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Revista Iberoamericana de Argumentación
Article . 2025 . Peer-reviewed
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: Crossref
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Toulmin’s modal qualifiers: “probably”

Authors: David Botting;

Toulmin’s modal qualifiers: “probably”

Abstract

In “The Uses of Argument” Stephen Toulmin unleashes a fierce attack against formal logic. For his attack to work, modal qualifiers like “necessarily”, “possibly” and “probably” when occurring in natural language arguments do not mean what formal logicians take them to mean but have another semantics. Toulmin gives a pragmatic account of this semantics in which what these modal qualifiers mean is equivalent to what they are used to do. I will defend Toulmin’s account of “probably” as an account of the pragmatics of “probably”, but uphold Searle’s objection that taking this as an account of their semantics commits a speech act fallacy. Thus (although a full defense will not be essayed here) I claim that Toulmin’s attack on formal logic fails

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
gold