Post #17: Toulmin, Focault, and the Order of Discourse

Stephen Toulmin was more of a mathmetician and scientist than a rhetorician. Although his work on structure of argument had a huge effect on the theory of rhetoric. His work on philosophy and his need for deeper knowledge led him to be distressed over Aristotle's isolation of logic, believing that logic was cut off from human understanding. Toulmin proposed formal study of practical reasoning, calling it the "logic" of arguments. He had established a connection between claim and data. Toulmin also stressed the division of reasoning into rational and irrational thinking.

Michel Focault was a philosopher, psychiatrist, and psychiatrist. He believed that a history of definitions of reason and social divisions led to people behaving madly, and studied the social history of imprisonment. In his work titled "Order of Discourse," Focault denied the reality of discourse and saw it as the conveyor of pre-existing meanings, also referring to this as the questioning of the "will" to truth. He saw the author/speaker and nature as the source of discourse, and in his theory of discourse he had stated that there was a relationship between language and knowledge.