IL30.1 Stephen Toulmin In Memoriam TB rev


     IN
MEMORIAM

 

Stephen Edelston Toulmin 
 

1922-2009 
 

We were saddened to learn of the death of Stephen Toulmin on 
December 4th, 2009, in Los Angeles, California. His passing will 
already have been noted by most of our readers. For anyone 
seeking a brief, rounded account of his life, we recommend the 
New York Times obituary notice by William Grimes: 

 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/education/11toulmin.html 

  
 In our tribute, we especially remember Toulmin’s work in 
logic—only briefly discussed in the New York Times obituary. 
Anyone associated with informal logic or who is a reader of this 
journal cannot have failed to be aware of his importance to this 
field. His The Uses of Argument (1958) is one of the seminal works 
in the development of informal logic. The approach to the analysis 
of argument he presented there has been widely influential. Many 
would agree with David Hitchcock, who has said, “the concept of a 
warrant is a major and valuable contribution to the understanding 
of the macrostructure of arguments. . . . [I]t is the most important 
contribution since Aristotle distinguished premises from 
conclusions” (Informal Logic, 18:2&3, p. 275).  
 Thirty years ago, when preparing the bibliography for the 1978 
Symposium on Informal Logic, we noted that Toulmin’s influence 
had largely been outside the logico-philosophical establishment. 
That remains true to this day. However, his influence in 
communication theory, rhetoric, law, and other areas where 
argumentation is studied, has been substantial.   
 We were honoured to have Toulmin present a keynote address 
at the Third International Symposium on Informal Logic in 1989. 
In that paper he stressed the relevance and importance of 
Aristotle’s Topics.  His most recent contribution, “Reasoning in 
Theory and Practice” appeared in Informal Logic in Vol. 24, No 2 
(2004). In it, Toulmin related the following anecdote: 
 

When my wife was taking her law courses at DePaul University 
in Chicago, the young man sitting next to her remarked her 
surname was familiar as his girlfriend was studying 
communication. My wife replied, "Oh, yes, I am married to 
him." Next week the young man came back and said, "No, my 
girlfriend said that was quite impossible. Toulmin lived shortly 
after Aristotle." I knew I was old, but not quite as old as that. 



Toulmin In Memoriam 121 

The student got her history wrong, but not her sense of theoretical 
affinity. Aristotle would have recognized the importance of 
Toulmin’s work in logic, in dialectics and in rhetoric. Unlike many 
of the intervening theorists, Toulmin remained true to the 
Aristotelian interest in this triad by addressing questions pertinent 
to problems in each of the three.  Witness the ways his ideas have 
so clearly been drawn upon and developed by contemporary 
logicians, dialecticians and rhetoricians, as well illustrated in 
Arguing on the Toulmin Model (edited by Hitchcock & Verheij, 
2006) and in The Uses of Argument: Proceedings of a conference 
at McMaster University, (edited by Hitchcock & Farr, 2005).  
 Stephen Toulmin died after a full and fruitful life. The 
informal logic community of scholars and scholarship is one of 
many that are grateful to him. He gave us his bequest while he was 
alive; we will treasure and honour it in his memory. 
 
 

J. Anthony Blair  Ralph H. Johnson 
Hans V. Hansen  Christopher W. Tindale 

 
Editors and Publishers