Stephen Edelston Toulmin—philosopher, educator, and author—passed away last Friday, the fourth of December, 2009 at the age of 87. A highly influential figure in his field, Toulmin held distinguished professorships at numerous universities including including Columbia, Dartmouth, Michigan State, Northwestern, Stanford, USC and Chicago, where he was a professor in the Committee on Social Thought from 1973 to 1986.
Throughout his distinguished career Toulmin also produced a number of important works on ethics, international relations, the history and philosophy of the physical and social sciences, and the history of ideas. Some of these include The Uses of Argument, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (with Alan Janik), The Architecture of Matter, and Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, the latter two of which which the press is proud to have published in 1982 and 1990 respectively.
Other books by Toulmin published by the press include: The Discovery of Time and The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics.
Read the obituary notice on the University of Southern California’s website.