Bulverism

Bulverism is a rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning, the genetic fallacy and ad hominem with presumption or condescension. The Bulverist presumes that a speaker's argument is false or invalid and then explains why the speaker made that argument (even if said argument is actually correct) by attacking the speaker or the speaker's motive.

Similar to Antony Flew's "subject/motive shift", Bulverism is a fallacy of irrelevance—one dismisses an argument based solely on the arguer's identity or motive (real or perceived), but these are mere proxies for credibility (and therefore susceptible to human error and false assumptions); not determinants of an argument's factual validity or truth.

The term Bulverism was coined by C. S. Lewis (after "its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver") to poke fun at a serious error in thinking that, he alleged, frequently occurred in a variety of religious, political, and philosophical debates.

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