ARABELLA LYON

I remember first reading Stephen Toulmin on aims and commensurability.
Responding to Kuhn's vision of competing paradigms, he wrote,

When two scientific positions share similar intellectual aims and fall within the scope of
the same discipline, the historical transition between them can always be discussed in
"rational" terms, even though their respective supporters have no theoretical concepts
in common. ( Understanding126)

On first read, Toulmin's adage--disciplined discourses are "always" com-
mensurable if common aims can be found--seems more than simply useful;
it explains the success of many amazing scientific and non-scientific commu-
nications. It helps me understand why I can order coffee in Paris though I do
not speak French and why I can teach multiethnic classes of basic writers by
emphasizing our common goal of academic success. In addition to providing
an explanation for communicative accomplishments, his adage suggests a
strategy for revising unsuccessful communication; that is, if at first you don't
succeed, find common aims. But in my initial encounter, what I found most
appealing was that Toulmin provided a one-line rebuttal, a bulwark, to all the
chaos and danger of incommensurable discourses theorized by postmodernists.
If people find common aims, then they can reason together, deliberate
together, and agree on action. Toulmin, ever "the good man speaking well,"
provides a stable approach to traditional democracy and education in a
changing society.

My naive hope for the enterprises of deliberation and reasoned com-
monality has long since vanished. Toulmin, however, continues to believe we
can come together and reason our way to common action, and his many
projects, though philosophical, are all concerned with situated, micro-social,
persuasive knowledge, and therefore continue to be used in the research and
teaching of rhetoric and composition. Without a doubt, Toulmin's contribu-
tions to our field are magnificent, and yet I come away from his interview
deeply, sleeplessly troubled.

In her recent JAC response to Clifford Geertz, Lisa Ede notes that Geertz's
pluralism is both attractive and suspect, and this theme, though she pursues

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