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A logical fallacy in which a person misattributes a position to a person who does not hold it and then refutes it, therefore, to the unperceptive, proving the person "wrong." |
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The "Straw Man" fallacy refers generally to the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer. The terminology is based on a combat metaphor -- instead of grappling with your opponent's real arguments, you set up a straw man which is easier to knock down. |
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/Talk? |
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Of course, it is not a logical fallacy to disprove a weak argument, the fallacy is believing or acting as though proving that one argument for a position is invalid proves that the conclusion is wrong. People often refer to several different situations as "setting up a straw man." # Presenting one of your opponent's lesser arguments then refuting it and then going on as if you've refuted her whole argument. # Presenting a modified version of your opponents argument which is weaker than their real argument and then treating the refutation of the weaker argument as a refutation of her real argument. # Presenting an poor defender of a position as the defender of that position and then defeating her arguments, and acting as than that were a refutation of all those who've argued for that position. Some logic textbooks define the straw man fallacy only in terms of a misrepresented argument. However, it is now common to use the term in a much more general sense, and therefore we now identify all three situations as examples of the straw man fallacy. /Talk? |
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