What is a straw man?
I always get told that there is a straw man when I admit that I am not talking about everything, but about something specific, that is part of the thesis of the ‘opponent’ or whatever, which I see as crucial, and I think the other overlooks. Straw man. What is the other, then a bird, flying on the wings of truth, eating the harvest of liars?
It’s quite in vogue to point out the “fallacy” of the straw man, for several reasons. One, it conjures up a vague image of the Wizard of Oz, which is clearly a favorite film of many who visit this site, and for fairly obvious reasons, I think. Also, it is reputedly easy to understand - certainly easier to understand than the “law” of the excluded middle or your basic circularity. Accusing someone of utilising a straw man often lends an air of philosophical sophistication as well as an appropriate testosterone level, even (or especially) among females.
A straw man is an argument, or usually premise, that you, the accused, erects in order to knock down in impressive fashion, but which is not in fact a part of the argument that you are attacking. The straw man should resemble some feature of your opponent’s argument in some way to have any chance of being effective.
The straw man is often taken to be a fallacy, but is not one, strictly speaking, for it is not a formal mistake. It is more often the result of a superficial understanding of the opponent’s position, or rank stupidity. Rank stupidity is not a fallacy, however.
A lot of things look like straw men which are actually good arguments. I think to avoid ‘straw man’ accusations is to force your opponent to agree to premisses explicitly before you rebuke them:
Apparent straw man:
A: I think there’s no such thing as free will! It just doesn’t exist.
B: Oh, so your a moral skeptic then? I don’t understand how you can be a skeptic! (goes on to form impressive argument against moral skepticism).
A: Straw Man! Straw Man! I never said I was a moral skeptic.
To avoid this
A: I think there’s no such thing as free will! It just doesn’t exist.
B: But, isn’t clear that free will is necessary for belief in morality. I mean - if I had no choice in whether I killed that man last night, then you can’t say that my action was ‘bad’, surely?
A: Well… I suppose so …
B: Ahaha! Well then - you officially fucked because now your a moral skeptic, and that means…
Obviously, no argument on ILP will ever be this progressive. But the point is - add in an extra post that asks the person ‘are you saying…???’, and then once you’ve got them to give you the soundbite you need, run wild with that. And as a general rule, I think its best to try never to refute a premiss that you wrote yourself, even if you feel it’s an accurate rephrasing. That way, it gives your opponent less space to squirm in. Although, here it seems people are most likely to then try and escape by asserting that thier words actually mean something other than what they actually mean, or some other linguistic trick.
But at least they can’t call you a strawman!
It’s when you make an argument, with the intention of making it seem strong, just so that you can easily tear it down later to illustrate some point.
Like you trick someone into agreeing with you because they don’t notice the flaw in the position that you’re putting forward, then you point out the flaw and invalidate the position in order to defeat, persuade, or have your way with them.
It’s a dirty trick if you do it on purpose.
Imagine that someone says that x+y=z
and goes on to define z as 4
and x as 3
and leaves y open.
In that case, y would have to be 1. But imagine now that I understand y as 2.
If I then say ‘y=2, and not unknown and neither 1, so x+y= not z.’
Would this constitute a straw man?
I’m not sure if semantically speaking, we can ‘commit’ a strawman. I think the correct usage would be ‘create a strawman’. The ‘strawman’ is the proposition that you ‘put’ in your oponents mouth, and then subsequently defeat. Evidently, it is called a straw man because it will inevitably be a lousy argument or indefensible proposition that you claim that your opponant has said, giving you the chance to show off your intellectual prowess by demolishing it. Take this topical example:
A: British MPs shouldn’t be prosecuted for theft, because everyone was doing it at the time so it was kind of ok.
B: The proposition that we should never prosecute our leaders is dangerous. Our leaders must be held accountable. Rawls famously said that said…
The straw man is the statement in italics. Although B’s following argument may look spectacular, the problem with it as an argument is that it is blowing down a weak proposition that was created by the person who is blowing it down. It was never actually asserted or implied by A.
No, it wouldn’t, because no straw man has been created for the purpose of defeat.
In fact, if you argued that Y=2 then in this case that would be sufficient to defeat the proposition “x+y=z” (given your oponent’s intial premises) , so it would be a perfectly legitimate argument.
Thanks. I get it up until this point. But now it gets more complicated.
Say that I argue that y includes 2, and my opponent disagrees, because he would prefer it be left open to include maybe other numbers as well.
If, in this case, y can be anything including 2, is my argument a straw man?
At this point it just looks like some fancy decoy tactic. I’m not sure that there’s a straw man involved - after all you haven’t created any proposition that you later wish to refute. But it does seem to be waxing lyrical slightly and beating around the bush in order to avoid the main argument.
If the proposition being debated is x+y=z, and it has been agreed that ( Y=3 & Z=4 ) is true, then the only remaning question is whether x=1 , or some other value. If the opponent can not demonstrate that x=1, then he has failed to demonstrate the truth of the proposition he is proposing. His argument has failed - you need only point this out to him.
If he is arguing that it is possible that x+y=z , because x is indefined, then the onus is on you (assuming you still want to refute his argument) to demonstrate that x is not 1, that X=1 is impossible. If you feel your argument would achieve this, then pursue it. If your argument would not achieve this goal, then you’re argument is, at best, an interesting aside. At worst, your argument here could be considered a deliberate distraction - there’s still no straw man involved but it’s not the best method of argument either.
Thank you. I feel I have come to understand the straw man. It is like what the purist theoretic mathematician might accuse the physicist of creating when he tries to test the formers formulation in the physical domain. The mathematician has not intended to tell something about physicality, just to make an inherently correct formula. Whether or not the straw man is a real objection or not depends on the definition of the use of mathematics. Is it a law unto itself, as the theoretic will have it, or only an imperfect language in which to describe physics? Since I think it is the latter, same as logic is an artifice. An philosophical argument cannot be true by logic alone, the logic has to be justified, and all the elements of it, x y and z, or things like truth, art, necessity, have to be exclusively defined before they can be used in a logical formula. Faillure to do so will result in proper objections being perceived as straw men.