Stasis and Toulmin Schema

1. Stasis and Toulmin Schema Advanced Rhetorical Writing Matt Barton

2. Key Questions • What is “stasis” and what are “stasis questions?” • What are “Toulmin schema?” • Claims, Data, Warrants, Backing, Rebuttals, Qualifiers

3. Traditional Stasis • The stasis approach is a way to get at the real issue at stake in a debate. • Conjectural (Question of Fact) • Definitional (Question of Definition) • Qualitative (Question of Quality) • Translative (Question of Jurisdiction)

4. Ramage’s Model • Five Stasis Questions: • Definitional: What is it? • Resemblance: How much is it like something else? (Resemblance) • Causal: Why did it happen (or What might the consequences of it be?) • Evaluative/Ethical: How good or bad is it? • Proposal: What should we do about it?

5. Definitional • The way we define something can have very real consequences! • Potential problems with defining something: • The criteria we use to determine class membership • The item in question might not match the criteria. • Marriage: The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

6. Resemblance Questions • Works by precedence or analogy. • Precedence: The present issue has much in common with older cases and should be treated consistently with past decisions. • Analogy: The present issue, which we don’t understand well, can be compared to an issue that we do understand well. • “Downloading music illegally is like shoplifting.”

7. Causal Questions • What caused something to happen? What motivated someone to do something? • Correlation: Statistical relationships that suggest a connection between or among phenomena. • Nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work increase their risk of developing lung cancer by 20 - 30 percent. • Multiple Causes: How many factors might have influenced the result?

8. Attacking Causal Arguments • My astrologist is amazingly accurate! She predicted something wonderful would happen to me this week, and I just got an A on my paper! • The “prediction” was extremely vague; something “wonderful” probably happens to everyone at least once a week. • I made an F on that test because my professor has a thick accent. • So not cracking the textbook had nothing to do with it? Why did most of your classmates do well?

9. Evaluative Questions • What is “good?” • Evaluative: “Good job!” “I got a good deal on this car,” “That’s a good restaurant.” • Ethical: “He’s a good person,” “It’s not good to tell a lie,” “I strive to always do good.”

10. Evaluative • What is a good college course? • What aspect/s are you concerned with? • What criteria will you base your judgment on? • What will you use as a basis for comparison? • Questionable criteria: • How fun is the course? • Is it an “EASY A” course? • Is the professor hot?

11. Ethical • Principled Ethics: Appeal to an established body of doctrine. • Ten Commandments • Official Company Policy • Consequential Ethics: What are the actual consequences of the act? • Did the drunk driver only damage his own car and garage or kill a family of four?

12. Proposal Questions • Proposals typically rely on the previous four types of argument. • What is the problem? • How serious is the problem? • What caused the problem? How will the proposed solution solve it? • How is this problem like/unlike other problems we’ve dealt with in the past?

13. Proposal • What is the problem? • Very few college students vote in elections. • How serious is the problem? • Young people are severely underrepresented; legislation strongly favors older citizens. • What is your proposed solution? • We need to get more campaign ads on TV featuring young people. • How is this like other problems? • African American have voted more often when campaign ads feature black speakers and supporters.

14. Arguing Backwards • Toulmin Schema: A way of breaking down an argument into parts. • Useful for testing arguments and building on them. • A Toulmin Schema is useful as a heuristic device. We use them to help us “get creative” with an argument.

15. Toulmin Schema • Parts of an argument: • Grounds: Raw Data • Claim (or Conclusion): What person asserts about grounds (hypothesis) • Qualifiers: “Some,” “Many,” “A few” • Condition of Rebuttal: What would it take to successfully refute the claim? • Warrant: Reasons to support claim (evidence • Backing: Support for warrants

16. Example • Grounds: • Babies who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are more likely to die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than babies who are not exposed to cigarette smoke. • Claim: • People who smoke around babies are putting them in danger.

17. Example • Warrants: • Exposure to second hand smoke increases the danger of SIDS. • Backing: • Scientific evidence: We should trust our scientists who have arrived at this data. • The studies were conducted by the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services and have been confirmed by many professional medical associations.

18. Example • Qualifiers: • Some/many/most/few babies exposed to second hand smoke develop SIDS. • Some/many/most/few babies who develop SIDS are not exposed to second hand smoke. • Conditions of Rebuttal: • Credible scientific evidence that demonstrates that second hand smoke does not affect SIDS.

19. Toulmin Schema • Data: Attendance is up 1.5% at SCSU. • Claim: The campus beautification project is responsible for the increase. • Warrant: One new student claims that he chose SCSU because of the attractive plants and flowers on campus. • Backing: This student has no reason to lie; everyone prefers an attractive campus. • Conditions of Rebuttal?