Toulmin’s Warrants

In The Uses of Argument (1958) proposed a new, dialectically grounded structure for the layout of arguments, replacing the old terminology of “premiss” and “conclusion” with a new set of terms: claim, data (later “grounds”), warrant, modal qualifier, rebuttal, backing. Toulmin’s scheme has been widely adopted in the discipline of speech communication, especially in the United States. In this paper I focus on one component of the scheme, the concept of a warrant. I argue that those who have adopted Toulmin’s scheme have often distorted the concept of warrant in a way which destroys what is distinctive and worthwhile about it. And I respond to criticisms of the concept by (1984), (1996) and (1991). Their criticisms show the need for some revision of Toulmin’s position, but his basic concept of warrant, I shall argue, should be retained as a central concept for the evaluation of arguments.

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