Stephen Toulmin
Stephen Edelston Toulmin (born
March 25,
1922) is a
British philosopher,
author, and
educator. Influenced by the
Austrian philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Toulmin devoted his works to the analysis of
moral reasoning. Throughout his writings, he seeks 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
arguments, was considered his most influential work, particularly in the field of rhetoric and
communication, and in computer science.
Life
Stephen Toulmin was born in
London,
England, on March 25, 1922 to Geoffrey Edelson Toulmin and Doris Holman Toulmin.
(1) He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from
King’s College 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. In fact, Toulmin’s doctoral dissertation, "An Examination of the Place of
Reason in Ethics," applied Wittgenstein’s theories to his analysis of ethical arguments. 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.In 1965, Toulmin returned to the
United States, where he held positions at various universities through the present day. 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
conceptual 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. In 1973, while a professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, he collaborated with the historian Alan Janik 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 has held distinguished professorships at numerous universities, including
Columbia,
Dartmouth,
Michigan State,
Northwestern,
Stanford, and the
University of Chicago.
As of 2007, Toulmin is
Henry R. Luce Professor of Multiethnic and Transnational Studies at
University of Southern California School of International Relations.
Meta-philosophy
Objection to absolutism & relativism
Throughout many of his works, Toulmin has pointed out that
absolutism (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. Recognizing the intrinsic flaw of
absolutism, Toulmin’s theories resolve to avoid the defects of absolutism without resorting to
relativism: relativism, Toulmin asserted, provides no basis for distinguishing between a moral or immoral argument. 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.
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
absolutism and
theoretical arguments lacking practicality, for example, is one of the main defects of modern philosophy. Similarly, Toulmin sensed the thinning 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 which consists 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 the individual cases which deal with practical moral issues that occur in daily life (as opposed to theoretical principles which have limited practicality); a return to the local, or to the 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 universalism has caused in the social sphere, discussing among other things the discrepancy between mainstream ethical theory and real-life ethical quandaries.
Argumentation
The Toulmin Model of Argument
Discovering
absolutism’s lack of 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 focuses 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 believes that reasoning is less an activity of inference involving the discovering of new ideas, but more so a process of testing and sifting already existing ideas—an act achievable through the process of justification. Toulmin believes that a good argument can succeed in providing good justification to a claim, which will stand up to criticism and earn a favourable verdict. In
The Uses of Argument (1958), Toulmin proposed a layout containing six interrelated components for analyzing arguments:
- Claim: Conclusions 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)
- Data: The facts we appeal 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: the statement authorizing our movement from the data to the claim. In order to move from the data 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 & 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 to which the claim may legitimately be applied. 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 “possible,” “probably,” “impossible,” “certainly,” “presumably,” “as far as the evidence goes,” or “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 first proposed, this layout of argumentation is based on legal arguments and intended to be used to analyze the rationality of arguments typically found in the courtroom; in fact, Toulmin did not realize that this layout would be applicable to the field of rhetoric and communication until his works were introduced to rhetoricians by Wayne Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger. Only after he published
Introduction to Reasoning (1979) were the rhetorical applications of this layout mentioned in his works.
Ethics
Good Reasons approach
In
Reason in Ethics (1950), his doctoral dissertation, Toulmin sets out a
Good Reasons approach of ethics, and criticizes the subjectivism and emotivism of philosophers like
Alfred Ayer because it fails to do justice to ethical reasoning.
The revival of casuistry
By reviving
casuistry (also known as case ethics), Toulmin sought to find the middle ground between the extremes of
absolutism and
relativism. Casuistry was practiced widely in
Medieval and
Renaissance times to resolve moral issues. Although it became 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 Jonsen to demonstrate the effectiveness of casuistry in practical argumentations during the Medieval and Renaissance periods. 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; this significance is not mentioned in the theories of absolutism nor in relativism.
Philosophy of Science
The Evolutionary Model
In 1972, Toulmin published
Human Understanding which asserts that conceptual change is an
evolutionary process. This book attacks
Thomas Kuhn’s account for conceptual change in his seminal work,
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn believed conceptual change to be a revolutionary process (as opposed to an evolutionary process), during which mutually exclusive
paradigms compete to replace one another. Toulmin criticizes the relativist elements in Kuhn’s thesis, as he points out that the mutually exclusive paradigms provide no ground for comparison; in other words, Kuhn’s thesis has 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 a 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 provide improvement to our explanatory power more so than its rival concepts.
Notes
-
[Stephen Edelston Toulmin (*62B32)'s lineage has been traced all the way back to John Toulmin (1733 - 180?) and Milcah Pooler (1754 - 1829). See Calvert-Toulmin, Bruce, (2006). Toulmin Family Home Page. Trees Obtained October 23, 2006. See also 62B32 . . : . . . . Stephen Edelston TOULMIN 1922 - Kings Coll. Cambridge (BA 1943, MA 1946, PhD 1948); Junior Sci. Offr, Ministry of Aircraft Prod. 1942-5; Fellow Kings Coll. 1947-51; Lecturer in Philosophy of Science, Oxford; acting head Dept. of History & Methods of Science, Melbourne; Prof. of Philosophy, Leeds 1955-60; Director of Nuffield Found. Unit for History of Ideas from 1960 (State Serv). Later posts in US; prof. Brandeis Univ. nr Boston (PNT), etc. A Cabinet Office file (PRO CAB124/1768) is titled "Science Policy Research Group ... correspondence with Dr Stephen Toulmin", dated November 1963 - September 1964. Author "Place of Reason in Ethics" (CUP 1950; Brit.Lib. 8412.dc.21) etc (Brit.Lib. lists 11 titles); with June Goodfield (2nd wife) of "The Fabric of the Heavens" etc. (Pelican A612, 714, 855, 1963-7). . . : . . . . =(1)Margaret Alison COUTTS 1919 - 1988 Newnham College, Cambridge (MA 1952). (Divorced; m. 2ndly, July 1966, Sir Thomas Bromley, diplomatic service - last posting: ambassador, Addis Ababa.)]
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 MacIntyre
- The Riviera (1961)
- Foresight and Understanding: An Enquiry into the Aims of Science (1961) ISBN 0-313-23345-4
- The Architecture of Matter (1962) with June Goodfield ISBN 0-226-80840-8
- The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics (1963) with June Goodfield ISBN 0-226-80848-3
- Night Sky at Rhodes (1963)
- The Discovery of Time (1966) with June Goodfield 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 0-024-21020-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. Jonsen 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. Jonsen
- Return to Reason (2001) ISBN 0-674-01235-6
External links
References
Stephen ToulminStephen Toulminスティーヴン・トゥールミンStephen E. ToulminStephen Edelston ToulminStephen ToulminStephen ToulminStephen Toulmin
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