Knowledge and Power, Logic and Rhetoric, and Other Reflections in the T oulminian Mirror: A Critical Consideration of Stephen T oulmin' s Contributions to Composition CHRISTOPHER SCHROEDER

Persuasion drives our society. Anyone who turns on the television or travels down the interstate is barraged by images that appeal to basic human needs-like food or sex-to sell alcohol, vehicles, clothing, insurance, toys, medicines, and a host of other products. Any parent can recount endless arguments with his or her children, often punctuated by incessant "whys," in an attempt to motivate them to go to bed, take out the garbage, and the many other joys that come from childhood. And as teachers, we try to convince our students to engage in avariety of tasks: write, think, learn, respond. Arguing, I have slowly come to realize, is probably endemic to human nature. So is winning arguments. While rhetoric may have originated out of a need, it has always had strong political, as well as personal, dimensions, and these dimensions areasstrongtoday,ifnotstronger. 1 Apersonwho can argue coherently and cogently commands a considerable amount of authority in our culture, and such a person is considered to be educated, to have power, and to be capable of taking his or her requisite place in society. The fact that these powerful implications may not be as obvious makes the skills of effective persuasion, and their relationship to knowledge and power, more important. The importance of argumentation in our society is reflected by the increased emphasis upon these skills in the contemporary classroom. Charles W. Kneupper cites avarietyofreasons forthe renewed emphasis ontheteachingofargumentation, such as a broader cultural concern with rationality, an exigency for critical thinking, and a demand for more sophisticated writing skills ("Tyranny" 113). Argumentation has, as the book rep. and her boss attested, become so important that a composition textbook can be centered entirely around the acquisition of these skills. This increased emphasis upon argumentation, however, does not necessitate that teachers are capable of rising to the occasion. Many who teach composition today lack the necessary background and training in rhetoric and logic to teach

96JAC argumentation effectively. As a result, the graduate teaching assistant, the adjunct instructor trained in comparative literature, and the literature professor who, despite a specialization in Chaucer, has been placed in a composition classroom, have, out of their inadequate training and demanding schedules, as well as other political factors such as hiring practices of English departments, been forced to rely predominantly upon composition textbooks to supplement their inadequate skills. These textbooks, however, are far from helpful. 2 As Kathleen E. Welch points out, composition textbooks, which serve to train new teachers of writing and to reinforce the training of experienced teachers, present written discourse in a manner that denies contemporary composition theory (271, 269).3 One characteristic these ill-prepared teachers can count on finding in a textbook discussion about argumentation in any standard composition text is a discussion of logic, which makes sense, considering, as logicians tell us, that logic is the intellectual discipline that is devoted to analyzing arguments (Copi 3).4 Relying upon the presentation of logic in composition textbooks, however, can pose problems. As Richard Fulkerson points out, the standard textbook will tell these under- or unprepared teachers simply that deductive reasoning moves from general statements to particular cases while inductive reasoning moves from individual evidence to general conclusions (437-39). This presentation is fine and good and helpful, except for a simple, although significant, problem: this explanation, insofar as it fails to distinguish between degrees of certainty, is misleading. Unlike the average composition textbook, logicians tell us that a deductive argument is any argument in which the premises claim to offer conclusive grounds for the truth of its conclusion while an inductive argument is an argument in which the premises support their conclusion as probable (Copi 169,404). In general, composition textbooks, as Fulkerson demonstrates, are "frequently so confused and confusing" as to be virtually useless for teachers as well as students in both creating and criticizing arguments (437). To add injury to insult, there is some question as to the efficacy of studying logic in the first place. In his dissertation, William James McCleary found no evidence to suggest that studying logic has a positive effect on students'written arguments {qtd. in Fulkerson 441).5 Obviously, then, many composition teachers are at-risk without even being aware of it. Many textbook writers notwithstanding, most composition specialists realize the limited value formal logic has for teaching written argumentation, for as Aristotle and countless others have pointed out, practical arguments, which are most often utilized in written discourse, are comprised of probabilities. Some of the reasons cited for the failure of formal logic in the contemporary composition classroom are that it does not handle substance of time well, that it exists as a closed system which is not consistent with patterns of discourse, that the logical ideal of formal logic is tyrannical, that writers rarely build full categorical syllogisms in their texts, that students often use sweeping generalizations as premises, that writing deals with contingent issues in which the evidence does not entail the conclusions, that teachers usually have no specific training in formal logic, and that teachers are often discouraged to discover

The Toulminian Mirror 97 that all the class time spent on logic has failed to improve their students' written arguments (Kneupper, "Tyranny" 115, 116, 118; Fulkerson 440; Keene 193). Clearly, it is safe to question whether these needy teachers or students are going to get any help from the standard composition textbook and its oversimplified presentation of reasoning. For composition teachers, then, Stephen T oulmin has been something of a godsend. His system of substantive reasoning, commended by many as a practical pedagogical tool, has significantly simplified and humanized the life of the composition teacher and has enabled those who utilize it to present argumentation in radically simpler and more comprehensible terms. Gone are all the dreaded Squares and the Venn diagrams. Gone are all the algebraic formulas and the rules of inference. In their place is a (speciously) simple system comprised of three primary components, which mayor may not need an additional three qualifiers. Nevertheless, significant problems exist with Toulmin's system, and many of the same composition teachers who realize the limited value of formal logic are guilty of merely replacing one system, formal logic, with another, Toulmin's system, without also importing a critical analysis ofthis new approach. Perhaps the biggest concern that results from an unconditional acceptance of Toulmin's system is the system's affirmation of tacit presuppositions and assumptions about knowledge and power. As a discursive formation, Toulmin's approach encourages students to make certain assumptions about knowledge and power and about writing and the world at large that are myopic and biased. Besides implicitly affirming these epistemological prejudices, composition teachers who unconditionally accept Toulmin's system also fail to acknowledge that, as an approach to practical argumentation, it does not account for the non-logical aspects of arguments, such as affective and stylistic elements, that are integral and essential aspects, as well as opportunities, for persuasion. A more realistic assessment, then, of Toulmin's approach would, without denying the contributions it has made to the teaching of argumentation, acknowledge its extrinsic and intrinsic limitations. Such an approach would provide both teachers and students not only with an awareness of the sites of contest within this discursive approach and with legitimate rhetorical skills for arguing but also with the necessary tools for a larger critical inspection that would result in more effective, and in more informed, teachers and students. In an attempt to contextualize this discussion, it is important to begin with T oulmin himself. T oulmin's concerns center not around composition and rhetoric but around philosophy and logic. In a lecture entitled "Logic and the Criticism of Arguments," Toulmin reveals that, despite an early interest in physics, he has always been concerned with the subject of rationality. In his own words, he states, what I most wanted to find out was, how it could ever be more "rational" to accept one scientific theory, cosmology or natural philosophy rather than other: If intelligent fish learned to do science, I asked myself, must they in the long run end up with the same body of ideas as human beings? (That was, of course, an epistemological not an ichthyological question!) So when, at the end of World War II, I returned to Cambridge as a philosophy graduate student, my central interest was already what it has been ever since: viz., rationality. (265)

98 JAC Toulmin goes on to reveal that his two concerns centered around the reasons behind the function of different approaches to research, inquiry, and decisionmaking and the manner in which these functional differences affect the ways in which arguments and beliefs are evaluated in one discipline rather than another (265). Although Toulmin acknowledges his debt to traditional, and not so traditional, rhetoricians, such as Plato, Aristotle, Hermagoras of T emnos, Cicero, Boethius, Adam Smith, as well as Descartes, Kant, and Gottlob Frege, his intention for TheUseso/Argument, which he wrote in 1958, was "to relate the traditional philosophical paradoxes to the standing contrast between 'substantive' and 'formal' aspects of reasoning and argument" (266). The response to his work from philosophers, even from his colleagues in England, was far from positive (266). Two years later, his work was introduced to communication scholars by Wayne Brockriede and Doughlas Ehninger, initially through an article which appeared in the QuarterlyJournal o/Speech in February of 1960. The response from rhetoricians, interestingly enough, has been far more favorable. Nevertheless, Toulmin's training and interests center around issues other than rhetoric and composition, and composition specialists have transplanted his system without addressing the fact that this system is primarily concerned with rationality rather than with rhetoric. Toulmin presents his system of practical or substantive logic primarily in The Useso/Argument, which he wrote alone, and inAnlntroduction to Reasoning, a later work which he co-authored with Richard Rieke and Alan Janik. 6 In a chapter entitled "The Layout of Arguments" from The Uses 0/ Argument, Toulmin presents the framework of his system. This system holds that each argument has a claim ("conclusion whose merits we are seeking to establish"), which is based upon certain data ("the facts we appeal to as a foundation for the claim") and upon a warrant ("propositions of a rather different kind: rules, principles, inference-licenses or what you will, instead of additional items of information") that links the data with the claim (97-98). One of the examples that T oulmin uses concerns an argument about a man named Harry and his claim that he is a British citizen. The datum, which Toulmin offers to support this claim, is that Harry was born in Bermuda, and the warrant upon which the argument relies is that a man born in Bermuda will be a British subject. These three elements alone, however, do not distinguish Toulmin's system of practical argumentation from analytical argumentation. 7 To make this distinction between practical and analytic arguments, Toulmin presents three additional elements, which, he argues, may be present as needed: backing ("other assurances, without which the warrants themselves would possess neither authority nor currency"), rebuttal ("circumstances in which the general authority of the warrant would have to be set aside"), and modal qualifier ("the strength conferred by the warrant") (103, 101). According to Toulmin, these elements function to contextualize the argument and, as a result, constitute it as substantive. Returning to the original example, the completed, revised version of his argument is as follows: Harry was born in Bermuda (datum), so

The ToulminianMirror 99 presumably (modal qualifier) Harry is a British subject (claim) since a man born in BermudawillgenerallybeaBritishsubject (warrant) unless bothofhisparentswere aliens orunless hehas become a naturalizedAmerican citizen (rebuttal). Appropriate backing for the warrant could be: the following statutes and other legal provisions account for the fact that a man born in Bermuda will be a British citizen. To augment his system, Toulmin incorporates the concept of argument fields, whichrefersto the modes usedbyaperson to assess arguments, thestandardsofreference to which a person assesses them, and the manner in which a person qualifies her or his conclusions about them. "Two arguments," Toulmin writes in The Uses 0/Argument, will be said to belong to the same field when the data and conclusions in each of the two arguments are, respectively, of the same logical type: they will be said to come from different fIelds when the backing or the conclusions in each of the two arguments are not of the same logical type. (14)

As an example, Toulmin contrasts the standards of arguments relevant in a court of law with those standards relevant when judging a paper in a scholarly journal. To account for these differences, T oulmin makes the distinction between fieldinvariant and field-dependent elements of arguments. Field-invariant elements, he asserts, are those modes, standards of references, and manners for qualification that remain the same from field to field, and field-dependent elements of arguments are those that vary from field to field (15). Although to some these concepts may initially appear overwhelming, any investment of attention will reveal the relative ease with which this system can be presented in a composition classroom. The fundamentals are fairly easy to memorize, and the relationshipsamongthee1ementscan beepiphanousforboththeteacherandthestudent. These and other strengths of the system undoubtedly account for its widespread popularity and implementation. Despite its popularity, this system of argumentation, particularly in the way it has been embraced unconditionally by composition teachers, is instructive in what it can reveal in regards to contemporary presuppositions about knowledge and power, specifically about the position persuasion occupies in our classrooms and generally about the structure of classrooms and pedagogies as a whole. Toulmin's system is, as James L. Golden, Goodwin F. Berquist, and William E. Coleman point out, epistemic, or a way of knowing (248). As such, an analysis of this system will point towards the cultural codes that govern our approach to teaching argumentation, our classrooms, and our discipline, with its increased emphasis on argumentation. Yet before Toulmin's system is analyzed as a metalanguage, a microanalysis of his approach will help to expose the flaws in the foundation upon which the system rests. Once these limitations are clarified, the epistemological presuppositions upon which Toulmin's system builds and that it perpetuates will be easier to recognize. As it is presented formally and informally in composition classrooms, Toulmin's system of argumentation has structural problems inherent to the system. Perhaps the most troublesome of these inherent structural problems for

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the contemporary composition teacher lie within the realm oflogic. Generally, these criticisms, which are succinctly represented by the less than favorable response from logicians, center around the position that Toulminhas not made any additions to the realm of logic. s H. N. Castaneda, in an article entitled "On a Proposed Revolution in Logic," argues that Toulmin has proved none of his criticisms against traditional logic and that the new logic of The Uses 0/Argument is vague, obscure, and confusing. Specifically, Castaneda argues that Toulmin's basic model is simply two syllogisms with the warrant being the conclusion to the first, that no traditional logician would deny that major premises do require differenttypes ofsupport, and that formal logic, overtime, has encompassed awider scope of arguments than Toulmin gives it credit. In a similar manner, Joseph L. Cowan claims that Toulmin rejects the basic concepts and forms of formal logic while maintaining the principal lines along which formal logic has traditionally been presented. Likewise, J. C. Cooley argues that T oulmin, particularly in his Philosophy o/Science, has merely demonstrated the effectiveness of formal logic. Moreover, Otto Bird argues that more work has been done in the area of warrants and backing than T oulmin claims. In addition to these criticisms against the radical differences in T oulmin's system, some questions exist as to the efficacy of the model itself. Echoing Castaneda, PeterT. Manicas claims that Toulmin's model not only lacks clarity and usefulness but also makes no significant contribution to the conventional analysis of argumentation. Furthermore, Jimmie Trent, in his dissertation entitled "Stephen Toulmin's Argumentation Model as an Instrument for Criticism," concluded, after analyzing six forensic speeches with both the traditional model and the Toulmin model, that neither system is superior (qtd. in Lewis 53). As Albert L. Lewis points out, anyone who forces aparadigmconstructed out of the Toulmin model upon every instance of argumentation will face many of the same problems as those who utilize the analytic syllogism (54). Obviously, then, legitimate disagreement exists over the logical contributions of Toulmin's system, yet the criticisms are rarely acknowledged by composition teachers who advocate it. Perhaps this lack of awareness on the part of the contemporary composition teacher lies in the esoteric, almost mystical, connotations that surround reasoning and logic. In reality, Toulmin'ssystem is not asystem oflogicbut rather an elaborate system of justification. Despite demonstrating the interrelationship of the various elements of an argument, Toulmin's system, unlike deductive logic, does not provide a means for evaluation. In other words, Toulmin's system of argumentation provides, often in retrospect, the foundation fora claim but guarantees neither the validity of the claim nor the soundness of the argument. This lack of validity is an aspect that can easily be lost, particularly in the simplified system that is often presented in the contemporary classroom. For instance, this system, at the most fundamental level of claim-data-warrant, appears as if it can subsume other formsoflogic,and,in"UsingToulmin'sModelofArgumentation,"JoanKarbach argues that this (illusory) capacity is a strength. Yet when presented to students in this manner, it is actually a weakness, for from this vantage, the T oulmin system

The ToulminianMirror 101 blurs the important distinctions among these types of reasoning. This oversimplification is obvious when Karbach writes, "specious as the reasoning may be, the diagrams [i.e. in her article] nevertheless show how any kind of reasoning fits into the simple claim-grounds-warrant structure of argumentation" (85). This oversimplification is problematic at two levels. First, it is misleading about the issues of logical validity. As Karbach unintentionally identifies, Toulmin's system, when presented in such a manner, fails to distinguish between logically valid claims and probable claims. The second problem with this oversimplification, which is an ancillary to the first, is that it tends to create confusion for the average student. For example, when this system is placed side by side with induction, as sometimes happens, it can create confusion because within the T oulmin approach induction becomes an argument with instances as grounds and with a warrant that states that what is true of a sample is true of the group as a whole. 9 This warrant is so obvious, not to mention logically tenuous, that students can easily overlook it or, worse, fail to question it. Obviously, an awareness and an understanding of the distinctions between analytic and substantive reasoning is needed in order to untie this potentially tricky knot, and composition teachers must realize and must present the Toulmin approach as a way to justify, rather than to validate, claims. Another problem for the contemporary composition teacher is the inherent capacity for exploitation within Toulmin's approach. Since Toulmin's system is a system for justification instead of evaluation, it has an inherent potential for manipulation that reminds me of my approach to banking. Despite having an amateur's appreciation for mathematics, I cannot seem to manage a checkbook. Each month, the bank sends me a statement, which I dutifully record in my checkbook. Then, in order to reconcile my finances with my reported balance, I manipulate my budget, adding money to one column or subtracting money from another, depending on the need. Toulmin's system allows for a similar type of manipulation, and Gail Stygall unwittingly alludes to this in her article concerning, ironically, the ethics of argument fields. In this article, Stygall illustrates how changing the argument field, in which the backing and warrant originate, changes the data available to support the claim (98). In the example she provides in her article, Stygall reports that what was "troublesome" to her students was that they had to ignore significant amounts of data in order to justify their claims (104). In other words, her students were selective about the evidence they chose to use and, more significantly, chose to ignore in order to substantiate their claims. Deliberately ignoring significant data is an unethical way of manipulating an argument in order to arrive at a predetermined end, and such an approach is not far from the position of the early sophists of the fifth and fourth century BeE, as described (and criticized) by Plato and others. In spite of an increased awareness of the ethical issues and an increased tolerance for multiple perspectives, which is the ultimate focus of Stygall's article, Toulmin's system also has an inherent potential for exploitation. Students, in an attempt to justify their positions, can ignore certain data, as

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Stygall's did and as a student of mine who wrote an argument in favor of racism did, rather than revise their claims in light of the new data. Composition teachers need to be aware of this potential for exploitation in order to avoid teaching what amounts to sophistic forms of argumentation. Besides the logical problems and the inherent capacity for exploitation, composition teachers need to be aware of a general tendency towards relativism within the Toulmin approach. Toulmin's system, particularly in regards to the authority and legitimacy of warrants, has the potential to slip into a relativistic abyss.lo Warrants, according to Toulmin, are essentially those statements that enable us to move from the data to the claim. To the degree that the warrants are not accepted by our audience, Toulminacknowledges, support forthesepositions, which he calls backing, is needed. In the example provided by Toulmin, he offers assertions, such as statutes and legal provisions, in order to substantiate the warrant. ll By identifying the need for backing, T oulmin is implicitlyacknowledging, however accurately, the absence of universally accepted standards. Yet, it is feasible that an audience, particularly one, for instance, who refused to assent to the authority of the government, would still not accept the legitimacy of the warrant, thereby undermining the entire argument. Forthis audience, Toulmin would have to offer an additional argument that demonstrates the legitimacy ofthe backing. For the composition teacher, the nature of warrants and backing provides a distracting pitfall, for the potential exists for students to get lost ina crooked maze of justifying warrants rather than substantiating claims. In order to avoid this maze, teachers must stress the importance of audience awareness, which naturally surfaces in a discussion of warrants and backing. Obviously, the system of reasoning presented by T oulmin, particularly in the manner in which it has been interpret~d and implemented by composition specialists and in composition textbooks, has aplethoraofstructural pitfallslurking for the graduate teaching student and literature professor alike. In addition to these potential pratfalls, there are a variety of rhetorical limitations as well. Unlike the logical problems or potential for manipulation, these rhetorical limitations are essentially problems of absence or of what is not stated. Perhaps the most obvious rhetorical limitation of Toulmin's system is its failure to account for the additional aspects of the rhetorical situation. When superimposed upon Aristotle's rhetorical triangle, for instance, Toulmin's approach tends to slight orto ignore ethos and pathos. Although a meticulous teacher (or an overly indulgent student) might argue that the writer and audience figure into considerations of the warrant, particularly in terms of its credibility and legitimization, the primary focus of Toulmin's system is upon the logos, or reasoning,oftherhetoricalsituationattheexpenseoftheotheraspects. Toulmin's approach also fails to accountfor affective and stylistic appeals of persuasion,which are essential. Students who are presented with the Toulmin model are not being taught how appeals to an audience's emotions, to which Aristotle devotes a significant portion of his On Rhetoric, or how stylistic choices, as simple but as powerful as the classical distinction among plain, moderate, and grand style of

The ToulminianMirror 103 Cicero and others, can work for (or against) their claims, and composition teachers have a responsibility to provide students with as many tools or approaches as possible in order for students to present themselves and their ideas in a persuasive manner. In order to acknowledge these additional aspects ofthe rhetorical situation, teachers will have to augment Toulmin's approach with additional materials. A second rhetorical limitation with Toulmin's system is its limited applicability. First, this system cannot function as a architectonic structure for an entire discourse. On the surface, the system can deceive teachers into believing that it is applicable to an entire text, yet it is not. Instead of being applicable to an entire text, this system works best to analyze any single argument within the text itself. Most texts are comprised of a series of interrelated and, sometimes, tangential arguments that build upon one another. As a result, Toulmin's system functions better to explain "a chain of arguments" or "any single argumentative move" (Kneupper, "Teaching" 239-40; Fulkerson 446). For composition teachers, this limitation suggests thatthe Toulminmodel works best when it analyzes a portion ofan already existing text. Obviously, Toulmin's system of argumentation is not the panacea that many composition teachers (and textbooks) claim it to be. His approach has a variety of structural and rhetorical weaknesses, particularly for the uninformed and the inexperienced composition teacher. And yet all of these structural inconsistencies and rhetorical limitations-issues of presence and absence-are only minor aspects in light of larger problems inherent in Toulmin's approach to argumentation, particularly in regards to knowledge and power. As a discursive formation, the virtually uncritical acceptance and extensive implementation of Toulmin's system by composition teachers exposes a general tendency to affirm traditional approaches and assumptions about knowledge and power. As a whole, Toulmin's approach, while claiming to emphasize context particularly in regards to argument fields, nonetheless functions to obfuscate the relationship between knowledge and its larger political and social arena. Despite the radical and revolutionary claims that Toulmin makes for his system, and perhaps because of his training as a philosopher, the focus centers around the justification of a particular claim with supporting arguments instead of a consideration of what are the rules that generate certain claims or that legitimize particular warrants. The result, or the "ideological effect" of his approach, is to justify all discourse, without an analysis of its location within the complicated social relations that comprise the construction of knowledge and value in our postmodern society (Bove43). As such, Toulmin's system actually functions "to depoliticizethinking," particularly in regard to logic and the construction of knowledge by removing them from "the sphere of self-interest" in an attempt to purify this impulse (44). In other words, Toulmin claims to be considering a context, which is actually a limited context consisting of the argument itself and its immediate surroundings, and ignores or excludes the wider context in which the actual negotiations of power transpire. Argument fields, as T oulmin himself points out, function to determine which facts are valid and which are not. Consequently, the choices made in regard

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to argument fields, which are powerful choices with widespread ramification, frequently occur off-stage in the Toulmin system as presented in composition textbooks and classrooms, and ideological choices are camouflaged by separating the arguments from the social and political arenas from which they emerge. Although appearing to be innocuous, Toulmin's own example, which locates the power to legitimize citizenship in a legal and bureaucratic system, may not, in the context of an ethnic-cleansing regime such as Nazi Germany prior to World War II, be as innocuous. Obviously, these larger political and social contexts are important to acknowledge, and composition teachers would bode well to consider what constitutes legitimate warrants and backing in their own minds and classrooms in order to gain more insight into their own philosophies and ideologies. In addition to divorcing knowledge from its social and political contexts, Toulmin's system tends to promulgate traditional presuppositions in regards to knowledge and power. Toulmin's conceptual and visual models, while implying a lateral form of thinking, misrepresent the inherent hierarchical patterns in his approach. Perhaps the best, although unintentional, example of this can be found in Kneupper's article entitled "Teaching Argument: An Introduction to the Toulmin Model." In what is generally a praise of Toulmin's approach, Kneupper applies this system to a passage from Thoreau's Civil Disobedience in order to demonstrate its pragmatic application. Interestingly, though, Kneupperutilizes a sophisticated system of Roman numerals, letters, and Arabic numerals to explain the Toulmin system, thereby demonstrating how this approach lends itself to a hierarchical analysis of argumentation.12 Such an application reveals the wedding between Toulmin's system and hiernrchical thinking,andhis approach replicates many of same characteristics, as the logicians have pointed out, as traditional reasoning and, like traditional logic, remains centered around a thesis and a distinguishable hierarchy. As such, Toulmin's system leaves itself open to many of the same criticisms leveled againsthiernrchicalandlinearwaysofknowing,suchasthoseofJeanSanbomorofMary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule. Sanbom,inherargumentinfavorofalternativeapproachestotheacademicessay, advocates a web-logic that is more conducive to non-linear thought, and Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and T arnIe, in Women's WaysojKnowing, make a legitimate case for an alternative epistemological taxonomy. The criticisms implicit within both of these arguments, such as the absence of alternatives to hierarchical approaches to organization or of alternatives to knowledge as an objective entity, are applicable to Toulmin's system as well. Composition teachers, then, need to be conscious of these implicit epistemological assumptions and need to augment the Toulmin approach to argumentation with alternatives that account for non-traditional cognitive processes and epistemologies. Taking cues from an eclectic group of traditional and radical thinkers suchasfromAristotle,fromPlato,fromBelenky,Clinchy,Goldberger,andTarule, from Millsap, and others, an alternative approach would, among other issues or sites of contest, incorporate a variety of dimensions and factors. 13 Such an approach would acknowledge the dimension of the speaker, or ethos, which includes his or

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her external reputation as well as the identity created within the discourse and her or his values, predispositions, and lexical choices. Also, an alternative approach would account for the dimension of the audience, or pathos, including, but not limited to, the collective and individual values and predispositions towards accepting certain grounds and would account for the dimension of reality, or logos, as well as all the concomitant phenomenological issues. In addition, this alternative approach would incorporate the Socratic intuition or inner voice legitimized in Plato's Phaedrus andApology and in feminist epistemologies, and such an approach would analyze audience not only from the traditional psychological assumptions but also from the alternative psychologies that are centered around women and othertraditionallyunder-orunrepresentedgroups. Somewhere along the way, this alternative approach would offer rebuttals and qualifiers to Toulmin'ssystem that acknowledge and affirm alternative approaches to essentially linear reasoning. These suggestions, while far from being developed or exhaustive, are appropriate places to begin. Despite its endorsement of traditional approaches to knowledge and power and its structural and rhetorical limitations, Toulmin's system does have its advantages. Brockriede and Ehninger, in their article entitled "Toulmin on Argument: An Interpretation and Application," identify seven ways in which Toulmin's approach issuperiorto formal logic in describing and testing arguments. Michael L. Keene points out thatthe strength ofToulmin's approach lies in the fact that it functions as apresentational,asopposedto an exploratory or acritical,system of reasoning (197). The Toulmin model, as Kneupper acknowledges, requires a holistic approach that necessitates that students first determine their claims and then how additional elements in the discourse are utilized to develop and support these claims ("Teaching" 240). Putting an argument in this form, as Lewis explains, helps to establish a context (although a limited one) in which rational questions can be answered (54). As such, Toulmin's system is a serious improvement over using formal logic to teach and to analyze arguments. Nothing is perfect, nor need it be before a person can acknowledge its value. (Is this a warrant?) Like the impulse to argue, this need to acknowledge value is probably endemic to human existence as well. (Is this?) In these ways and in avariety of others, then, Stephen Toulmin has enabled all of us, while not to attain perfection, to do our jobs as composition teachers a little bit better. Like I said, Toulmin is a godsend, not a god. 14 University o/Southwestern Louisiana La/ayette, Louisiana Notes lIn A New History a/Classical Rhetoric, George A. Kennedy, citing Cicero who claims to have been citing Aristotle, suggests that rhetoric originated out of a need for an art of speaking as a result of increased litigation over the ownership of private property in the emerging democracy of Syracuse (11).

106 JAC 2For an analysis of politics and ideologies of composition textbooks in general, a good place to begin is with "Sophisticated, Ineffective Books: The Dismantling of Process in Composition Texts" by Mike Rose, "Composition Textbooks and the Assault on Tradition" by Donald Stewart, "Ideology and Freshman Textbook Production: The Place of Theory in Writing Pedagogy" by Kathleen E. Welch, and "Composition Textbooks: Publisher-Author Relationships· by W. Ross Winterowd. 3The question whether to hold teachers or textbook publishers responsible is a worth while one to consider. Stewart argues that publishers have generally been favorable about working with and for teachers (175). On the other hand, Winterowd, writing ten years later when the conditions may have changed, suggests that the relationship among teachers who use the textbooks, teachers who write the textbooks, and textbook publishers is far more complicated. 4For a more in-depth discussion of the manner in which composition textbooks treat logic, see "Technical Logic, Comp-Logic, and the Teaching of Logic" by Richard Fulkerson (437-39). 5McOeary discovered, as well, that students who studied the Toulmin model did not improve their argumentative writing any more than those who studied no logic at all. Fulkerson, however, qualifies this fmding by arguing that the McOeary study is less convincing on this issue in light of the complexity of the Toulmin model and in the variety of ways in which it can be presented (447). 'Although essentially the same presentation, a few tenns have been changed in An Introduction to Reasoning (e.g. "data" becomes "grounds,,), which quite possibly reflects the influence of Rieke and Janik. 70ften overlooked by composition specialists, this distinction is often overlooked by composition teachers and is something that ! address later. BFor an interesting discussion of the opposing responses from the logicians and the rhetoricians up through 1972, refer to ·Stephen Toulmin: A Reappraisal" by Albert L Lewis. 'See Fulkerson 445 ICTfhe criticism leveled by David L Perry in regards to Toulmin's relativistic position in An Examination 0/ the Place 0/Reasoning in Ethics is relevant. For more, see the article by Perry (329). itA man born in Bermuda will be a British citizen. 12The irony of using Thoreau's text is, ! think, worth mentioning. I3Susan P. Millsap uses a feminist narrative to explore the limitations of Toulmin's model, as it applies to forensics, in her paper entitled, «A Feminist Perspective on Argumentation: An Examination of the Toulmin Model." 14! wish to thank Dr. Ann Dobie and the two anonymous reviewers fromJAC for their helpful suggestions.

Works Cited Aristotle. On Rhetoric. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York:Oxford UP, 1991. Belenky, Mary Field, et al. Women's W