Bulverism & Debate Dysfunction
Recently I came across a new word, "bulverism." The term was coined by C.S. Lewis to describe what is broadly similar to what Antony Flew called the "subject/motive" shift. Strictly speaking, it's a form of the logical fallacy, ad hominem - attacking the author instead of the argument. Bulverism takes the the following form: A. Assume your opponents are wrong B. Identify something about your opponents that supposedly explains why they are wrong Bulverism often springs up in debates that are highly contentious - that is, when people have strongly held beliefs that are also strongly opposed by others. In highly contentious debates, we tend to react in terms of our contempt for the other side of the debate (and even the person that holds the view being opposed). Lewis describes bulverism with an example from math, where fictional Ezekiel Bulver's father claims that the sum of any two sides of a triangle must be longer than the third, and his wife sa...