In C.S. Lewis' essay entitled "Bulverism", he discusses the issue of how people argue in the modern age. Lewis explains that Bulverism is the idea of attacking the person instead of attacking the argument at hand. Good examples of Bulverism can be seen in discrimination, in politics, and even in day to day conversation. Lewis states that "you must find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error". This logic is extremely important to keep in mind in order to avoid hurt feelings and regretful words. Also, by doing so, one will have the most logical and best constructed argument when compared to those using Bulverism.
While reading and discussing Lewis' essay on Bulverism, I could not help but think of the arguments of philosophers that I had read last semester in Philosophy 153. When philosophers publish a work about what they believe to be true on an uncertain issue, it is inevitable that another philosopher will write an argument of rebuttal stating what they believe is true. I believe that the philosophers did an excellent job of avoiding Bulverism even though it would be easy to attack the other philosopher's character rather than the actual argument.
A good example of avoiding Bulverism is in the correspondence between the philosopher Descartes and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. She read Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and wrote to him about his views on dualism in the body and the soul. Elizabeth did not fully understand Descartes' argument and found some flaws which she addressed. Descartes could have easily dismissed Elizabeth because of the fact that she was not a philosopher. He would not have been frowned upon if he chose not to respond back to her. Instead, Descartes saw that Elizabeth's argument was valid and explained his reasoning to her without attacking her lack of understanding of philosophy. It became clearly evident that both Descartes and Elizabeth had a mutual respect for each other and realized the importance of avoiding Bulverism.
It is so easy in today's society to attack the person rather than the argument at hand. We can learn a lot from philosophers in order to construct an argument properly using respect and understanding. C.S. Lewis did an excellent job of addressing the issue of bulverism and how it is slowly taking over the way people argue and debate.
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I couldn’t and didn’t say it any better myself there is really very little if anything I could add here. Though the thing I liked most about your blog is your inclusion of positive examples of the avoidance of Bulverism instead of focusing on the negatives of its incessant prevalence in our society. I felt that it was a refreshing change of pace from what I have both read and written recently.
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