Appeal to the Stone

This fallacy is very simple, it means to refuse to reason by immediately dismissing something as absurd or ridiculous (although all new ideas are absurd before reasoning). The name “appeal to the stone” is a story about a philosopher who heard the argument that material things don’t exist without perception, and the answer was to kick a large rock and state, “I refute it thus” — (rather than provide a reasoned argument for or against).

One way this can manifest, that I think many people who are isolated long-term, in whatever way and for whatever reason, is when discussing this, or attempting to, and the answer is simplistic, like “Oh, just get over it”, or “start working out”, whereas these simplistic “I refute it thus” is actually a rejection of reasoning, of going deeper to the underlying issues and applying logic to the hidden arguments (beliefs) that the whole situation is constructed of.

Another possible example is if a male who is involuntary celibate tries to bring up some deeper issue, and this is immediately dismissed as, “Look, he’s playing the victim now”, rather than refuting the argument properly, (with a counter-argument rooted in logic and evidence).

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