Toumlin

I found the Toulmin quite interesting. Admittedly, I'm a relativist on most matters, so I have an inclination to be receptive to anything that tries to diminish the belief in absolutes. However, being a relativist, I am also well aware of the contradiction of saying there are no absolutes. The fundamental ideas of balance and coexistence within Toulmin's work are what appeal to me. The idea that practical argument doesn't have to supplant the theoretical the way he believes it has for the past 300 years makes his argument more acceptable because it doesn't simply dismiss the mode he is in essence arguing against. He does relegate it to a greatly diminished position, though.
The structure he lays out for evaluating the practical was simple and easy to comprehend. The evolutionary model of conceptual change makes a world of more sense than the overly simplistic idea that a paradigm shift occurs and ways of thinking fall into step immediately. The main problem I have with his work is that I have to agree with some of his critics that despite his best efforts to bridge the gap between relativism and absolutism, he seems to end up favoring one more or the other. More often than not, he seems to side with the relativists, but some notions that don't seem to have a particularly clear definition such as the impartial rational standpoint would appear to stem from a more absolute concept of whatever is being evaluated.