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It's undeniably deniable

Michael Rooney - Monday, October 24, 2011

Bluffing, snowing, or, as the Pocket Guide to Critical Thinking calls it (p. 44), giving a proof substitute, is a common rhetorical technique, used to suggest that a dubious claim is true without offering any reasons at all.  Typically, the bluffer declares that some claim is, "of course", "obvious", "evident", "clear", "well-known", or "self-evident", even though it isn't.   Here is an example, from Wapola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p. 3:

"It is an undeniable fact that as long as there is doubt ... no progress is possible."

It's undeniable.  And a fact.  So don't think, just believe it already.  


Comments
Jessica commented on 18-May-2012 11:56 PM
Clive James: "Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it is in Hamburger Technology."

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