LogicalMANIPULATIVE

Appeal to the Stone

What it is

Dismissing a claim as absurd or obviously false without offering any argument against it — the refusal to engage presented as a refutation.

How it works

The name comes from Boswell's account of Samuel Johnson (6 August 1763) kicking a large stone and declaring “I refute it thus” in answer to Berkeley's argument that matter does not exist independently of perception. Johnson's kick did not engage the argument, which had already accounted for the experience of solidity; it expressed conviction and invited the audience to share it. The structure is an unsupported assertion of falsity (argumentum ad lapidem) that borrows force from the appearance of common sense: a claim that seems obviously wrong is felt to need no refutation, so none is given, and the burden of proof is silently shifted to the claimant, who is then required to prove something the dismisser has not bothered to dispute (Walton 1988 on burden of proof). It is close kin to the argument from incredulity, but where incredulity says “I cannot see how,” the stone says “obviously not” and leaves. The honest version is impatience with a view that seems beneath discussion. The knowing version is a status move: the dismissal signals that engaging would be a concession, and audiences read the confidence as knowledge. History supplies the warning — continental drift, germ theory, and heliocentrism were all kicked. The tell is a verdict (“absurd,” “nonsense,” “obviously”) with nothing after it.

Real-world examples

  • •Boswell records Johnson kicking a stone against Berkeley's immaterialism: “I refute it thus.” The reply has been quoted for two centuries, usually with approval, which shows how satisfying the move is and how little it accomplishes.
  • •Wegener's continental drift (1912) was dismissed as physically absurd by leading geologists for four decades because no mechanism was known (Oreskes 1999); the dismissal was a stone, and plate tectonics arrived in the 1960s.
  • •In 1931 a pamphlet titled “A Hundred Authors Against Einstein” collected objections to relativity, many of which amounted to declarations that the theory was self-evidently absurd; Einstein is reported to have remarked that if he were wrong, one author would have sufficed.
  • •Fiscal claims are stoned from both directions: “the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves is absurd” and “the idea that deficits do not matter is absurd” are each offered as though the adjective settled a contested empirical question.
  • •Online, “lol no” and “this is not a serious argument” are the modern kick — the reply signals that the claim is beneath engagement while engaging with nothing.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●If a claim is absurd, say why; an absurdity that cannot be explained in one sentence may not be absurd.
  • ●Do not use the confidence of your dismissal to shift the burden of proof; the burden is set by who asserts what, not by who sounds more certain.
  • ●Distinguish declining to engage (a legitimate use of time, stated as such) from refuting (which requires an argument); do not dress the first as the second.
  • ●Remember the historical base rate: “obviously false” has a poor track record against well-argued claims.

How to defend against it

  • ►Ask for the argument: “You say it is absurd — what specifically is wrong with it?” If nothing follows, note that the claim has been dismissed, not refuted, and leave it standing.
  • ►Restate the burden of proof explicitly: “I have offered an argument; you have offered an adjective. The argument stands until it is answered.”
  • ►Do not be drawn into over-proving: a stoned claim does not need more evidence than an argued objection would require; hold the standard steady.
  • ►Where the dismisser has status, separate it from the question for the audience — “this is a disagreement about evidence, not about who is entitled to have views.”
  • ►Check yourself: when you feel that something is too obviously wrong to answer, write down the one-sentence reason; if you cannot, engage.

References

  1. Boswell, J. (1791). The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.. Charles Dilly
    The account of Johnson kicking the stone against Berkeley, the source of the name.
  2. Walton, D. (1988). Burden of proof. Argumentation, 2(2), 233-254
    The analysis of how burden of proof is allocated in dialogue and how bare dismissal attempts to shift it.
  3. Oreskes, N. (1999). The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science. Oxford University Press
    The historical account of drift being dismissed as absurd for want of a mechanism, used as the example.
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