DISMISSAL

When applied to discourse, dismissal is a method of processing out an opponent’s discourse, on the brink of refutation and destruction.

1. Dismissal as the final stage of refutation

An argument can be dismissed after due consideration. In this case, dismissal is the final step of a conclusive refutation.
The standard forms of refutation are based on a substantial examination of the content of the rejected speech, or on more or less relevant considerations about the person holding it. Even in the latter case, the refutation, however poorly argued, is at least backed by some justificatory discourse.

2. Rejecting the argument without considering it (ad lapidem)

The opponent can reject a discourse simply by declaring that the bad quality of the proposed argument is self-evident and self-denouncing:

No comment.
Your arguments are shabby, inadequate, miserable, distressing
I will not give your statement the honor of a rebuttal.
What you say is not even wrong.

Uncle Toby’s reaction, “whistling half a dozen bars of Lillabullero” “when any thing, which he deem’d very absurd, was offerd”  is an example of such reaction ,  S. Ab –, ad –, ex –.

In ancient rhetoric, this move which declares the argument “childish” or “obviously absurd or practically null », is called apodioxis, (Dupriez 1984, Apodioxis; Molinié 1992, Apodioxis), S. Pathetic argument.

The opponent may, in good faith, dismiss an argument as self-refuting, which leads to paradoxical situations. If Big Jones’ discourse is truly self-refuting, then:

The more he talks, the more foolish he appears, the fewer votes he will get.

But this is a dangerous strategy, inspired more by the self-confidence of the arguer’s confidence in his party’s arguments than by any self-refuting evidence about Big Jones’ discourse.

Finally, the opponent may adopt a strategy of irony, and contribute to the spread of his opponent’s speech. This is the extraordinary case reported by Wayne Booth about events taking at his university, in s which students were clashed with their university administration:

At one point, things got so bad that each side found itself reduplicating broadsides produced by the other side, and distributing them, in thousands of copies, without comment; to each side it seemed as if the other side’s rhetoric was self-damning, so absurd had it become. (Booth 1974, p. 8-9)

See also Dismissal (Companion

The other side cannot even hear such a dismissal, which is obviously directed at third parties. Used in particularly contentious argumentative situations, such a maneuver makes any deal between the discussants impossible, see Conditions of discussion.

From an ethotic perspective, such a (non-) arguer displays a kind of moral indignation, while the opponent may accuse her of arrogance and contempt.

Ad lapidem argument (Lat. lapis, “stone”)

The name of this argument is derived from a famous incident in which Dr. Samuel Johnson claimed to disprove Bishop Berkeley’s immaterialist philosophy (that there are no material objects, only minds and the ideas in those minds) by kicking a large stone and saying ‘I refute it thus’ (Wikipedia, Ad lapidem).

This clear disdain for verbal argument is akin to « the proof of the pudding is in the eating », a popular practical proof by facts and actions.