The aim of this paper is to articulate the relationship between ‘critical rhetoric’ and Stephen Toulmin’s conception of practical reasoning. Among students of rhetoric, particularly those who work in communication departments in American universities, the project of reason, once cherished as central to the 20th century Renaissance of argument, seems to have become outdated and irrelevant. With the recent ‘critical turn,’ reason was especially given a bad name in the field of rhetoric. Some rhetoricians have even joined reason’s Other, dissociating (...) themselves from the project of reason as much as possible. The paper contends that the difference between critical reasoners and rhetoricians is not so substantial as it may look. It boils down to a question of emphasis, not substance, in our practice of practical discourse. Drawing on Toulmin’s idea of ‘modernity,’ ‘reasonableness,’ and ‘warrant-establishing,’ the paper call argument and rhetorical scholars’ attention to the assumptions that Toulmin’s project shares with critical rhetoric and argues for their ‘solidarity,’ a much needed intellectual project of Reason when the ‘reasonable’ is to be given equal weight to the ‘rational.’. (shrink)

Logic and philosophy of science share a long history, though contacts have gone through ups and downs. This paper is a brief survey of some major themes in logical studies of empirical theories, including links to computer science and current studies of rational agency. The survey has no new results: we just try to make some things into common knowledge.