Straw man

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jojalozzo (talk | contribs) at 22:59, 10 December 2012 (Undid revision 527424295 by 130.243.227.253 (talk) not a great example since it is disputed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the logical fallacy. For other uses, see Straw man (disambiguation).
"Man of straw" redirects here. For the novel by Heinrich Mann, see Der Untertan.

A straw man or straw person, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally,[1][2] is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[3] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and to refute it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[3][4]

Origin

As a fallacy, the identification and name of straw man arguments are of relatively recent date, although Aristotle makes remarks that suggest a similar concern; Douglas Walton identified "the first inclusion of it we can find in a textbook as an informal fallacy" in Stuart Chase's Guides to Straight Thinking from 1956 (p. 40).[5][6] Oddly enough Hamblin's classic text Fallacies (1970), neither mentions it as a distinct type, nor even as a historical term.[5][6]

The origins of the term are unclear. The usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw which is easily knocked down or destroyed, such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy.[7] The rhetorical technique is sometimes called an Aunt Sally in the UK, with reference to a traditional fairground game in which objects are thrown at a fixed target. One common folk etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe in order to indicate their willingness to be a false witness.[8]

Structure

The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

  1. Person 1 has position X.
  2. Person 2 disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
    1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position.
    2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).[4]
    3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[3]
    4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
    5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
  3. Person 2 attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This reasoning is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position does not address the actual position.

Examples

A: Sunny days are good.
B: If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death.

In this case, B falsely frames A's claim to imply that A believes only sunny days are good, and B argues against that assertion. A actually asserts that sunny days are good and, in fact, says nothing about rainy days.

C: We should give children ice cream after every school day.
D: That would be rather bad for their health.
C: Do you want our children to starve?

Person C says that children should be given ice cream after every school day. D replies to that statement assuming that children would be getting this in addition to their regular meals, and states that this would be unhealthy. Person C replies with the unreasonable suggestion that if children were not given ice cream, they would starve. Person C does this because it is harder for Person D to argue that children should starve than to argue that children should not be unhealthy.

Christopher Tindale presents, as an example, the following passage from a draft of a bill (HCR 74) considered by the Louisiana State Legislature in 2001:[5]

Whereas, the writings of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, promoted the justification of racism, and his books On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man postulate a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. . . .
Therefore, be it resolved that the legislature of Louisiana does hereby deplore all instances and all ideologies of racism, does hereby reject the core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain races and classes of humans are inherently superior to others, and does hereby condemn the extent to which these philosophies have been used to justify and approve racist practices.

Tindale comments that "the portrait painted of Darwinian ideology is a caricature, one not borne out by any objective survey of the works cited. That similar misrepresentations of Darwinian thinking have been used to justify and approve racist practices is beside the point: the position that the legislation is attacking and dismissing is a Straw Man. In subsequent debate this error was recognized, and the eventual bill omitted all mention of Darwin and Darwinist ideology."[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Dennis V. Lindley (2006). Understanding Uncertainty. John Wiley & Sons. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-470-04383-7.
  2. ^ A. W. Sparkes (1991). Talking Philosophy: A Wordbook. Routledge. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-415-04223-9.
  3. ^ a b c Pirie, Madsen (2007). How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic. UK: Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 155–157. ISBN 978-0-8264-9894-6.
  4. ^ a b "The Straw Man Fallacy". Fallacy Files. Retrieved 12 October 2007. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d Christopher W. Tindale (2007). Fallacies and Argument Appraisal. Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–28. ISBN 978-0-521-84208-2.
  6. ^ a b Douglas Walton, "The straw man fallacy". In Logic and Argumentation, ed. Johan van Bentham, Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst and Frank Veltman. Amsterdam, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, North-Holland, 1996. pp. 115-128
  7. ^ Damer, T. Edward (1995). Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments. Wadsworth. pp. 157–159.
  8. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham (1898). "Man of Straw (A)". Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Retrieved 13 May 2009.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Straw_man&oldid=527429461"