Argument Fields and Theories of Logical Types
Charles Arthur Willard · Argumentation and Advocacy · 1981
This essay addresses the current effort to clarify the theory of argument fields which was begun in Toulmin's Uses of Argument and later modified in his Human Understanding. An effort is made to distinguish between argument fields and theories of logical types based on the thesis that fields are sociological entities, whereas types are logical distinctions. Following this analysis, it is argued that logical type theories do not illuminate field theory and thus ought not to serve as the basis for the study of argument in situated discourse.