How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2006)

102 How to Win Every Argument

of the stone, including the sight, sound and feel of a kick against

it, is all perceived by the senses.

Dr Johnson's treatment has given us the name of the argu-

mentum ad lapidem, the appeal to the stone. It consists of

ignoring the argument altogether, refusing to discuss its central

claim.

He's a friend of mine. I won't hear a word spoken against him.

(Top marks for loyalty; none for knowledge.)

An argument or piece of evidence cannot be dismissed
because it fails to conform to an existing opinion. Much as we
might like to toss out material which offends our ordered view of
things, it is a fallacy to suppose that we can do so without cost.
By refusing to admit material which may be relevant to a sound
conclusion, we proceed in ignorance. Ignorance is more reliable
as a source of bliss than of correctness.
The argumentum ad lapidem is most appropriately named
after Dr Johnson's use of it, for it was one of his favourites. His
reasoned and balanced view on the freedom of the will, for
example, came out as:

We know our will is free, and there's an end on't.

(It does tend to finish an argument, as it is meant to.)

Jeremy Bentham described all talk of natural rights as non-

sense, and talk of inalienable natural rights as 'nonsense on stilts'.

So much for the American Declaration of Independence.

There are always plenty of stones to kick in fields where proof

has no footing. Wherever a belief is indemonstrable, its adher-

ents can use the ad lapidem.