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Stephen Edelston Toulmin
A British Philosopher, who has written many books, taught at multiple universities, and is known as " a founding father of argumentation theory." -
An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics
This was his first book, and it was divided into four major categories, “The Traditional Approaches,” “Logic and Life,” “The Nature of Ethics,” and “The Boundaries of Reason.” The book attempted to distinguish the differences of good arguments and reasons, and poor arguments and reasons. Its center question is the moral choice behind “good reason” acting a certain way. -
Uses of Argument
Wrote a book called "Uses of Argument" which identified the elements of a persuasive argument, which included, a claim, the grounds, the warrant, the backing, and the qualifier. This book is how he was coined "a founding father of argumentation theory." The video attached explains an example of how it is implemented. Link text -
Human Understanding, Volume I: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts
He wrote this eight chapter book in an attempt to replace Kuhn’s “revolutionary science” paradigm shift theory. He observed Kuhn’s work and watched how his views changed as his career developed. In the book he also compares the ideas of relativist and absolutist views of epistemology. He intended on writing more volumes of the book but never completed that goal. -
Return to Reason
This book explains his beliefs on Western Philosophical traditions and his concern for philosophy’s certainty and rationality and how it may have caused misguided thinking over the years. An example of this is in the chapter, “Economics, or the Physics That Never Was,” and it explained that people attempted to turn economics into a theoretical science, instead of pragmatically. He believes that the economic theory “just embarrasses itself” with theoretical reasoning.
