Stephen Edelston Toulmin has been one of the most wide-ranging scholars of the twentieth century. He has written extensively on the history and philosophy of the physical, biological, and historical sciences, as well as on logic, ethics, and rhetoric. This listing of more than 100 publications by and about Toulmin is intended to encourage those scholars who may have come to Toulmin's work from only one direction to explore the full range of his research and writing across many (...) different disciplines. (shrink)

v. 1. The collective use and evolution of concepts.

A central theme throughout the impressive series of philosophical books and articles Stephen Toulmin has published since 1948 is the way in which assertions and opinions concerning all sorts of topics, brought up in everyday life or in academic research, can be rationally justified. Is there one universal system of norms, by which all sorts of arguments in all sorts of fields must be judged, or must each sort of argument be judged according to its own norms? In The (...) Uses of Argument Toulmin sets out his views on these questions for the first time. In spite of initial criticisms from logicians and fellow philosophers, The Uses of Argument has been an enduring source of inspiration and discussion to students of argumentation from all kinds of disciplinary background for more than forty years. (shrink)

In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of ...

Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality has diminished the value of reasonableness. Toulmin issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness.

In this engaging study, the authors put casuistry into its historical context, tracing the origin of moral reasoning in antiquity, its peak during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and its subsequent fall into disrepute from the mid-seventeenth century.

"A discussion of the historical development of our ideas of time as they relate to nature, human nature and society. . . . The excellence of The Discovery of Time is unquestionable."--Martin Lebowitz, The Kenyon Review.

When we first begin to reflect about conduct in a philosophical way? whether as philosophers or not, we look for general truths, fundamental principles. Our acceptances and rejections, preferences, commendations and disgusts, seem at the start chaotic and unsystematic, and we hope to reduce them to order—to show that there are general principles by reference to which all our varied acts, admirations and decisions can be understood and justified. The number of such principles should for choice be small. Ideally, we (...) think, it should be possible to present our progress through life not as a thing of fits and starts, of zig–zags, gestures and recoils, but as aimed in a single uniform direction. If we esteem some things above others, praise some men, commend some deeds, admire some paintings this should be because in each case the Supreme Value or Ultimate Good finds expression in the esteemed, praised, commended or admired thing, man, deed or picture. We hope to find a single standard by coming up to or falling short of which things of all sorts will earn the prizes or rebukes they deserve. (shrink)