Stephen Toulmin Dies - Philosopher who was a founding father of argumentation theory

Posted January 12th, 2010 by admin

Though Stephen Toulmin, who has died aged 87, was initially famous as one of the leading proponents of the “good reasons” approach in ethics, and went on to write about reasoning, science, philosophy of science and the history of ideas, he was ultimately better known in the US field of communication, and in computer science, than in philosophy. The Uses of Argument (1958), which inadvertently made him a founding father of argumentation theory, criticises the way that philosophers treat reasoning as a chain of time-free written propositions rather than as a practical technique used by real people in particular situations. Read more…