On a Proposed Revolution in Logic

Abstract

In his The Uses of Argument (Cambridge University Press, 1958), S. Toulmin presents serious charges against ordinary logical theory, e.g., that it does not distinguish between analytic or formally valid or conclusive or warrant-using arguments, that the distinction between premises and conclusion is a bad oversimplification, that “major premise” conceals the distinction between inference-warrant and inference-backings, that logicians have been mistakenly working under an ideal of geometrical form.

The paper argues that none of the charges is proven, that most of them cannot be proven, that Toulmin's new logic is at best only vaguely hinted at and that his suggestions are positively obscure or mistaken.