Digital Rhetoric
James P. Zappen
Rhetorical Theory 2a: Stephen Toulmin
A. The Structure of Argument
1. "We already have, therefore, one distinction to start with: between
the claim or conclusion whose merits we are seeking to establish
(C) and the facts we appeal to as a foundation for the claim—what
I shall refer to as our data (D)." (97)
2. "Supposing we encounter this fresh challenge [not 'What have you got
to go on?' but 'How do you get there?'], we must bring forward not
further data, for about these the same query may immediately be raised
again, but propositions of a rather different kind: rules, principles,
inference-licenses or what you will, instead of additional items of
information . . . . Propositions of this kind I
shall call warrants., to distinguish them from both conclusions
and data." (98)
3. "Unless, in any particular field of argument, we are prepared to
work with warrants of some kind, it will become impossible in
that field to subject arguments to rational assessment. The data we
cite if a claim is challenged depend on the warrants we are prepared to
operate within that field, and the warrants to which we commit
ourselves are implicit in the particular steps from data to claims we
are prepared to take and to admit." (100)
4. "Harry was born in Bermuda [D] So, presumably [Q], Harry is a British
subject [C] Since A man [i.e., person] born in Bermuda will generally
be a British subject [W] On account of The following statutes and other
legal provisions [B] Unless Both his [or her] parents were aliens/he
has become a naturalized American/ . . . [R]." (104-5)
Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1958), 97-98, 100, 104-5.
Latest Update: 2011-09-26
