Toulmin’s Analytic Validity

Abstract

Although Toulmin says several things that are plainly false, I hope to show in this paper that Toulmin’s conception of analytic arguments is not as incoherent as some have supposed and does in fact classify a theoretically significant class of arguments. However, analytic validity turns out to be not much different from semantic validity. Since the distinction between formal validity and semantic validity is well recognized by logicians, the charge made by Toulmin that they could not accept the distinction between formal validity and analytic validity is confounded. This eliminates one major plank in the case he builds against the analytic ideal. Thus, I want to defend Toulmin’s conception but reject the moral he draws from it.