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The sentence is meant like this:

> Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only become so when intentionally used to dismiss something, to dissent, or to justify fallacies.

The fact that “dissent” is an intransitive verb is an important clue. You can’t dissent fallacies. You can only dissent from something.



So a cliché is thought-terminating when it is intentionally used to dissent?


You missed the “only”. The article states having one of the three as a necessary condition, not as a sufficient one.


But the intention to dissent can be what makes a cliché thought-terminating?




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