This document provides an overview of the development of argumentation theory. It discusses how Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca challenged the dominance of formal logic with their 1958 work, introducing concepts like audience adherence. Stephen Toulmin also published an influential book in 1958 emphasizing actual argument practices. These works shifted the field's focus to contexts and arguers. Later theorists like Hamblin and Walton further challenged formal logic's role in evaluation, advocating pragmatic criteria and exploring non-fallacious forms of arguments.

1. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
ARGUMENTATION THEORY (1,500 words)
AUTHOR: Louise Cummings
Argumentation experienced a revival of interest in 1958 when Chaïm Perelman and Lucie
Olbrechts-Tyteca published their seminal work in the area entitled La Nouvelle
Rhétorique (the English translation of this work was published in 1969). The
achievement of this study was the rediscovery of ‘a part of Aristotelian logic that had
been long forgotten or, at any rate, ignored and despised. It was the part dealing with
dialectical reasoning, as distinguished from demonstrative reasoning - called by Aristotle
analytics - which is analyzed at length in the Rhetoric, Topics, and On Sophistical
Refutations’ (Perelman 1979: 9). This ‘new rhetoric’, as it was called, was motivated by
the search for ‘an ideal of practical reason, that is, the establishment of rules and models
for reasonable action’ (1979: 8), a search which Perelman had previously conducted from
‘within the limits of logical empiricism’, but with unsatisfactory results. This new found
interest in argumentation brought with it an emphasis on audience adherence, the
attributes of speakers and listeners, rules of discussion, communication and a juridical,
as opposed to a mathematical, model of reasoning with its focus on opinion as the
starting point of argumentation and its rejection of the ‘unicity of truth’. Specifically, this
‘new rhetoric’ was to challenge the traditionally dominant position of formal logic in the
study of argument: ‘Formal logic essentially studies proof through calculation, i.e.,
formally correct demonstrative reasoning. But, the way we reason in a discussion, or in
an intimate deliberation, when we give reasons pro or contra, when we criticize or justify
a certain thesis, when we present an argument, e.g., in drawing up a preamble for a legal

2. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
draft or the justification of a judgment, all the techniques utilized in these situations have
escaped the modern logician’s attention to the extent that he has limited himself to the
analysis of purely formal reasoning. It is doubtless that in all these situations we reason,
and the nature of these reasonings did not escape Aristotle, considered by everyone to be
the father of formal logic’ (Perelman 1979: 56).
Also in 1958, Stephen Toulmin published a book that was to erode yet further the
dominance of formal logic in the study of argument. Entitled The Uses of Argument, this
book was to give prominence to the actual procedures used by arguers in different fields
of argument: ‘The statements of our assertions, and the statements of the facts adduced
in their support, are, as philosophers would say, of many different ‘logical types’ –
reports of present and past events, predictions about the future, verdicts of criminal guilt,
aesthetic commendations, geometrical axioms and so on. The arguments which we put
forward, and the steps which occur in them, will be correspondingly various’ (Toulmin
1958: 13). These procedures had hitherto been neglected by philosophers and logicians
whose preoccupation had been with logico-mathematical ideals of argument.
Jurisprudence, not mathematics, Toulmin argued, should be the logician’s model in
analysing rational procedures: ‘If we are to set our arguments out with complete logical
candour, and understand properly the nature of ‘the logical process’, surely we shall need
to employ a pattern of argument no less sophisticated than is required in the law’ (1958:
96). This ‘pattern of argument’ sets out with a conclusion or claim (C), which must be
established if challenged. The facts that we use to support this claim form our data (D).
The proposition that carries us from the data to the conclusion is described as the

3. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
warrant (W) and may confer ‘different degrees of force on the conclusions they justify’
(1958: 100). Some warrants lead us ‘necessarily’ from the supporting data to the
conclusion of an argument. In other arguments, the warrant authorizes a more tentative or
qualified step between data and conclusion. The strength that a particular warrant confers
on the step between data and conclusion is indicated by the qualifier (Q) beside the
conclusion in the model. The ‘general authority’ of a warrant may be set aside if certain
conditions of exception or rebuttal (R) obtain. As well as specifying the conditions under
which a warrant may be presumed to hold, we may also be required to state for a
challenger why a particular warrant should be accepted. To satisfy this challenger’s
demand, we will be required to reveal the grounds we have for a particular warrant –
what Toulmin calls the backing (B) of a warrant. Toulmin’s model for the pattern of an
argument thus has the following form:
D So, Q, C
Unless
R
Since
W
On account of
B

4. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
The ‘new rhetoric’ of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca had more impact initially on
communication and rhetorical studies than on philosophy, particularly in North America
(Gilbert 1997). Although the impact of Toulmin’s monograph has probably been wider
than that of the ‘new rhetoric’, his work certainly attracted its detractors (see Cowan
1964). Notwithstanding the unfavourable reaction to the ideas of these early
argumentation theorists in some quarters, it is clear that Perelman’s and Toulmin’s work
marked a significant pragmatic turn in the study of argument (Cummings 2005). This
pragmatic turn emphasized the study of arguments in a range of different contexts.
Arguers were no longer irrelevant to the study of argument, as they had been for formal
logicians. Argument was now not a static phenomenon, but was conceived in terms of a
process of argumentation that arose between two or more participants who were
concerned to debate the rational merits of different positions and standpoints. Notions
such as context, arguer, standpoint and argumentation, which had been driven out of the
study of argument by formal logic, began to find their place within pragmatic frameworks
such as the pragma-dialectics of Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst. From
today’s pragmatically informed perspective on argument, it may seem that pragmatic
concepts such as context have always been central to the study of argument. Yet, without
the pioneering work of Perelman and Toulmin in the latter half of the twentieth century, it
is difficult to imagine how the rapid development of pragmatic frameworks for the
analysis and evaluation of argument could have occurred. Perelman’s and Toulmin’s
criticisms of formal logic and their ideas for a new conception of argument prepared the
way for the emergence of the informal logic movement in North America during the
seventies (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1996) and have influenced the thinking of later

5. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
theorists such as Jürgen Habermas (see Habermas (1984) for discussion of Toulmin’s
analysis of argument structure).
Shortly after argumentation theorists began to loosen the grip of formal logic on
argument, fallacy theorists started to question its relevance to their own attempts to
evaluate arguments. Formal logic with its emphasis on deductive validity had long been
the presumed ideal of argument and any argument which failed to conform to this ideal
was consigned to the category of fallacy. In his 1970 book Fallacies, Charles Hamblin
directly challenged formal logic’s relevance to the study of argument evaluation: ‘The
point is…that…there are various criteria of worth of arguments; that they may conflict,
and that arguments may conflict; that when criteria conflict some are more dispensable
than others, and that when arguments conflict a decision needs to be made to give weight
to one rather than another. All this sets the theory of arguments apart from Formal Logic
and gives it an additional dimension’ (1970: 231; italics in original). Hamblin rejects
alethic criteria of argument evaluation (‘an argument is a good one if the premises are
true and the conclusion immediately follows from it’) in favour of dialectical criteria that
are based on acceptance: ‘acceptance by the person the argument is aimed at – the person
for whom the argument is an argument – is the appropriate basis of a set of criteria’
(1970: 242). While an argument that proceeds from accepted premises using an accepted
inference process may not be judged to be a good argument ‘in the full, alethic sense’, it
is, Hamblin claims, ‘a good one in some other sense which is much more germane to the
practical application of logical principles’ (1970: 241).

6. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
It is significant that in advancing dialectical criteria, Hamblin draws on concepts that are
pragmatic in nature. Our criteria of good argument, he argues, would be ‘less than
adequate’ if they could not account for the purposes for which we advance arguments.
Assessed against the contexts in which they occur and the purposes for which they are
advanced, many previously fallacious arguments began to be described as having non-
fallacious variants. Douglas Walton and John Woods have made a particularly important
contribution to this area of fallacy theory. In a large number of books and journal
articles, these theorists have described non-fallacious forms of petitio principii (begging
the question), argumentum ad ignorantiam (the argument from ignorance), and
argumentum ad baculum (the argument from the stick or appeal to force), amongst others
(Walton 1985, 1992; Woods 1995). Non-fallacious forms of three informal fallacies –
petitio principii, arguments from analogy and argumentum ad ignorantiam – have been
analysed as reasoning heuristics that facilitate the progress of scientific inquiry under
conditions of epistemic uncertainty (Cummings 2000, 2002, 2004). A pragmatic
reorientation in argument evaluation of the type set in motion by Hamblin has been a
central impetus in enquiries of this type.

7. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
See also: fallacy theory; inference; pragma-dialectics; reasoning; rhetoric
Suggestions for further reading:
Hitchcock, D. and Verheij, B. (eds) (2006) Arguing on the Toulmin Model: New Essays
in Argument Analysis and Evaluation, Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag.
Tindale, C.W. (2007) Fallacies and Argument Appraisal, New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Walton, D. (2006) Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation, New York: Cambridge
University Press.

8. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cowan, J.L. (1964) ‘The uses of argument – an apology for logic’, Mind, 73: 27-45.
Cummings, L. (2000) ‘Petitio principii: the case for non-fallaciousness’, Informal Logic,
20: 1-18.
Cummings, L. (2002) ‘Reasoning under uncertainty: the role of two informal fallacies in
an emerging scientific inquiry’, Informal Logic, 22: 113-36.
Cummings, L. (2004) ‘Analogical reasoning as a tool of epidemiological investigation’,
Argumentation, 18: 427-44.
Cummings, L. (2005) Pragmatics: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Edinburgh, UK:
Edinburgh University Press.
Gilbert, M.A. (1997) Coalescent Argumentation, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One: Reason and the
Rationalization of Society, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Hamblin, C.L. (1970) Fallacies, London: Methuen & Co Ltd.

9. Appears in: Cummings, L. (2010) ‘Argumentation theory’, in L. Cummings (ed.), The
Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, London and New York: Routledge, 21-23.
Perelman, Ch. (1979) The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and its
Applications, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Perelman, Ch. and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1958) La Nouvelle Rhétorique: Traité de
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Toulmin, S. (1958) The Uses of Argument, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Eemeren, F.H. and Grootendorst, R. (1996) ‘Developments in argumentation theory’,
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Walton, D.N. (1985) ‘Are circular arguments necessarily vicious?’, American
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Walton, D.N. (1992) ‘Nonfallacious arguments from ignorance’, American Philosophical
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Woods, J. (1995) ‘Appeal to force’, in H.V. Hansen & R.C. Pinto (eds) Fallacies:
Classical and Contemporary Readings, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University
Press.