[lit-ideas] When Glory *Means* A Nice Knock-Down Argument: Grice vs. Toulmin

  • From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:18:09 EST

Possibly Toulmin never understood Oxford. There he arrives, compleat with  
PhD from Cantab. For what? Surely that would be enough to challenge a few  
Oxonian minds.
 
And then, he leaves Oxford, and publishes "The Uses of Argument",  
criticising, of all people, everybody he knew back at _Oxford_.

A. G. N. Flew, who knew Toulmin well, and edited some of his papers for  
his popular compilations with Blackwell and St. Martin's Press, once  wrote:
 
    "There must be a sense in which it's not just
     'conventional' or 'arbitrary' that for Humpty  Dumpty
     'glory' means 'a knockdown argument'. In 
     Oxford such arguments are surely to provide
     glory to its proponents. The problem with  Humpty
     is that his arbitration does not allow for  the
     national anthem to go, "Keep her victorious,
     happy, and knock-down argumentative", does  it?'
 
But of course Humpty only THOUGHT it was a knock-down argument. It surely  
allows for a few of what Toulmin has as 'inference warrants' which allow for 
a  few 'rebuttals':
 
"'[[T]hat shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you  
might get un-birthday presents -- '  `Certainly,' said Alice. `And only  one 
for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!' `I don't  know 
what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.  
`Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down  
argument for you!"' `But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"'  
Alice objected. `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a  
scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor  
less.' 
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so  many 
different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be  
master - - that's all.' 
 
It's not just "nice", Grice would argue, but "knock-down" which is in the  
eye of the arguer. Surely a mere leap year refutes Humpty. 
It's only mathematical arguments, Grice claimed, 'supralunary' ones, as he  
called them -- apres Plato, selenikos -- which are 'nice knockdown'. It 
will  NEVER be the case that astrological, astronomical, sublunary 
(hyposelenikos)  ones will get us the _glory_ which along with the power is an 
attribute 
that  only a perfect being as we are not may dream of attaining.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza

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