The Toulmin Model of Argument

In this online video lesson we review the concept of the "logical perspective" of argumentation, get to know Stephen Toulmin, and introduce the "Toulmin model" as a means for analyzing and evaluating arguments via a functional diagram.

[@zachborman8641]

This video is FANTASTIC!! Takes a topic that is very difficult to explain and does so very lucidly and logically. Thank you!

[@stephenklien]

Thanks!

[@Goober101]

This video is amazing, you explained everything really well and adding that speech as an example just made it even better.

[@stephenklien]

Thanks!

[@nicolewilliams3557]

I really wish my instructor told us to watch this video BEFORE we took the quiz instead of after. I did not understand our book, but this is perfectly clear. Thanks so much. Already subscribed for future help!

[@janus7998]

Thank you for the video! One note, According to Dr. Lutrell's video the Rebuttal is not a reservation about the claim but it is a reservation about the relevance of the warrant to the particular data.

[@stephenklien]

Yes... which essentially means the same thing: the Warrant links the Data to the Claim, *unless* the condition in the Rebuttal/Reservation attaches. Under that condition, the Warrant isn't a relevant connection to the Claim, and therefore the Data does not prove the truth of the Claim.

[@MissBrendaLeeGertman]

Thank you posting this video Mr. Klien.

[@stephenklien]

You're welcome! Thanks for stopping by.

[@MissBrendaLeeGertman]

@@stephenklien "...stopping by." Lol

[@abdalameer1318]

Many thanks for your explicit explanation. We need moor

[@alana1119]

Only 42 likes?? This is so good! Thank you for the great explanation!!

[@stephenklien]

Thanks!

[@FunnyBunnyChunkyBaby]

The knowledge in this video will be really useful for my argumentative essay. I love the history of why the Toulmin's model was developed and I love the analysis of Obama's speech. Great content and will explore more of your videos!

[@stephenklien]

Thanks! Glad you found it useful.

[@thomaswolfe9490]

Stephen Toulmin born 1922, died 2009. Nice video and explanation despite this.

[@stephenklien]

thomas wolfe Yikes! Totally missed that typo. Thanks!

[@biaalmeida4993]

So so helpful, thank you Mr. Klien

[@stephenklien]

You are very welcome!

[@janus7998]

I wonder about the Rebuttal. In composition courses the rebuttal means a response to the counterargument from the audience. If that's the case, Toulmin rebuttal means something else; it is an expansion of the qualifier as I understood from the video.

[@stephenklien]

Yes, Toulmin's use of "Rebuttal" is unfortunately confusing. Many who use Toulmin's system for analysis of arguments prefer the term "Reservation."

[@KungfooKimchii]

Thanks for posting this vid. It helped me with my english homework :)

[@stephenklien]

You're welcome. I'm so glad it helped! :)

[@abdalameer1318]

Can we apply Tolmin model to analyze advice for public in health communication. Here how the writer or speaker defend his or her standpoint where the writer provides a claim for example and some steps to follow without any evidence or the ground . How could he convince us with out evidence . For example prevent the spread of covid 19 1_stay at home 2_wash your hands... etc

[@stephenklien]

Hi! Yes, absolutely... provided the message is framed as an argument. If what you're talking about is really just a bullet-point list of "here's steps to take to prevent the spread," then that's really not an argument that can be analyzed. Remember that an argument requires evidence as well as a claim. This evidence could be presented as a "reason why" without independent, sourced "evidence" in the traditional sense... and then you'd need to evaluate the quality of that evidence accordingly, of course. But if the message doesn't even present "reasons why", and just list claims, then it's not an argument.

[@abdalameer1318]

@@stephenklien thanks alot

[@janus7998]

Also, The idea of the qualifier and the rebuttal seems somewhat overlapping??? How could I explain the difference to my students? Thank you.

[@stephenklien]

Here's how I do it: they don't overlap as much as complement, two parts of one statement about the truth of the claim. "This claim is most likely true [Q] unless this exceptional condition applies [R]."

[@PS-qx5vc]

Overall, very good video. Except for the mistaken dates which someone else has referred to already, I believe that what has been posted here as a rebuttal sounds more like the qualifier. "Unless" is characteristically, signalling the qualifier and not the rebuttal.

[@stephenklien]

Thanks for the feedback! I need to disagree with you on your point, though: "unless" signals that what follows is an exceptional circumstance that undercuts that truth of the claim (i.e., "the claim is true *unless* this condition is true). That's what the rebuttal (sometimes called the "reservation") does. The qualifier establishes the relative strength of the claim (i.e., "how true" the claim is); for instance, given that a rebuttal exists.

[@AubreeFoiles]

Thank you!

[@stephenklien]

You are very welcome!

[@pauls7056]

Thank you for posting this, Stephen. I tended to think too deeply; so, I'd end up with a stream of claims (in your President Obama example, things like the threat would spread, threat to neighbours - and I'd be reading them as further claims.) In fact, your example uses them as evidence to support a bigger claim. Anyway, I suppose that each piece of evidence could be made to be defended as a claim in its own right in a regressive way. You've freed me from my own chains which stopped me using the model. Fantastic presentation.

[@SM-gm7up]

The data presented seem like sub-claims to me not evidence. Isn't evidence verifiable?

[@hakims511]

Thanks for sharing. It is useful for me too. But i still wonder can i have more than one rebuttal (lets say up to ten) or have more than one backing (as rebuttals)?

[@stephenklien]

Potentially, sure. It's important, though, to remember that when you analyze an argument the backing and rebuttal(s) -- just like the other pieces -- are whatever is presented (or reasonably implied in context) by the arguer, They wouldn't be examples that you would/could come up with if you were making or responding to the argument. So, if the argument you are examining really presents ten rebuttals or pieces of backing for the warrant, okay. But you shouldn't be the one to include those pieces if the arguer doesn't present them. Once the argument is analyzed, then, your job as a critic is to ask tough questions of the argument, such as: "Are there potential rebuttals the arguer should have included but didn't? If so, how does that affect the strength of the argument?"

[@hakims511]

Thanks sir. Got it. Done with the rebuttals and backings. But now I found that my previous claim becomes the data of the new claim (which is just discovered after I re-read), and it may be continuously chained, is it possible for that the new claim to be a data for upcoming statements?

[@stephenklien]

Absolutely!

[@hakims511]

Thanks sir. You mentioned at 18:49 "reasoning is not necessarily laid out explicitly" meaning that the author may not state the warrant explicitly. From the clip, if i didn't see your analysis scheme, I might have stated that "the world with a lot of dangers to US security (Assad's using of chemical weapons) is not accepted by us" is the warrant. That is different to the speech. But when I heard about "connecting the dots", that my warrant is a bit connected to yours ("this is not the world we should accept"), which is more accurate and exactly stated by the president. So my question now (again) is, if the author doesn't state the warrant, and without any word which is possibly connected, can we state the warrant our own? And thanks again.

[@stephenklien]

Hakim S Yes, that's right. The Toulmin diagram is an analytical tool, so "correct answers" can vary. Since warrants are often implicit, what we need to do is ask ourselves, "what kind of inference is the author inviting us to make that connects the data to the claim in a logical way?"

[@Liliquan]

Couldn’t there be a reservation or rebuttal directly attached to the data instead just the warrant?

[@stephenklien]

That might imply that the Data itself might be incorrect? The Reservation is intended to provide an exceptional condition -- "even if the Data and Warrant are both correct, here's a possibility that the Claim might still be incorrect."

[@Liliquan]

Stephen Klien In my limited experience, the thing that gets overlooked the most is usually the data. Given the data is the literal evidence of the claim, I was wondering what sort of verification would be necessary to justify the data. Is there a place for this in Toulmin”s account?

[@stephenklien]

@@Liliquan Toulmin actually gets into this in a book called "An Introduction to Reasoning," written with Richard Rieke and Allan Janik (New York: Macmillan, 1979). It's messy, though: in one chapter he identifies three primary criteria for Data: sufficiency, appropriateness, and relevance; but in another chapter he identifies the criteria as acceptability and relevance. Later he talks about truth and weight as different criteria. Toward the end of the book he reduces the criteria to sufficiency and relevance. And he only discusses relevance at length. So, for my money, "sufficiency" (is there enough Data?") and relevance ("is the Data germane to the Claim?") seem to be the most important tests for Toulmin. This is why, in my other videos that cover evidence more completely, I don't really use Toulmin. There are other sources that provide a better treatment.

[@kareem5795]

This is helpful!

[@stephenklien]

Thanks!

[@kristencrane2872]

I am naturally good at writing... but this is hard for me to comprehend. Perhaps it's my age. But I came up with a different Warrant for Obama's speech. Would it be also correct? My warrant was that: If we fail to act terrorists will think it’s okay to use them.

[@stephenklien]

Hi! I'm assuming that you're referring to the final argument, with the claim "The US should respond?" Sure, that works! The warrant I selected was based on a point Obama explicitly makes in the speech, but in this particular argument field (context) your warrant is an implicit premise suggested by his remarks earlier in the speech that is reasonable for the audience to infer. Arguments are complex things... it's often the case that multiple logical paths can link us from point A to point B. :)

[@logga1840]

Im commenting to mark my place here. for an AP Seminar assignment

[@ausabdulwahab2002]

I think there is real flaw in the rebuttal in the example provided. Because Obama only make those calculations in relation to US people's national interest. Much is absent with regard to US/ Russian conflict to control the weak people on the ground; the Syrians. And being now in 2019, we can see the consequences of those catastrophic policies on the whole region. Kudos for the presenter though!

[@Who69]

Hi Stephen, your example with Obama's claim with Toulmin was very wrong. No where in his speech Obama stated where the facts are. there were any facts BUT he talked about consequences. About figuring out the reasoning: this is wrong as well. if I am not receiving the full picture or evidence I can not make any decision based on the facts. this will only lead me to make ASSUMTIONS. Over all from this example there are no qualifier but everything based manufacturing consent and pushing towards assuming.

[@stephenklien]

Thanks for your feedback. Please bear in mind that the purpose of this video was to establish how the Toulmin model maps out the structural logic of arguments -- my intent is not to categorically endorse the truth of Obama's argument. Obama's speech *did* provide facts as evidence -- now, whether those facts are indeed *accurate* is of course a bigger question (and the excerpts in this video, obviously, do not constitute the entirety of the information provided in the speech). As for reasoning: You are missing the point of how warrants work in this model -- **all** reasoning is made up of assumptions. Human arguments are not mathematical equations. The way reasoning works is that it establishes an inferential link between the evidence and the claim -- if the evidence is true then the claim must be true, based on this logical connection. Your response is that my identification of Obama's reasoning is wrong because his evidence is wrong. This is an illogical conclusion. I am accurately pointing out the reasoning that Obama uses to assert the truth of his claim. This is how argument analysis works: I am pointing out "here is how he constructs his argument." Now, does that mean that Obama's argument is sound? No, not necessarily. If his evidence is actually incomplete or untrue, then even if the reasoning he uses might be structurally valid, the claim could still be false. The moral of the story: Evaluating the truth of the argument based on logic requires you to analyze the argument that is presented *first*... and *then* evaluate the soundness of the parts and their relationship. Analysis and evaluation are not the same thing. First figure out "here's what the argument presents" (which is done accurately in this video example -- this is the argument Obama wants us to believe), and then you have a more systematic basis for judging the truth or falsity of the argument.

[@Who69]

@@stephenklien Thank you for replying back to my comment. As you mentioned, the whole speech is not considered; therefore, some facts might be missing. I will not go further with this topic to make an argument. I like to suggest you perhaps when explaining the Toulmin model (I am in the progress of understanding this model), I would recommend choosing a simpler subject. This may help people (with/ without educational/ academic background) to understand the Model. Yes, I am a human with belives and culture (like everyone else), and I make assumptions based on these elements. I am in the progress of looking at matters objectively with a critical mind :)

[@lakewobegonesbest8725]

I miss Obama! But dissecting his clear, logical arguments is easy. Could you apply the Toulmin model to something more convoluted like kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZrMk6ikoZ1qY6s Might help those of us still are forced to claim a stance by misinformed Qanon/Maga-hats. (aka: “Tuckerlytes”)