In reading this week’s assigned reading I decided to write
my response on Stephen Toulmin’s passage. I was hoping that the idea of logic
would appear sooner in this book than at the end, however it was interesting to
read about Toulmin’s notes on logical reasoning of how claims and conclusions
are proved and or justified. Personally, I was not able to fully comprehend all
the material he provided in The Uses of
Argument. Compared to other readings in this book, I would have to say that
Toulmin’s writing was difficult to follow. Perhaps it was the topic of logic or
the manner in which he wrote that made reading it complex, nevertheless I
believe Toulmin’s writing on arguments perfectly reflects the structure of
rhetoric. The way in which a person assess an argument was the main focus
discussed in Toulmin’s work. One specific quote that summarized his entire
passage asked, “ What things about the modes in which we asses arguments, the
standards by reference to which we assess them and the manner in which we qualify
our conclusions about them, are the same regardless of field and which we
qualify our conclusions about them, and which of them vary as we move from
arguments in one field to arguments in another?” Essentially, this is what an
argument is structured from, an argument, a reference, questions that challenge
your claim, a rebuttal, and ultimately a concluding factor.
