The Conclusive Shift

Toulmin insists on the distinction between conclusive and analytic. In a way, this distinction is the book's argument. For Toulmin, analytical arguments (those traditionally defined) are simply a special case of argument. And as a special case, we should be wary of generalizing about argument using analytic arguments as our models. We see why this is the case when Toulmin argues that conclusiveness is a criteria- and discipline-dependent concept.

Have I been arguing that only analytic arguments can be conclusive? Certainly arguments alone are analytic--and so, in the professional logician's sense, 'conclusive'; but in other fields also a time comes when we have produced in support of our conclusions data and warrants full and strong enough, in the context, for further investigation to be unnecessary--so in this sense non-analytic arguments can also be conclusive. (216)

If we accept Toulmin's redeployment of conclusive, I think here we can agree with Tannen that many debates will have only one side worth knowing (e.g. the Holocaust.)