Bulverism
Bulverism is when you explain what goes so horribly wrong in people’s minds when they believe X, before you’ve actually explained why X is wrong. It can be seen as a subspecies of the fallacy of “poisoning the well”. Bulverism is forbidden on Arbital. Every time you talk about what goes wrong in people’s minds that makes them believe X, make sure you first discuss why X is, in fact, wrong, or route your readers to a page that does discuss it. Also see the entry on Psychologizing.
Parents:
- Fallacies
To call something a fallacy is to assert that you think people shouldn’t think like that.
- Psychologizing
It’s sometimes important to consider how other people might be led into error. But psychoanalyzing them is also dangerous! Arbital discussion norms say to explicitly note this as “psychologizing”.