Criticism of Toulmin

I have to admit I was shocked to read that Toulmin attacked formal logic. A professor of mine, Dr. Altrichter, has told me as well as other teachers that formal logic will probably be the most important class I ever take and Dr. Altrichter is a genius himself so whatever he says must be true. Formal logic deals with absolutes and things that cannot be disputed. So how is this irreverent to the everyday world in which we should be seeking truth?

I understand what Toulmin is trying to say. Formal logic is mainly something that isn’t based on what an argument is saying but on the form of an argument. If an argument is in a particular form then it stands to be true unless you have a false premise or conclusion. Then the argument would be unsound. Unsound arguments are given no merit. I also don’t think that Toulmin’s criticisms stands true for mathematical arguments and arguments from definition which are logical arguments.

A logical argument would say that taxes are “an amount of money levied by a government on its citizens and used to run the government and the country or state.” A rhetorical argument might say that taxes are merely “revenue enhancements” which make them sound pleasant and nice but nonetheless obscure the actual meaning or lead a reader away from truth. I just don’t see how one can criticize formal logic when all it does is seek things that we can be absolutely sure of.

Syllogisms can be criticized because the form of the syllogism make the argument right but this really isn’t about truth. I do admit that logic is hard to use in everyday life. No one can logically explain emotions but logic is still vital in many discourses and with dealing with absolute truths. I just cant agree fully with Toulmin about this.

Our Chancellor is Hiltler ( or just fellow user of evil rhetoric)

For this week’s blog I feel that it is appropriate to discuss a situation that occurred recently that relates to ideas discussed in Plato’s Phaedrus. Not too long ago I attended and on-campus “open forum” that was bought together to discuss the issue of plans to build new dormitories but many tress would have to be sacrificed to do so. First I must discuss this idea of an “open forum” as our chancellor and others in administrative roles define it. Basically, you write your question down on a piece of paper and someone reads it and then decides if it is appropriate to be answered by the chancellor. With a system like this one would think that questions like “When are we going to get a football team?” would never get through at a forum about trees, but this wasn’t the case. I think that this “open forum” is a great illustrative example of, as Socrates’ describes it, evil language or rhetoric. It only considers one side of the point of view so listeners must stand there helplessly and be told what to think about a situation. It would have been much more appropriate to hold a meeting where students could freely ask the chancellor questions that they had and be engaged in a dialectical conversation so that we could each play off one another’s ideas and have a conversation that had the greater good in mind. Instead our dictator like school held this “open forum’ and it really seemed like the Q&A session was going around in circles. Students wanted to know why they chose to tear down the forest that had near endangered species such as the pygmy rattlesnake and why they would tear down their real life science labs that students use on an everyday basis. But the only answer administration had is “ You define education as you want to and we will define education the way we want to. We have studies showing that students who live on campus make better grades and we feel it is more important to have on campus housing.” I just can’t believe they can say this when they are starting a new conservation biology program next year and when many science classes and the whole environmental sciences program are held in trailers. I have heard no plans as to where these classrooms will find their permanent home and my question was not answered at the forum either. So much for dialectical, or noble rhetoric.

Message Manipulation

Smith says, “If Freud is the therapist for the individual psyche, then Marx seeks to be the therapist for the world’s political psyche” (302). Karl Marx was concerned and wrote many texts of the political nature and is famous for his arguments supporting a “collective community” and criticizing a capitalistic society. Surprising to me, only knowing Marx for his political and cultural ideas, he also deals with rhetoric.

One idea he deals with is freedom of speech and who should be allowed to speak or who will speak the truth to their audience. When concerning politics, Marx understands that sometimes a situation can be more about politics than meaning what you say. For example, lobbyist account for many laws that are passed today. If a law has no money behind it to enforce it (such as funds from a lobbyist group) then the law cannot be enforced. For years, an equal rights amendment for women has been shot down due to political forces (money) that a fundamental Christian lobbying group has.

I think the more important message that Marx is saying here pertains to the “message manipulation that dominates our society” (304). When a politician wants to look good he can make himself look good with rhetoric, which can be seen in speeches made everyday. It can also be seen in all advertisements made today. Advertisements seen in fashion magazines would have you believe that all women are young, skinny and beautiful which is so not the case. Another example is a Nike commercial that leads you to believe that you will not have that competitive edge over an opponent unless you own a pair of their athletic shoes.

I say the remedy for these message manipulations is read into everything you see (which is easy for an English major), don’t be a cultural dupe and don’t use these tactics in your own speech and writing. Sadly, if a politician acted by these guidelines he would loose his edge over opponents and modifying speech to make oneself to look good will always exist in that realm.




Bibliography

Smith, Craig R. Rhetoric & Human Consciousness. 2nd ed. Waveland Press, Inc: Illinois. Pg. 278.