Bulverism
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Bulverism is a rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning, the genetic fallacy and ad hominem with presumption or condescension. The Bulverist presumes that a speaker's argument is false or invalid and then explains why the speaker made that argument (even if said argument is actually correct) by attacking the speaker or the speaker's motive.
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, Bulverism is referenced by 160 other articles, and connects out to irrelevant conclusion, anecdotal evidence and not invented here.
It sits within the topics C. S. Lewis, Deductive reasoning and Relevance fallacies.
Its subject is documented across 12 Wikipedia language editions.
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Source of the concept
- Threat and remedy
- See also
- Notes and references
- Bibliography
- External links
Bulverism is a rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning, the genetic fallacy and ad hominem with presumption or condescension. The Bulverist presumes that a speaker's argument is false or invalid and then explains why the speaker made that argument (even if said argument is actually correct) by attacking the speaker or the speaker's motive.
Similar to Antony Flew's "subject/motive shift", Bulverism is a fallacy of irrelevance—one dismisses an argument based solely on the arguer's identity or motive (real or perceived), but these are mere proxies for credibility (and therefore susceptible to human error and false assumptions); not determinants of an argument's factual validity or truth.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bulverism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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