Arguing on the Toulmin Model

Summarizing, in The Uses of Argument Toulmin emphasized a number of points that are by now familiar, but still deserve attention: 1. Reasoning and argument involve not only support for points of view, but also attack against them. 2. Reasoning can have qualified conclusions. 3. There are other good types of argument than those of standard formal logic. 4. Unstated assumptions linking premisses to a conclusion are better thought of as inference licenses than as implicit premisses. 5. Standards of reasoning can be field dependent, and can be themselves the subject of argumentation. Each of these points is illustrated by his layout of arguments. The rebuttal illustrates the first point, the qualifier the second point, and the warrant and backing the last three points. 2. RECEPTION OF TOULMIN’S BOOK As Toulmin himself notes in his essay in this volume, which was delivered as an address in 2005, his fellow philosophers we re initially hostile to the ideas in his book. They were taken up, however, by specialists in fields like jurisprudence and psychology, who found that they fit the form s of argument and reasoning that they were studying. And Toulmin’s model was embraced by the field of speech communication in the United States, whose textbooks on argumentation now include an obligatory chapter on the Toulmin model of micro arguments.

In The Uses of Argument, first published in 1958, Stephen Toulmin proposed a new model for the layout of arguments, with six components: claim, data, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, backing. Toulmin’s model has been appropriated, adapted and extended by researchers in the fields of speech communications, philosophy and artificial intelligence. The present volume aims to bring together the best contemporary reflection in these fields on the Toulmin model and its current appropriation. The volume includes 24 articles by 27 scholars from 10 countries. All the essays are newly written, have been selected from among those received in response to a call for papers, and have been revised extensively in response to referees’ comments. They are not exegetical but substantive, extending or challenging Toulmin’s ideas in ways that make fresh contributions to the theory of analysing and evaluating arguments. Collectively, they represent the only comprehensive book-length study of the Toulmin model. They point the way to new developments in the theory of argument, including a typology of warrants, a comprehensive theory of defeaters, a rapprochement with formal logic, and a turn from propositions to speech acts as the constituents of argument.