Information AboutStraw Man |
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| logical fallacies | |
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A straw man Argument is an Informal Fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to create a position that is easy to Refute , then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw man argument can be a successful Rhetoric al technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted. Its name is derived from the practice of using Straw Men in combat training. In such training, a Scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it.1 It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy,2 '''scarecrow''' argument, or '''wooden dummy''' argument. SETUP OF A STRAW MAN One can set up a straw man in the following ways: # Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted. # Quote an opponent's words out of context -- i.e., choose quotations that are not representative of the opponent's actual intentions (see Contextomy ). # Present someone who defends a position poorly as ''the'' defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that ''every'' upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated. # Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical. # Oversimplify a person's argument into a simple analogy, which can then be attacked. Some logic textbooks define the straw man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also used as a form of Media Manipulation . However, carefully presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent's argument is not always itself a fallacy. Instead, it restricts the scope of the opponent's argument, either to where the argument is no longer relevant or as a step of a Proof By Exhaustion . EXAMPLES An example of a straw man fallacy: :Person A: I don't think children should run into the busy streets. :Person B: I think that it would be foolish to lock children up all day. By insinuating that Person A's argument is far more than it is, Person B has side-stepped the issue. Here the "straw man" that person B has set up is the premise that "The only way to stop children running into the busy streets is to keep them inside all day". REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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