The Study of Racialism

fwsweet · Posted: Mon 02 Jul 2007 22:01 Post subject: 2.3 What is a straw man?

What is a straw man?

This is the fallacy of refuting a caricatured or extreme version of somebody's argument, rather than the actual argument they've made. Often this fallacy involves putting words into somebody's mouth by saying they've made arguments they haven't actually made. One example of a straw man argument would be to say, "Mr. Jones thinks that capitalism is good because everybody earns whatever wealth they have, but this is clearly false because many people just inherit their fortunes," when in fact Mr. Jones had not made the "earnings" argument and had instead argued, say, that capitalism gives most people an incentive to work and save.

The easiest way to avoid straw man is to re-state your opponent's argument so fairly that they agree that you grasp their position. Then demolish it. If you demolish only your own misunderstanding of the other person's argument, you commit straw man. If you re-state your opponents argument fairly but they evade agreeing that you have understood their point, then they are violating 3.6, "State Your Thesis."