"A
Confutation of the Pessimistic Induction," Journal for General Philosophy of Science 42(1): 75-84.
(71.) More, Thomas,
Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, ed.
Classical rhetoric--which Leopardi knew very well from his childhood experience, as it was widely employed in the aristocratic and bourgeois educational system of the time (4)--required the argumentatio to be divided into probatio and refutatio, that is, demonstration of one's own thesis and
confutation of the opposite one.
The Vvorming of a Mad Dogge: Or, A Soppe for Cerberus the Iaylor of Hell: No
Confutation but a Sharpe Redargution of the Hayter of Women.
Thomas More was keenly aware of this despite his comment that evangelical books were given away for "no lucre." He marvels in The
Confutation of Tyndale's Answer that though "they neyther can be...
That in itself amounts to a
confutation or repudiation of the detection concern for transactions that can be 'explained'.
I suggest that these narratives reflect the workings of specific principles, such as (a) their characters are personifications of psychical entities or drives, thus often embodying psychical archetypes; (b) fates of characters arouse spontaneous expectations, which reflect biologically-generated and culturally-conditioned wishful and/or fearful thinking; (c) such fates usually concern the receivers' system of cognitive and/or ethical orientation in the world, for either its reaffirmation or
confutation, and reflect the emotional mechanisms of the psyche for either cathartic or shocking effects; and (d) whole fictional worlds are potentially-metaphoric descriptions of the receivers' psychical states of affairs (Rozik Generating 120-32).
He said that PPP candidate has withdrawn his nomination papers from this constituency two days earlier in order to avoid the politics of
confutation and clash.
The Text of the New Testament, with a
Confutation. London, 1589; STC 2888.
Milton defended the Smectymnuans in Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defense Against Smectymnuus (1641) and An Apology Against a Pamphlet Call'd A Modest
Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant Against Smectymnuus (1642).
He becomes stunned at the
confutation of his conservative religious standards--an occasion on which he is completely subdued by the first shocking witness of the result of his rigid religious matrix.
Betteridge's survey of More's anti-heretical writings includes The Supplication of Souls (1529), More's Apology (1533), and The
Confutation of Tyndale's Answer (1532-33).
This is no easy task, since attitudes are much more difficult to change than beliefs, which are more readily amenable to empirical corroboration and
confutation.
If so, then his argumentum ad hominem could be understood as having the sole purpose of "
confutation of the opponent, in pursuance of the rabbinic injunction 'to learn what answer to give to a disbeliever'." (13)
