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.

The only book-length comprehensive study of Stephen Toulmin's influential model for the layout of arguments New essays on argument analysis and evaluation by 27 scholars from 10 countries in the fields of artificial intelligence, philosophy, psychology and speech communication Novel contributions to the theory of non-formal inferences, to the theory of defeaters, to the debate over relativism in argument evaluation, and to the classification of the components of arguments

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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.

Contenu
Reasoning in Theory and Practice.- A Citation-Based Reflection on Toulmin and Argument.- Complex Cases and Legitimation Inference: Extending the Toulmin Model to Deliberative Argument in Controversy.- A Metamathematical Extension of the Toulmin Agenda.- Toulmin's Model of Argument and the Question of Relativism.- Systematizing Toulmin's Warrants: An Epistemic Approach.- Warranting Arguments, the Virtue of Verb.- Evaluating Inferences: The Nature and Role of Warrants.- 'Probably'.- The Voice of the Other: A Dialogico-Rhetorical Understanding of Opponent and of Toulmin's Rebuttal.- Evaluating Arguments Based on Toulmin's Scheme.- Good Reasoning on the Toulmin Model.- The Fluidity of Warrants: Using the Toulmin Model to Analyse Practical Discourse.- Artificial Intelligence & Law, Logic and Argument Schemes.- Multiple Warrants in Practical Reasoning.- The Quest for Rationalism without Dogmas in Leibniz and Toulmin.- From Arguments to Decisions: Extending the Toulmin View.- Using Toulmin Argumentation to Support Dispute Settlement in Discretionary Domains.- Toulmin's Model and the Solving of Ill-Structured Problems.- Arguing By Question: A Toulminian Reading of Cicero's Account of the Enthymeme.- The Uses of Argument in Mathematics.- Translating Toulmin Diagrams: Theory Neutrality in Argument Representation.- The Toulmin Test: Framing Argumentation within Belief Revision Theories.- Eight Theses Reflecting on Stephen Toulmin.