Saturday, June 20, 2009

Barthism, Bulverism, and Besonianism

I remember a paper written by Hugo Meynell a long time ago which was called Three Sophistical Devices. Barthism is the view of just merely asseting something without providing any reason for believing it, just plumping for your position. Bulverism is, well, Lewis's name for what in logic is called the ad hominem circumstantial. Besonianism the idea that instead of having to face criticisms of your own position, you find out what the other guy's overall position is and attack that. So, for example, if I offer some criticisms of Marxian dialectical materialism, and you find out that I am a Catholic, then somehow criticisms of Catholicism are good reasons for rejecting my criticisms of dialectical materialism, even though the criticisms could have been made by a Muslim or a phenomenologist.

I'm starting to see some Besonianism in the discussion of Feser's views on materialism

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