Argument
Straw man
Overview
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man"), instead of the opponent's proposition. Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects. It is known colloquially as "putting words in one's mouth", where one assumes an argument that their opponent hasn't formally proposed.
Straw man tactics in the United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally, after a pub game of the same name, where patrons throw sticks or battens at a post to knock off a skittle balanced on top.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Quantities have no contraries. In the case of definite quantities this is obvious; thus, there is nothing that is the contrary of 'two cubits long' or of 'three cubits long', or of a surface, or of any such quantities. A man might, indeed, argue that 'much' was the contrary of 'little', and 'great' of 'small'. But these are not quantitative, but relative; things are not great or small absolutely, they are so called…
Aristotle, The Categories
States what Straw man is; the author is tied to Straw man in the knowledge graph.
Again, in some cases an extreme will bear a resemblance to the mean; rashness, for instance, to courage, and prodigality to liberality; but between the extremes there is the greatest dissimilarity. Now things which are furthest from one another[20] are defined to be contrary, and so the further off the more contrary will they be. Further: of the extremes in some cases the excess, and in others the defect, is most…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
States what Straw man is; the author is tied to Straw man in the knowledge graph.
He would acquiesce in the sufficiency of the reason first given, “bodies which contain more particles are heavier.” It is when he finds this questioned, and is called upon to prove it, without knowing how, that he tries to establish his premise by supposing proved what he is attempting to prove by it. The most effectual way, in fact, of exposing a petitio principii, when circumstances allow of it, is by challenging…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Straw man is.
Philosophers who discussed Straw man
Related ideas
- Informal fallacy
- Internet Archive
- Carl Schurz
- Richard Nixon
- Socialism
- Aristotle
- Polemic
- Scientific racism
- Fallacy
- Martin Luther
- Routledge
- Dover Publications
- Continuum International Publishing Group
- Communism
- Charles Leonard Hamblin
Place in the tradition
Part of Eliminative materialism.