Abstract
The chapter reads as an original contribution to the exegesis of Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument . It examines this modern classic of argumentation theory from the scarcely explored perspective of modality unveiling some latent inconsistencies in the fabric of the book and proposing some new interpretations of the key elements of the Toulmin model . The chapter also considers the reception of Toulmin’s ideas on modality in later studies, as well as their relation to current contributions to argumentation theory and linguistics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Toulmin uses the term “essay”. This term may reflect the fact that earlier versions of some of the chapters had appeared independently – in particular, the second chapter had appeared as Toulmin (1956) – and that even in the context of the book the “essays” appear somewhat more loosely connected than chapters in a treatise. As a matter of fact, the third essay, detailing the “Toulmin model ” had a fortune which is largely independent from the matters discussed elsewhere in the book which testifies the ease of selective reading.
- 3.
I follow van der Auwera (1999) in adopting polyfunctionality as the most generic term covering all forms of “context -dependent meaning”, including, but not limited to, the phenomena of vagueness, ambiguity, homonymy and polysemy. In the case of modal expressions, polyfunctionality comes in handy since the precise semantic and/or pragmatic account of the way in which the different flavors of modality is an important issue in the linguistic literature on modality and one that intersects an account of the role of modal expressions in arguments .
- 4.
In their presentation of Toulmin’s contribution in the Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory, Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Snoeck Henkemans et al. (1996: 137–138) do give a brief account of how modals are related to argument fields in the first essay, but then comment on their omissions in a footnote: “Some of the implications Toulmin attaches to this observation relate to semantic and philosophical questions that are not directly relevant here. They pertain to the development of an adequate semantic theory for modal words and to the vigorous philosophical controversy about probability in the 1960s. In that controversy, Toulmin opposed the views on probability put forward by Carnap (1950) and Kneale (1949)”. These omissions are, of course, perfectly reasonable in the context of the Fundamentals, but at least some of these “semantic and philosophical questions”, the semantic ones in particular, are relevant here.
- 5.
There are several additional reasons for maintaining this strict reading: 1) The strict reading is required by Toulmin’s pragmatic analysis of probably, where he rejects attempts to analyze probability statements as being about real-world (or subjective) probability relations. For Toulmin, probably does not denote an external or cognitive “probability relation” because it expresses performatively a guarded, tentative conclusion . The performative use is primitive, and seemingly objectified uses such as those of the abstract noun probability have to be explained as derived from the performative one. 2) Similarly, the strong reading is required by Toulmin’s rejection of logical possibility (as lack of contradiction or consistency) in the fourth essay. For Toulmin (2003 [1958]: 157), being possible is never simply a matter of successfully avoiding “contradicting our data” as it involves being “a genuine candidate-solution whose backing we shall have to investigate and whose acceptability we shall have to evaluate”. As in the case of probability, an externalized relation (consistency) is rejected as the meaning of the modal term in favor of the characterization of possibility in terms of an argumentative operation. 3) Toulmin (Ibid., p. 33) declares that he wants to avoid the use of the term meaning because it is too imprecise, while his notions of force and criteria operate with “finer distinctions”. Speaking of their meaning would suggest either the idea that modals are simply ambiguous or simply monosemous. In other words, he avoids meaning because he wants to be a more precise semanticist! 4) Finally, the whole hedging manoeuver performed by Toulmin needs to be put in its historical context on the backdrop of the accusations that were leveled against ordinary language philosophers of merely doing “lexicography”. See Thomasson (2002: 123) on this allegation of “lexicography” against Toulmin’s Oxford teacher Gilbert Ryle.
- 6.
Clearly, Toulmin’s macro-structural “phases” look as an attempt to capture the dialectical (as opposed to the inferential) organization of arguments and they somewhat remind us of the “stages” of the Pragma-Dialectical model (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004). However, the overall view of the argumentative dialogue that they suggest is different. Participants in Toulmin’s phases as seen as putting forward (possibly multiple) hypotheses about an “unsettled problem”, which are then tested so that they are ruled out by the evidence or retained as a conclusion . In the Pragma-Dialectical critical discussion, on the contrary, protagonists put forward a standpoint that they are committed to defend in the face of rational criticism from an antagonist. If the standpoint is successfully defended it is retained as a conclusion .
- 7.
I borrow the example of ring and the glosses from Langacker (1991: 3). The characterization of the different motivational links is mine, though. I am not sure Langacker would agree with it in toto.
- 8.
On the methodological role of nonsense in semantics and its Husserlian origin in the fourth logical investigation see Rigotti and Rocci (2001).
- 9.
In her pioneering text-linguistic investigation of the illocutionary act of prediction in economics research papers, Merlini (1983) offers a semantico-illocutionary typology of the claims that are put forth and argued for by economists. While relatively old and not formulated from an explicitly argumentation -theoretic viewpoint this typology her work remains highly valuable for analyzing arguments in academic economics and about the economy in general.
- 10.
See § 1.6.1 of the Introduction for a short discussion of the Modal Square of Opposition .
- 11.
At first blush, it seems difficult to obtain the full meaning of “ruling out a hypothesis” from either the external or the internal negation of “putting forward a hypothesis as worth considering”. But this is hardly surprising, as the interpretation of negations ostensibly scoping over the performance of speech acts (e.g. I don’t promise I will speak with the counselor) is notoriously quirky. On the interpretation of negation in relation to speech acts see Moeschler (1992).
- 12.
Compare examples (9.b, c and d) with the congruity theoretic explicitation in (Def. 1) to check this hypothesis.
- 13.
In reality, Toulmin does not trace explicitly this difference between logical necessity in the strict sense (analyticity) and relative logical necessity of a conclusion given certain premises . The lack of an explicit distinction of this kind makes his commentary on certain key examples rather blurred and difficult to follow (among them is his favorite Dwight D. Eisenhower as a possible member of the U.S. Davis Cup team which I discuss here) because it is not always completely clear whether what is contended is the irrelevance of logical possibility / impossibility strictly intended, or the irrelevance of logical possibility/ impossibility relative to a body of premises . On the other hand, one can understand how this distinction may have looked scarcely important in Toulmin’s view: if formal logic only works in analytical arguments , then all relative necessities are, in the end, analytical necessities given certain minor premises (unless empirically derived major premises are spuriously introduced). The distinction is, however, of vital importance for building a working semantics of the modals .
- 14.
The context of financial argumentation that will be discussed later in this book provides a wealth of examples of predictive arguments that take an underlying process of rational deliberation as their object.
- 15.
For the sake of simplicity, in this book I will, as a rule, normalize speech-act nomenclature to the Searlean terminology (Searle 1969), which is the one adopted by Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004) and by Congruity Theory (Rigotti 2005) – two theories that play an important background role in this investigation.
- 16.
Toulmin refers Austin’s ideas as first expounded in his 1946 essay, while Austin’s “classic” formulation of speech-act theory is given in his William James Lectures held at Harvard in 1955 and later published as Austin (1962). Austin had given courses on Words and Deeds at Oxford in the years 1952-1954 and Toulmin might well have been exposed to his theory from other sources than the 1946 essay.
- 17.
Referred to Toulmin (2003 [1958]) this terminology is obviously an anachronism.
- 18.
This is, of course, something of which Toulmin was keenly aware given the importance he gives to the reflections of Ryle (1950) on the topic.
- 19.
Moreover, as we will see in Chap. 6 natural language conditional expressions, which interact closely with modals , are not purely hypothetical as they do not remain neutral with respect to the truth of the antecedent and consequent they embed.
- 20.
A very curious trait of Ennis’ paper is that the author sets out to accomplish a typically linguistic endeavor – the semantic analysis of a lexical unit – using the quintessentially linguistic method of substitution tests, but does not show any awareness of the existence of lexical semantics as a field. He prefers to speak of an “ordinary language argument ” and mentions individual differences in the beliefs about ‘what we would say’ as one of the methodological problems of the “ordinary language movement”. Allusion to the ordinary language movement, makes it look as if the paper was written in the 1950s rather than in 2006.
- 21.
In Searlean terms this belief is the sincerity condition of the illocutionary act of assertion.
- 22.
This of Ennis’ defense is presented in a discussion of Searle’s (1969) criticism of speech-act theories of the meaning of good and probably and refers to principles of meaning composition discussed by Searle. I decided not to discuss Searle’s views on Toulmin’s probably.
- 23.
Some authors (e.g. Doherty 1987b) also consider whether the modal expression can take a contrastive stress and function as the (contrastive) focus of the utterance. These data bring in a further layer of complexity to an already messy situation, because they have to be considered in combination with the other parameters (e.g. the possibility of carrying a contrastive stress in a question) and also because the intuitions of acceptability concerning them are highly dependent on the discourse context and on the intended interpretation (e.g. whether we have to do with an echo question).
- 24.
The paper was first published in Mind in 1952.
- 25.
It is interesting to observe that the function of indicating “how the statement is to be taken as fitting logically into the discussion” (Urmson 1956: 198) covers both the logical aspects stricto sensu, illustrated by deduce and conclude, and the dialectical ones as illustrated by admit. According to Urmson, by saying I admit p the speaker signals that p is either “support” for the opponent’s position or “part of” the opponent’s position, forestalling an opponent’s reaction such as But, don’t you see that it’s part of my point?
- 26.
Urmson suggests that the subdivision of parentheticals in three functional groups is not clear cut or without overlap, “with verbs that might with equal reason be placed in either of two groups” (Urmson 1956: 200). I suspect that what Urmson had in mind here was chiefly the contiguity between group (ii), comprising the parenthetical that place the assertion in its logical context and group (iii), which includes those evaluating the reliability of the statement in view of the evidence, as he makes this comment immediately after putting presumably in group (ii) and the closely related probably in group (iii).
- 27.
Urmson insists that no mental acts or activities are described by parentheticals. For instance, there is no mental act of concluding or of guessing, only assertions occurring in specific logical contexts or evidential situations. He sees parenthetical verbs as closely related but distinct from Austinian performatives (Urmson 1956: 205). In the paper, however, he does not explicitly elaborate on the distinction between these two classes.
- 28.
Hooper (1975) looks at mood choice (indicative vs. subjunctive) in complement clauses in Romance languages.
- 29.
Portner’s (2009) sees this notion of performativity as mere indexicality and therefore unable to fully explain non-propositionality, observing that indexicals can be embedded without any special problem. It is true that M-performatives are a very special type of indexicals as they simultaneously index the speaker, the time of utterance and the actual world. Yet, Portner’s objection has a certain bite, because indexicals such as, for instance, I and now can combine compositionally with negations and counterfactuals, shifting their reference as a result (If I were you, I would have resigned by now). For an exclusively m-performative epistemic modal like perhaps an attempt at negative or counterfactual embedding does not result in a shift, but simply fails. A sentence like If Alice had perhaps won the race, they would be preparing a party at home cannot be interpreted as ‘If the speaker’s evidence at the moment of utterance were compatible with Alice winning the race, they would be preparing a party at home’. The only possible interpretation has the unembedded epistemic modal taking scope over the entire conditional sentence.
- 30.
Note that, contrary to English and to Romance languages, German and Dutch adverbs do not have a distinguishing morphological mark and are set apart from their adjectival counterparts by syntax only.
- 31.
I refrain from discussing here these issues, which strictly pertain to the methodology of linguistic semantics . Certain difficulties in applying tests for propositionality are discussed in Rocci (2005: 111–115).
- 32.
Doherty (1987b: 53), from which I take the example sentence, also recognizes the possibility for the non-propositional modalizer perhaps to occur in questions. Doherty proposes an analysis of this phenomenon that is substantially different from the one I propose here.
- 33.
Here I use “constructional template” to refer informally to what is more properly called a construction in the technical sense of Construction Grammars, that is of ‘a form-meaning pair such that some aspect of its form or some aspect of its meaning is not strictly predictable from its component parts or from other constructions ” (cf. Goldberg 1995). While non-compositional internally, constructions are productive and combine compositionally with linguistic units that saturate their open slots. See Rocci (2007) for the analysis of a similar construction in Italian.
- 34.
I adapt the analysis of (37) from Rocci (2007: 146–151) which proposed a Congruity Theoretic analysis of an Italian language construction which performs a modalization of yes-no questions that is very similar to what perhaps realizes in (37).
- 35.
There is no contradiction between recognizing (non-)propositionality as a discourse phenomenon rather than a linguistic one and adopting pragmatic predicates as a way to represent their contributions. Note that according to Congruity Theory , pragmatic predicates are not linguistic units, not even abstract, tacit, phonologically null linguistic units. They are a construct aiming to reflect the logico-semantic nature of the pragmatic organization of discourse, not to reduce the pragmatic organization of discourse to a level of linguistic structure. In this respect Congruity Theory differs subtly from a theory of rhetorical relations like SDRT (Asher and Lascarides 2003), with which it has many similarities. SDRT’s ambition is to model precisely the construction of discourse structures as a level of linguistic competence, albeit a very peculiar one: building “a competence model of the construction of logical form” for discourse (Asher and Lascarides 2003: 76), where these logical forms are seen as an intermediate step between the surface of discourse and “deep interpretation”(Ibid.). Congruity Theory is not fully formalized and does not provide any “mechanical” model of discourse interpretation. Congruity Theory, instead, offers to analysts a way of representing the results of (deep) discourse interpretation in a (more) explicit fashion, which is something that can be useful for discussing individual linguistic-pragmatic hypotheses, for discourse criticism of various sorts (including argumentative criticism), for drawing typologies of discourse genres or of kinds of discourse moves in specific social contexts of interaction , and, more generally, for working in the fields of “socio-pragmatics ” and “onto-pragmatics ” – as opposed to “psycho-pragmatics ” (cf. Dascal 2003: 412).
- 36.
Of the closeness between the perspective of the addressee, interpreter of the utterance, and of the analyst engaging in rational reconstruction when we deal with direct argumentative indicators I have spoken in the Introduction (§ 1.3).
- 37.
- 38.
In fact, Toulmin (2003 [1958]: 105) alludes to a “fourth” kind of backing with the following example: The practice of doing A leads to the following intolerable consequences, etc. This is mentioned together with the taxonomical, statistical and legal ones as one of the possible backings of a warrant of the form ‘An A can be certainly taken to be a B’. The example seems a fragment of moral reasoning based on an argument from consequences. But it is hard to see how it can provide a fitting backing for a warrant with the form ‘An A can be certainly taken to be a B’. I leave the question at that, but not without commenting on the way in which Toulmin’s backings (and fields of argument ) seem to hint to the necessity of addressing the level of topics (loci, argument schemes ) without actually developing it.
- 39.
The terms microstructure and macrostructure are used here according to Freeman (1991, 2011).
- 40.
Accessibility relations and their properties will be presented in more detail in Chap. 4.
- 41.
It has to be said, for the sake of historical exactitude, that Lukasiewicz’s (1957) own interpretation of Aristotelian syllogism “from the standpoint of modern formal logic” is very far from the modern textbook vulgate, which Lukasiewicz calls the “false form”. For Lukasiewicz syllogisms in their true form are not inference schemes but implications (e.g. If A is predicated of all B and B is predicated of all C then (it follows of necessity that) A is predicated of all C): they are, in other words, dominated by an if…then, not by a therefore. This difference has no bearing on the issue of the necessity of syllogistic conclusions that concerns us here.
- 42.
- 43.
As an example of deduction of contingent conclusions from contingent premises consider the following: All the participants in the experiment experienced dizziness and nausea. Some participants were men. Some men experienced dizziness and nausea. The premises are observational facts and the reasoning seems to proceed in an entirely extensional manner through quantification. The fact that in the passage of the Rhetoric Aristotle explicitly considers deliberative contexts and thus mostly practical, and, subsidiarily, predictive, standpoints concerning future human actions may explain, but only in part, the absence of deduction from contingent truths. Future events cannot be simply inferred from contingent propositions without the mediation of an intensional nomic premise , which can be either necessary – with respect to a given domain of quantification – or probabilistic. However, even in predictive arguments minor premises can be purely contingent observational facts. Predictive standpoints will be discussed in-depth in Chap. 6.
- 44.
The translation differs only slightly from Jonathan Barnes’ translation in the Revised Oxford Translation.
- 45.
These two Greek formulas are not Aristotelian technical terms and first appear in the writings of Oxford philosopher and Aristotelian exegete H.W.B. Joseph (cf. Fait: 2004: 105).
- 46.
“Duae sunt etenim necessitates, simplex una, ueluti quod necesse est omnes homines esse mortales, altera condicionis, ut si aliquem ambulare scias eum ambulare necesse est. Quod enim quisque nouit id esse aliter ac notum est nequit, sed haec condicio minime se cum illam simplicem trahit. Hanc enim necessitatem non propria facit natura sed condicionis adiectio; nulla enim necessitas cogit incedere uoluntate gradientem, quamuis eum tum cum graditur incedere necessarium sit. Eodem igitur modo, si quid prouidentia praesens uidet, id esse necesse est tametsi nullam naturae habeat necessitatem.” (Consolatio philosophiae V, 6.27–30 in Boethius 2005).
- 47.
The terms used by Boethius were necessitas condicionis ‘necessity of the conditional ’ and necessitas simplex ‘simple necessity’.
- 48.
In one of the very few citations of the book, Vorobej (2006: 174) acknowledges that his treatment of modalities in argument diagramming derives from Freeman’s.
- 49.
I reckon from the context of the passage that by using Stevenson’s term “emotive meaning” Freeman intends a pragmatic meaning, indicative rather than denotative of a speaker’s attitude, which arises besides the denotative meaning in the use of a word and which is derived from the denotative meaning. The choice of term is not entirely felicitous because it evokes the arousal of emotional responses as well as aspects of Stevenson’s notion of emotive meanings that are not really relevant here.
- 50.
One might wonder why Toulmin sees linguistically manifest elements such as the modal qualifiers as being implicit comments. A plausible interpretation could be that Toulmin refers to the fact that modal qualifiers are not asserted comments. According to this interpretation the remark is obviously consistent with Toulmin’s non-propositional analysis of probably as an illocutionary modifier, and reminds even more closely of Urmson’s (1956) analysis of parentheticals.
- 51.
Freeman’s (1991, 2011) dialectical justification of the modal qualifier was briefly presented in 7.2.3.
- 52.
Cf. Portner (2009: 73–79) on detailed arguments for rejecting an analysis based on numerical probability for the core modals of English. The main argument is that such an analysis would apply to epistemic modals only an would preclude a unified synchronic and diachronic account of the different flavors of modality (Ibid: 77). Furthermore, Portner believes that even in the case of English probability expressions a numerical probability analysis is not justified outside of “mathematically sophisticated language which explicitly builds on probability theory” (Ibid.).
- 53.
As it is well known, the material implication fails to provide an adequate account of lato sensu counterfactual conditionals (sometimes called ‘subjunctive conditionals ’). Lewis (1973) proposed a modal analysis of counterfactual conditionals based on possible world semantics . Grice (1989) famously argued that a material implication analysis can be maintained for indicative conditionals as long as it is supplemented by pragmatic inferences based on the cooperative principle. In contrast to the Gricean analysis, which is still adopted by several students of pragmatics , formal semanticists such as Kratzer have proposed modal analyses of indicative conditionals in line with those of counterfactuals (Cf. Kratzer 2012, esp. Chap. 5).
- 54.
- 55.
Cf. Rescher’s account of presumptive reasoning is characterized as essentially deductive by Woods (2010: 247).
- 56.
As it should be clear from the previous discussion, many of these critical passages are affected by considerable vagueness so that one cannot characterize them as outright inconsistent without a considerable baggage of assumptions on how they ought to be made precise. Whether there could be ways to reconcile the different views of modality that emerge from the Uses of Argument remains a moot question that will not be pursued further in this book.
- 57.
- 58.
The topic of non-epistemic modalities is rarely the object of explicit attention in the argumentation literature. We have seen that Freeman (1991) briefly discusses the necessity of logical and mathematical tautologies and separates it from the necessity of concluding in view of a certain body of evidence. Snoeck Henkemans (1997: 109, also n. 7) is unusual in that she makes the restriction to “epistemic modalities ” explicit, distinguishing them from deontic modalities . Only the former can be used to “indicate the extent to which the speaker is prepared to commit himself to the truth or acceptability of the propositional content of his standpoint ” and, as such are of interest as argumentative indicators , while the latter are “part of the predicate of the proposition ” and thus cannot play the role of illocutionary force indicators or illocutionary force modifiers.
- 59.
Cf. Bermejo-Luque (2011: 171): “In acknowledging ontological probability values I am endorsing the view that propositional contents can have values other than true or false”. As a consequence, the values of ontological possibility and ontological probability are incompatible with truth: “a representation that is, in fact, or false, cannot be ontologically probable” (Ibid.). So, for instance, realized ontological possibilities are not possibilities anymore. It is not clear what Bermejo-Luque is going to do with necessity in her modality -as-truth-value framework. Is ontological necessity less or more than truth?
- 60.
Pinto (2007: 1) marks explicitly the distance between his proposal and the pragmatic aspects of Toulmin’s view: “Toulmin’s idea that the function of probably and probable is to express guarded commitment or assertion plays little or no role in this paper”. On the other hand, Pinto’s account is clearly related to Toulmin’s idea that the quality of the evidence at the speaker’s disposal determines what sort of qualifier he is entitled to include in his statement (cf. § 7.3).
- 61.
In the logical tradition epistemic modalities concern what is possible/ probable/ necessary in view of what is known by a subject, while doxastic ones what is possible/ probable/ necessary, given the beliefs or opinions of a subject (cf. Hintikka 1962). Linguists rarely consider this distinction and tend to use only the term epistemic modality . As for Pinto, it is not surprising that he elects to use doxastic to refer to a cognitive attitude that has yet to be evaluated in view of the evidence.
- 62.
The closeness of the evaluative and deontic dimensions is well known. There is a small step between saying that adopting a certain cognitive attitude towards a proposition in view of the evidence is good, right, correct and saying that such an attitude should be adopted.
- 63.
Cf. Rocci (2008a: 167): “let us establish a distinction between direct indicators—which are signs that, in some of their uses, refer to argumentative moves (e.g. the connective because) and indirect indicators, which refer to semantic or pragmatic categories correlated to argumentative moves. This distinction will help us in dealing with the modals ’ role as indicators”.
- 64.
Clearly, as Houtlosser (2002: 171) observes, the speaker may well privately not believe the standpoint he is defending, but he is publicly committed to this belief. He cannot, for instance, advance a standpoint and assert he does not believe the opinion advanced as a standpoint .
- 65.
I induce this characterisation from the examples, as van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans (2007) do not provide a definition of the two classes.
- 66.
For the sake of brevity I omit the category of semi-assertives which is also used by van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans (2007) as it raises problems of semantic analysis that would require a rather lengthy discussion.
- 67.
For a detailed Gricean reconstruction of the two pragmatic implicatures see van Eemeren, Houtlosser and Snoeck Henkemans (2007: 32–34)
- 68.
The ground covered by Tseronis has a larger, yet not exact, overlap with the categories of parenthetical verbs and corresponding adverbs discussed by Urmson (1956, see § 3.3.3 above). The parentheticals that fall outside Tseronis’ view of qualifiers are those that comment on the “logical relevance ” of a proposition in a discussion (e.g. admittedly, consequently).
- 69.
To be clear: as defined by Extended Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren 2010), presentational devices play an important role at the rhetorical level as a means of strategic maneuvering. Yet, at the dialectical level, they are, by definition, not relevant .
- 70.
Unfortunately, Tseronis (2009) does not give examples of linguistic devices that, unlike qualifiers , do work as illocutionary modifiers and do change the nature of the speech-act. The only example given is the contrast between requesting and insisting, but while there is certainly a difference of strength between the two verbs (among other semantic differences), the example does not really amount to a case of application of a recognizable modifying device.
- 71.
Tseronis stresses that in an argumentative discussion not believing the propositional content of the expressed opinion does not constitute cheating or uncooperativeness. Correct, but only as long as we refer to a private mental state, which is irrelevant here. When we consider a public manifestation of lack of belief in the propositional content, we find that it makes the act of advancing a standpoint infelicitous, as in the following example: *I am ready to defend the thesis that John is not coming with us tonight – even if I don’t actually believe it. We find ourselves again in a variant of Moore’s pragmatic paradox of belief. If we exclude the non-serious scenario of people playing a dialectical game for the sake of argumentative sparring, and consider real argumentative situations where participants are oriented towards a problem-valid resolution, the utterance cannot be felicitous. We must either conclude that the utterer is argumentatively uncooperative or that he is deeply irrational.
- 72.
It goes without saying that the perspective introduced in Tseronis (2009) is also squarely incompatible with Pinto’s ideas of arguments needing to be proportionate to the doxastic attitude adopted as well as with Toulmin’s (admittedly vague) remarks on the matching between quality of the backing, force of the warrant and force of the qualifier .
- 73.
This is not the end of the story about clearly and probably. The two adverbs and their adjectival counterparts (probable and clear) differ in noticeable and yet mysterious ways that deserve further attention. The point made here was limited to showing that neither supports the idea of a modal qualifier expressing a comment on the speaker’s commitment towards the proposition independently from the act of advancing a standpoint .
- 74.
References
Anscombre J-C, Ducrot O (1983) L’argumentation dans la langue. Mardaga, Bruxelles
Aquinas T St (2006) Summa contra gentiles. In: Alarcón E (ed) Corpus Thomisticum. St. Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia. Fundación Tomás de Aquino 2000–2013. http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/. Accessed 5 Oct 2016
Aristotle (2014). The complete works of Aristotle: the revised Oxford translation, one-volume digital edition (ed) Barnes J. Princeton University Press, Princeton (originally published in 1984 as 2 volumes)
Asher N, Lascarides A (2003) Logics of conversation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Austin JL (1946) Other minds. Suppl Proc Aristotelian Soc 20:148–187
Austin JL (1962) How to do things with words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Bermejo-Luque L (2011) Giving reasons. A linguistic-pragmatic approach to argumentation theory. Springer, Dordrecht
Black M (1967) Probability. In: Edwards P (ed) The encyclopedia of philosophy. Macmillan and Free Press, New York, pp 464–479
Blakemore D (1990) Performatives and parentheticals. In: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol 91. Aristotelian Society, Wiley, pp 197–213
Blakemore D (1997) On non-truth conditional meaning. In: Rolf E (ed) Pragmatik. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, pp 92–102
Blakemore D (2006) Divisions of labour: the analysis of parentheticals. Lingua 116(10):1670–1687. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2005.04.007
Blanché R (1970) La logique et son histoire: d’Aristote à Russell. Armand Colin, Paris
Boethius S (2005) De consolatione philosophiae. Opuscula theologica. Moreschini C (ed). Saur Verlag, München/Leipzig
Brockriede W, Ehninger D (1960) Toulmin on argument: an interpretation and application. Q J Speech 46(1):44–54
Carnap R (1950) Logical foundations of probability. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Conte, M-E (2010[1995]) Epistemico, deontico, anankastico. In: Venier F, Proietti D (eds) Vettori del testo. Carocci, Roma, pp 151–159 (Originally published in From pragmatics to syntax. Modality in second language acquisition, eds. Anna Giacalone Ramat and Grazia Crocco Galèas, 3–9. Tübingen: Gunter Narr)
Dascal M (2003) Interpretation and understanding. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia
Doherty M (1987a) Epistemic meaning, vol 21. Springer, Berlin
Doherty M (1987b) Perhaps. Folia Linguistica 21(1):45–65
Ducrot O (1984) Le dire et le dit. Les éditions de minuit, Paris
Ducrot O (1993) A quoi sert le concept de modalité? In Dittmar N, Reich A (eds) Modality in language acquisition/Modalité et Acquisition des Langues, ed. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp 111–129
Egan A, Weatherson B (2011) Epistemic modality. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Ennis RH (2006) Probably. In: Hitchcock D, Verheij B (eds) Arguing on the Toulmin model. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 145–164
Fait P (2004) Aristotle on a puzzle about logical consequence: necessity of being vs. necessity of saying. Topoi 23(1):101–112
Faller MT (2002) Semantics and pragmatics of evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. Ph.D dissertation. Stanford University, Stanford
Freeman JB (1988) Thinking logically. Basic concepts for reasoning. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Freeman JB (1991) Dialectics and the macrostructure of arguments. A theory of argument structure. Foris Publications, Berlin
Freeman JB (2011) Argument structure: representation and theory. Springer, Amsterdam
Freeman JB (2013) What types of arguments are there?. In: Mohammed D, Lewiński M (eds) Virtues of argumentation. Proceedings of the 10th international conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation (OSSA), Windsor (ON), pp 1–15
Frege, Gottlob. 1960. Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege. In: Geach P, Black M (eds). Blackwell, Oxford
Goldberg AE (1995) Constructions: a construction grammar approach to argument structure. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Grice HP (1989) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Hacquard V, Wellwood A (2012) Embedding epistemic modals in English: a corpus based study. Semant Pragmatics 5(4):1–29
Hare RM (1970) Meaning and speech acts. Philos Rev 79(1):3–24
Hengeveld K (1988) Illocution, mood and modality in a functional grammar of Spanish. J Semant 6:227–269
Higginbotham J (2003) A note on conditionals and compositionality. USC Work Pap Linguist 1:63–69
Hintikka J (1973) Time and necessity. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Hitchcock D, Verheij B (2006) Arguing on the Toulmin model: new essays in argument analysis and evaluation, vol 10. Springer, Berlin
Hooper JB (1975) On assertive predicates. In: Kimball J (ed) Syntax and semantics. Academic, New York, pp 91–124
Houtlosser P (1994) The speech act “advancing a standpoint.” In: van Eemeren FH, Grootendorst R (eds) Studies in Pragma-Dialectics. SicSat, Amsterdam, pp 166–171
Houtlosser P (2002) Indicators of point of view. In: ed. van Eemeren FH (ed) Advances in Pragma-Dialectics. SicSat, Vale Press, Amsterdam, pp 169-184
Ifantidou-Trouki E (1993) Sentential adverbs and relevance. Lingua 90(1-2):69–90
Kay P (1997) Words and the grammar of context. CSLI Publications, Stanford
Kay P (2004) Pragmatic aspects of grammatical constructions. In: Horn L, Ward G (eds) The handbook of pragmatics. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 675–700
Kneale WC (1949) Probability and induction. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Knuuttila S (1982) Modal logic. In: Kretzmann N, Kenny A, Pinborg J, Stump E (eds) The Cambridge history of later medieval philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 342–357
Knuuttila, Simo. 2013. Medieval theories of modality. In: Zalta EN et al. (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Standford University Press, Stanford. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/modality-medieval. Accessed 5 Oct 2016
Kratzer A (1981) The notional category of modality. In: Eikmeyer H-J, Rieser H (eds) Words, worlds, and contexts: new approaches in word semantics. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp 38–75
Kratzer A (2012) Modals and conditionals. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Kronning H (1996) Modalité, Cognition et Polysémie: Sémantique du Verbe Modal Devoir; Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Romanica Upsaliensia. Uppsala Univ, Uppsala
Kronning H (2014) La théorie modale de la polyphonie et les constructions conditionnelles en si. Langages 193(1):17–31
Lakoff G (1973) Hedges: a study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. J Philos Logic 2(4):458–508
Langacker RW (1991) Concept, image, and symbol: the cognitive basis of grammar. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York
Lewis D (1973) Counterfactuals. Blackwell, Oxford
Lukasiewicz J (1957) Aristotle’s syllogistic from the standpoint of modern formal logic, 2nd edn. Clarendon, Oxford
Lyons J (1977) Semantics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/London
Merlini L (1983) Gli atti del discorso economico: la previsione. Status illocutorio e modelli linguistici del testo inglese. Zara, Parma
Merlini Barbaresi L (1987) ‘Obviously’ and ‘certainly’: two different functions in argumentative discourse. Folia Linguistica 21(1):3–24. doi:10.1515/flin.1987.21.1.3
Miecznikowski J, Rocci A, Zlatkova G (2012) L’argumentation dans la presse économique et financière italienne. In: Gautier L (ed) Les discours de la bourse et de la finance. Frank und Timme, Berlin, pp 65–83
Mœschler J (1992) The pragmatic aspects of linguistic negation: speech act, argumentation and pragmatic inference. Argumentation 6(1):51–76
Nauze FD (2008) Modality in typological perspective. Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, Amsterdam
Nølke H, Fløttum K, Norén C (2004) ScaPoLine. La Théorie Scandinave de la Polyphonie Linguistique. Kimé, Paris
Nuyts J (2001a) Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization: a cognitive-pragmatic perspective. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia
Nuyts J (2001b) Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. J Pragmatics 33(3):383–400
Papafragou A (ed) (2000) Modality: issues in the semantics-pragmatics interface. Current research in the semantics/pragmatics interface. Elsevier, Amsterdam
Papafragou A (2006) Epistemic modality and truth conditions. Lingua 116(10):1688–1702
Pinto RC (2001) Generalizing the notion of argument. In: Argument, inference and dialectic. Collected papers on informal logic. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 10–20
Pinto RC (2007) Evaluating inferences: the nature and function of warrants. In: Hitchcock D, Verheij B (eds) Arguing on the Toulmin model. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 115–143
Portner P (2009) Modality. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Recanati F (1989) The pragmatics of what is said. Mind Lang 4(4):295–329
Recanati F (2009) Compositionality, flexibility, and context-dependence. In: Markus Werning, Wolfram Hinzen, and Edouard Machery (eds) Oxford handbook of compositionality. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 1–29
Rescher N (2006) Presumption and the practices of tentative cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York
Rigotti E (2005a) Congruity theory and argumentation. Argumentation Dialogic Interact Spec Issue Stud Commun Sci 5:75–96
Rigotti E. (2005b). Towards a typology of manipulative processes. In de Saussure L, Schulz P (eds) New perspectives on manipulative and ideological discourse in pragmatics and discourse analysis. ‘Discourse approaches to politics, society and culture’ John Benjamins, Amsterdam
Rigotti E, Greco Morasso S (2010) Comparing the Argumentum Model of Topics to other contemporary approaches to argument schemes: the procedural and material components. Argumentation 24(4):489–512
Rigotti E, Rocci A (2001) Sens – non-sens – contresens. Studies in Communication Sciences 2:45–48
Rocci A (2005) La modalità epistemica tra semantica e argomentazione. I.S.U Università cattolica, Milano
Rocci A (2007) Epistemic modality and questions in dialogue. The case of Italian interrogative constructions in the subjunctive mood. In: de Saussure L, Puskas G, Moeschler J (eds) Tense, mood and aspect: theoretical and descriptive issues. Cahiers Chronos vol 17. Rodopi, Amsterdam/New York, pp 129–153
Rocci A (2008a) Modality and its conversational backgrounds in the reconstruction of argumentation. Argumentation 22:165–189. doi:10.1007/s10503-007-9065-8
Rocci A (2008b) Modals as lexical indicators of argumentation: a study of Italian economic-financial news. L’analisi Linguistica e Letteraria. Spec Issue Word Mean Argumentative Dialogue 16(2):577–619
Ryle G (1937) Categories. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 38:189–206
Ryle G (2009) The concept of mind. Routledge, New York
Searle JR (1969) Speech acts – an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Simon-Vandenbergen A-M, Aijmer K (2007) The semantic field of modal certainty. Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter
Snoeck Henkemans F (1992) Analysing complex argumentation. SicSat, Amsterdam
Snoeck Henkemans F (1997) Analysing complex argumentation: the reconstruction of multiple and coordinatively compound argumentation in a critical discussion. SicSat, Amsterdam
Sorensen R (2014). Epistemic paradoxes. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/
Swanson E (2006) Interactions with context. MIT, Cambridge, MA
Sweetser E (1990) From etymology to pragmatics: metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York
Talmy L (1985) Force dynamics in language and thought. In: Eilfort WH, Kroeber PD, Peterson KL (eds) Papers from the parasession on causatives and agentivity. Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago, pp 293–337
Thomasson AL (2002) Phenomenology and the development of analytic philosophy. Southern J Philos 40(S1):115–142. doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.2002.tb01926.x
Toulmin SE (1956) Probability. In: Flew A (ed) Essays in conceptual analysis. Macmillan, London, pp 157–191
Toulmin SE (2003) The uses of argument. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Toulmin SE, Rieke R, Janik A (1984) An introduction to reasoning. Macmillan, New York
Tseronis A (2009) Qualifying Standpoints: Stance adverbs as a presentational device for managing the burden of proof. LOT, Utrecht
Urmson JO (1956) Parenthetical verbs. In: Flew A (ed) Essays in conceptual analysis. Macmillan, London, pp 192–212
van der Auwera J (1999) On the semantic and pragmatic polyfunctionality of modal verbs. In: Turner K (ed) The semantics/pragmatics interface from different points of view. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 49–64
van Eemeren FH (2010) Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia
van Eemeren FH, Grootendorst R (1984) Speech acts in argumentative discussions. Foris Publications, Dordrecht
van Eemeren FH, Grootendorst R (2004) A systematic theory of argumentation: the Pragma-Dialectical approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
van Eemeren FH, Grootendorst R, Snoeck Henkemans F (1996) Fundamentels of argumentation theory. a handbook of historical backgrounds and contemporary developments. Erlbaum, Mahwah
van Eemeren FH, Houtlosser P, Snoeck Henkemans F (2007) Argumentative indicators in discourse a pragma-dialectical study. Springer, Amsterdam
von Wright GH (1951) Deontic logic. Mind 60(237):1–15
Venier F (1991) La modalizzazione assertiva: avverbi modali e verbi parentetici. Materiali linguistici. F. Angeli, Milano
Vorobej M (2006) A theory of argument. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Walton D, Krabbe E (1995) Commitment in dialogue: basic concepts of interpersonal reasoning. State University of New York Press, New York
Woods J (2010) Defeasible reasoning. In: Reed C, Tindale CW (eds) Dialectics, dialogue and argumentation. An examination of Douglas Walton’s theories of reasoning and argument. College Publications, London, pp 239–261
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rocci, A. (2017). Three Views of Modality in Toulmin. In: Modality in Argumentation. Argumentation Library, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1063-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1063-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-1061-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-1063-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)