The Toulmin Model

Musical chords are one of the best extended analogies of arguments there is. Chords are those moments in music when a musician plays more than one note at the same time. Musicians tend to describe the way they study chords as closely examining the “space” between each note. Analyzing arguments is the exact same process, only instead of the space between notes, we study the space between propositions. The history of argumentation studies is long, but the method that we will be using is relatively contemporary. This method has come to be known as simply the Toulmin model of argument, named after Stephen Toulmin. In the book, Elements of Argument, Stephen Toulmin outlined some fundamental problems with the syllogism. Additionally, in order to develop an approach toward everyday arguments, he introduced the concept of field logic and proposed a new method of analysis that created the groundwork for a new era of argumentation theory. 

One problem that Toulmin saw with the syllogism is that everyday arguments are too complex for a syllogism to describe effectively. His specific criticism focuses on instances where conclusions are required, but universal knowledge is not accessible. Let‘s say you were to state as a major premise of a syllogism that “taking the life of another human being is murder.” This premise is phrased as if it is universal, which is good when one wants to create a syllogism, but, for many people, if you kill someone through the act of self-defense that does not meet the definition of murder. In many parts of the world there are other exceptions to this rule, including war and capital punishment. A soldier killing another soldier from an opposing army is not considered a murderer. Likewise, others may argue that the death penalty also should not be considered murder. All of these exceptions begin to add up, and it is difficult to allow for all of these exceptions and still have a simple, direct, universal sentence on which to ground your argument. Furthermore, when you have all the exceptions to your general principle about the definition of murder, a syllogism that allows for all of these exceptions becomes very difficult to write in any convenient sense. Even if your major premise was very detailed and accurate stating that: “taking the life of another human being, except in self defense or when sanctioned by the government, is considered murder,” the syllogism starts becoming fairly convoluted and impractical.

Another problem Toulmin saw was that the conclusion of a syllogism is redundant. The second criticism against the syllogism is that the major premise, itself, provides the evidence for the conclusion. Recall the syllogism about “Socrates” in the previous chapter. If the statement “all humans are mortal” is a verified truth, then one must have assessed the mortality of every human on earth. During that verification process, Socrates would be one of those men that was verified for mortality. Therefore, the syllogism’s conclusion is really a foregone conclusion, regardless of whether or not one includes a minor premise. The truth of the matter is, when we argue, we often speak about probabilities. Toulmin recognized that the syllogism lacked the language needed to analyze everyday argumentation and concluded that there needed to be a model that accommodated for this reality. He crafted a model for studying argumentation that more closely resembled the way people naturally develop arguments.

Argument Fields

Criticizing the practicality of the syllogism required Toulmin to provide an alternative explanation for natural arguments. His approach uses what he calls “argument fields” to describe different social spheres, each with individualized standards for judging good and bad arguments. An easy example of a field is to picture the different disciplines at a university. Biologists have different standards for argumentation than do poets, than do accountants, than do historians, than do philosophers, etc. But this analogy does not capture all of what fields are, because there are many fields of argument that are not academic disciplines. The analogy also fails to show how there may be different fields of argument within academic disciplines.

Regardless of how one decides to identify different argument fields, the major contribution from the identification of argument fields is the concept of field dependency. Field dependency is the idea that certain elements of argument may be considered acceptable for one field, but unacceptable in another. What one field calls valid logic another proclaims to be invalid. Even the meanings of words change from field to field and affect the ability to argue.

The different standards for acceptability also extend to the types of admissible evidence. Take, as an example, a hypothetical argument between a catholic priest and a professor of evolutionary biology. If the priest were to cite scripture as proof against evolution, the professor would likely dismiss the passage outright because she doesn‘t see the Bible as a credible text on the subject of evolution. In this example, the structure or form of the argument is irrelevant to the professor. It is the difference in argument fields that dominates the discussion.

It is important for arguers to realize, early on, the  argument field that exerts the most influence on any discussion in question.  Identifying argument fields is useful because it prepares arguers for certain terms and phrases that might otherwise be foreign or misunderstood. But not all analysis of arguments is field dependent; Toulmin also identifies elements of arguments that are field invariant. Field invariant, in terms of the Toulmin model, refers to the components of arguments that are consistent across all fields. Toulmin gives each of these elements a title and description in his model, and the result is the most widely accepted language for analyzing informal arguments.

Mini Glossary

Field invariant: those components of arguments that are consistent across all fields.

The Elements of Toulmin Model Arguments

There are a few things to take note of: one is that Toulmin specifically wanted to focus on the sentence level of argument analysis. He acknowledged that arguments may take a very long time to lay out for an audience, covering several pages in a written work or taking several minutes if verbalized. Let‘s reuse the music analogy. One could study music by studying entire songs, or take a more detailed approach and study music note-by-note. The model that Toulmin developed takes the latter approach and takes a very detailed, sentence-level view of arguments. His work did not focus on every single utterance that an arguer happens to make. He wanted to focus on those components that were specifically interrelated. This means that when you are reading from the opinion section of a news source, or listening to a politician give a speech, that not every single sentence that is written or spoken is part of an argument. People use style and flair to embellish arguments, and those embellishments do not always factor into the analysis. Additionally, arguers purposefully omit parts of arguments for stylistic purposes. In fact, sometimes a listener or reader must paraphrase, or fill in gaps that are left by the author.

Despite these limitations, the Toulmin model offers the most widely recognized approach for analyzing arguments across the many contexts in which they are deployed. What follows are the six elements of argument as defined by Stephen Toulmin. The first three elements—the claim, data, and warrant— comprise the three necessary elements of every argument; whereas the second three elements—qualifier, reservation, and backing—are optional ways to add depth, character, and strength to arguments.

Claim 

The central component of any argument is the claim. The claim is the fundamental position (belief, viewpoint, or action) which arguers want an audience to accept. For a syllogism, this is the conclusion, and is simply a byproduct of combining two premises. The Toulmin model, however, treats the claim as central to any argument regardless of where it appears, whether it is before, after, or during the introduction of support for the claim. If you are writing an essay, then your thesis can be considered your claim. However, just like when writing a thesis, when one constructs a claim the level of clarity is of the utmost importance. A vague or convoluted claim is generally considered a sign of poor argumentation. Some arguers might want to elaborate on the central claim through the use of “sub-claims,” or additional sentences that offer additional clarification to the central claim, but there is still a single unifying idea that represents the central aim of the argument.

So how do you identify a claim when you see it? There is no easy answer, but a claim is really identified based on its relationship to the other sentences that are part of the argument in question. This mirrors the practice of listening to the different notes in a chord in order to identify the ‘root.’ In other words, look at the other sentences within an argument, and ask yourself which expresses the central position being advocated. Usually anything that is stated as a matter of fact is not the claim, but is another part of the argument called the data, or support (which I will soon address). The claim should be the part of the argument that fulfills the expectation of invention; some new knowledge you are leading the audience to accept.

Data

The next element of an argument is the data. Data is any research, evidence or other support that is presented in order to support the claim. Identifying data is usually one of the easier parts of analysis with the Toulmin model, but there are times when the data relies on shared values or beliefs, and is masked in language. In such cases, it can be more difficult to identify the data for an argument. What some people initially think is a requirement of data is that the statement is in fact true, but in reality the statement is really just claiming something as if it were true. Some data may require additional backing (discussed below). One important feature of data is to realize that the claim, whatever it may be, is dependent upon the data. In other words, an arguer‘s claim cannot find agreement with the audience unless the audience agrees with the data. In fact one of the easiest ways to identify the claim is to first look for the data presented in the argument. Then, trace the conclusion from that data. It is good to remember that this data, when analyzed using the Toulmin model, is in the form of a single proposition. It is not, therefore, a complete research project or journal article. Remember, the Toulmin model as a tool for sentence-level analysis. Analyzing entire articles is a complicated undertaking requiring several iterations of Toulmin model analysis.

Warrant

The third element of arguments that Toulmin outlined is the warrant. This element rounds out the three required elements of every argument. The function of a warrant is to connect the data with the claim. Essentially the warrant answers the question of how you came to your conclusion based on the data. Sometimes this connection is self evident, sometimes it is not. In fact, many times an argument is made without an explicit warrant, thereby forcing the audience to fill in the missing component. This common practice mirrors the definition of an enthymeme discussed earlier. A warrant can also be considered the reasoning within an argument. In these cases, the warrant is an implied warrant. The claim, the data, and the warrant all form what Toulmin considers to be the three core elements of every argument. He considers these three to be mandatory whenever an argument is made. 

Qualifier

In addition to the three core elements outlined above, Toulmin includes three others as dimensions of arguments that appear in more robust and nuanced controversies. The first of these elements is called the qualifier and is contained within the claim itself. The qualifier effectively modifies the strength of a claim. It might seem counterintuitive to weaken a claim that one is making, but in reality it helps arguers adopt more reasonable positions when they don‘t try to overstate a claim. Life rarely has universal rules that are unquestionable, so arguers must be allowed to make arguments that are realistic and account for uncertainty. Otherwise, you would be forced to make arguments so absolute there is no amount of evidence that could every support them. Qualifiers also make it impossible for people to make decisions based on probabilities. Without the ability to make decisions based on probability, we would be paralyzed into inaction because we could only act when we are absolutely sure of an outcome. Therefore, oftentimes one decides to write claims that contain the words “sometimes,” “probably,” “more often than not,” and “likely.” These, and similar words and phrases, are examples of qualifiers.

Reservation

This element is also commonly known as a rebuttal, but that often confuses students of argumentation because the term, rebuttal, is also used to describe the act of responding to an argument. For our purposes, we will use the term reservation. When one clarifies the conditions for a qualifier, they are articulating a reservation. This practice, understandably, bothers opponents in a controversy  because it is a way for arguers to relieve themselves of defending the most extreme cases that might fall under their claim. The common question that is raised when an arguer includes a qualifier in their claim is for clarification on what those exceptions are. So if you were to say that a “college educated person is more likely to be wealthier than someone who is not college educated,” somebody else might ask “what do you mean by more likely.” Any response that offers further clarification is the reservation.

Backing

The final part of the Toulmin model argument is called backing. Backing is any additional information or evidence that is used to support the data or the warrant. Notice how this fulfills much the same function that the data does for the claim, it is just one step removed from the claim. So yet again, identifying backing really is a matter of identifying the relationship that it has with the claim and the other data. You might now be able to see how an argument can begin to form chains, wherein a claim begins an argument but there is not necessarily any end. There can be an infinite number of backing elements within an argument. Anyone who is ever talked to a three-year-old knows exactly what this is like. Children of this age are very inquisitive, and their favorite question to ask is “why.” If you have ever attempted to answer all of the questions as to “why,” you would know that a 3 year old can ask you “why” far more times than you can answer their question sufficiently. Every time an arguer introduces new information, he or she increases the complexity of an argument, but not necessarily the strength because not all arguments require lengthy explanations. These elements form a model, or pattern that is repeated with dozens of variations in differing argumentative situations.