02-421020-X
- An Introduction to Reasoning (1979) with Allan Janik and Richard D. Rieke 2nd edition 1997: ISBN 0-02-421160-5
- The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (1985) ISBN 0-520-05465-2
- The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1988) with Albert R. JonsenAlbert R. JonsenAlbert R. Jonsen Ph.D., is a biomedical ethicist and author. He is Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987-1999, and currently is Co-Director of the Program in...
ISBN 0-520-06960-9 - Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (1990) ISBN 0-226-80838-6
- Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993) with Albert R. JonsenAlbert R. JonsenAlbert R. Jonsen Ph.D., is a biomedical ethicist and author. He is Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987-1999, and currently is Co-Director of the Program in...
- Beyond theory - changing organizations through participation (1996) with Björn Gustavsen (editors)
- Return to Reason (2001) ISBN 0-674-01235-6