Romano, Carlin. "Cosmology, Cambridge Style: Wittgenstein, Toulmin, and Hawking." CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION September 26, 2010.

In his new book, Hawking, the celebrated author of A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1988), declares on the first page that "philosophy is dead" because it "has not kept up" with science, which alone can explain the universe. "It is not necessary to invoke God," the authors write, "to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." Hawking sound-bited the hard stuff for interviewers: "Science makes God unnecessary," he told Good Morning America. Something simply came out of nothing.

If you've followed the science-religion debate in recent times, there's nothing new about such claims. Many scientists take Hawking's side, some do not. Almost everyone agrees that, as Hawking told ABC News, "One can't prove that God doesn't exist." The Templeton Foundation, which specializes in prodding believers and nonbelievers to discuss such things in civilized ways, has published all sorts of booklets, like "Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?," in which some eminent scientists answer "Yes" and others answer "No."

Why, then, the uproar? Largely because Hawking has been anointed by the media as possibly "the smartest man in the world" (ABC News) and the "most revered scientist since Einstein" (The New York Times)—a genius, and so on. A genius, presumably, must be right about everything. Especially if he managed to sell nine million copies of a book.

Hawking's latest claims also sparked attention because A Brief History of Time ended with his observation that, if we could achieve a unified theory in physics, we would "know the mind of God." While Hawking's fellow atheists took that coda as a play on Einstein's earlier use of the phrase, many believers chose to read it as open-mindedness toward a possible creator, making this new book a sharp U-turn.

The ironic part of the current media tizzy is that philosophical Cambridge—that lesser-known slice of the university historically eclipsed by the Nobel accomplishments of its physicists—long ago showed why Hawking's orotund pronouncements about God are, to be charitable, simplistic. In fact, it is Cambridge's greatest contributors to 20th-century philosophy—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and his most trenchant disciple, the Cambridge-trained physicist and philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin (1922-2009)—who inoculated us against the naïve view that science shows God does not exist and is irrelevant to cosmology.

Before one gets edgy over Hawking's latest ex cathedra squawk, then, consider a thumbnail version of what Wittgenstein and Toulmin taught us about religion, science, and cosmology. Their message to Hawking? Scientists eager to delete God exceed their job description. . . .

Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/Cosmology-Cambridge-Style-/124568.

Romano, Carlin. "Wise Men Gone: Stephen Toulmin and John E. Smith." CHRONICLE REVIEW January 24, 2010.

For what achievements should we remember a philosophy professor after the final counterexample arrives, cloaked in black, bearing a scythe? In regard to two insufficiently heralded giants who died in their late 80s this past December, let one achievement stand tallest: old-fashioned wisdom, particularly wisdom about the intellectual activity they practiced and about the illusion of technique (as the existentialist William Barrett famously dubbed it) to which that activity is perennially susceptible. Say what you will about Stephen Toulmin, a professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies, and John Edwin Smith, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Yale University, but few thinkers understood more deeply the intellectual foibles of those drawn to philosophy's illusions of certainty, and few worked harder to keep the practice tethered to the recalcitrant world it supposedly explains. . . . . Toulmin's first, most enduring contribution to keeping philosophy sensible came in his 1958 book, The Uses of Argument (Cambridge University Press). Deceptively formalistic on its surface because it posited a general model of argument, Toulmin's view, in fact, was better described as taxonomic, yet flexible. He believed that formal systems of logic misrepresent the complex way that humans reason in most fields requiring what philosophers call "practical reason," and he offered, accordingly, a theory of knowledge as warranted belief. Toulmin rejected the abstract syllogistic logic, meant to produce absolute standards for proving propositions true, that had become fashionable in analytic philosophy. Instead he argued (in the spirit of Wittgenstein) that philosophers must monitor how people actually argue if the philosophers' observations about persuasion are to make any sense. Toulmin took jurisprudential reasoning as his chief example in The Uses of Argument, but he believed that some aspects of a good argument depend on the field in which they're presented, while others are "field invariant." The larger point of his book became clear only as it exerted its influence on his own thinking and that of others: The "philosophy of argument," a task typically relegated by philosophy departments to departments of rhetoric and communication (except when dealing with formal, symbolic logic), forms a necessary grounding for philosophy writ large. According to Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Tjark Kruiger, in their authoritative Handbook of Argumentation Theory (Foris, 1987), Toulmin's "central thesis is that every sort of argumentation can in principle claim rationality and that the criteria to be applied when determining the soundness of the argumentation depend on the nature of the problems to which the argumentation relates." In philosophy, crowded with researchers prone to reject observations that obstruct the quest for certainty, thinkers paid less attention to that thesis than did those in rhetoric and communications, where Toulmin helped revolutionize how many viewed argument. The authors of the Handbook write that it is "very largely thanks to Toulmin that interest in argumentation theory has increased considerably since 1960, both within and outside philosophical circles." Alas, mainly outside. . . . Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/Wise-Men-Gone-Stephen-Toulmin/63649/.

DEATH: Stephen Toulmin (1922 - 2009).

Update (December 27, 2009):

• Grimes, William: Stephen Toulmin, a Philosopher and Educator, Dies at 87 New York Times December 11, 2009
• Johnson, Pamela J.: In Memoriam Stephen E. Toulmin, 87 USC News December 8, 2009
• Ruse, Michael: Stephen Toulmin, Philosopher, 1922-2009 Chronicle of Higher Education December 12, 2009

Original Post (December 9, 2009): Stephen Edelston Toulmin, University Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California, and one of the most influential ethical philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century, has died. Together with Chaim Perelman, he was also hailed in rhetorical circles as one of the most important theorists of argument (equated with 'informal logic' by some) in the twentieth century. . . . More information may be found here: http://uscnews.usc.edu/obituaries/in_memoriam_stephen_e_toulmin_87.html.

"Collingwood and Toulmin," Mind and Society 14, University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, September 4-6, 2008.

Provisional Program: Thursday 4th September Evening – arrival, drinks and a meal (venues to be announced) Friday, 5th September 9.00 – 9.45: Professor Ivan Leudar, Psychology, Manchester University, Is psychology history? What can R. G. Collingwood do for Psychology today? 9.45 - 10.15: Discussion and Coffee 10.15 - 11.00: Dr Giuseppina D'Oro, Philosophy, Keele University, Re-enactment, Simulation and Folk-psychology 11.00 - 11.30: Discussion and Coffee 11.30 – 12.15: Professor Alan Costall, Psychology, Portsmouth University, Psychology as history: Frederic Bartlett and the myth and promise of 'Cambridge psychology' 12.15 – 12.45: Discussion and Coffee 12.45 - 2.15: Lunch 2.15 - 3.00: Professor John Pickstone, CHSTM, Manchester University, Collingwood, Whewell and Ways of Knowing: reflections on historicism and idealism in the study of science. 3.00 - 3.30: Discussion and Coffee 3.30 - 4.15: Michael Lynch, Cornell To be confirmed 4.15 – 5.00: Discussion and Coffee 5.00-5.45: General Discussion, 6.30 - Drink reception, Conference Dinner Saturday 6th September 9.00 – 10.00: Professor James Connelly, Politics, Hull University, From anthropology to metaphysics: Collingwood, culture and civilization. 10.00 – 10.30: Discussion and Coffee 10.30 - 11.15: Professor Baudouine Dupres, Institute of Social Sciences and Policy, Louvain "The Judge, the Spirits and the Law: Devil Possession, Personal Agency and Mind/Body Dichotomy in an Egyptian Courtroom" 11.15 - 11.45: Discussion and coffee 11.45 -12.30 Professor Wes Sharrock, Social Science, Manchester University, Perennial arguments about intelligibility and rationality in the philosophy of the social sciences. 12.30 - 13.00: Discussion and coffee 13.00 - 14.30: Lunch 14.30 – 15.15: Professor Mathieu Marion, Philosophy, Montreal University, Toulmin on Collingwood and Relativism: a Rejoinder. 15.15 - 15.45 Discussion and Coffee 15.45 - 17.45 Meeting Plenary - discussant Uffe Juul Jensen, Copenhagen University 18.00 Conference closes. Enquiries to Ivan Leudar: ivan.leudar@manchester.ac.uk.