Bulverism

Definitions

A rhetorical fallacy in which a speaker assumes that their opponent's argument is wrong, and instead of disproving it, condescendingly explains why their opponent would have come to that conclusion.

uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“[Y]ou must show⟳ that a man is wrong before you start⟳ explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume⟳ without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue⟳) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last⟳ fifteen years I have⟳ found this vice so common that I have⟳ had to invent⟳ a name⟳ for it. I call⟳ it Bulverism. Some day I am going to write⟳ the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say⟳ to his father—who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than the third—'Oh you say⟳ that because you are a man.'”

CEFR level