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