Meaning
The strongest, most charitable version of an opponent's argument, reconstructed before responding to it. To 'steel man' a position is to actively strengthen it, removing easily refuted flaws, so that any critique lands on the best case rather than a weakened caricature. Approving, aspirational register; used as a mark of good-faith argumentation. Regional use: General English; strongest in online and rationalist/debate contexts.
Origin
The expression is a deliberate inversion of 'straw man', popularised in the late 2000s and 2010s within the internet rationalist community around the blog LessWrong, where posts such as 'Better Disagreement' ranked 'steelmanning' near the top of principled disagreement and a follow-up post argued for the term over the plainer 'principle of charity'. The concept itself is older: it is essentially a rebranding of the philosophical principle of charity associated with thinkers such as Donald Davidson. No individual coiner is documented, and the exact first use is unknown, though it plausibly circulated in debate and blog circles in the 2000s before LessWrong gave it a stable name. By the late 2010s it had spread into general tech and commentary usage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- steel man argument
- steel-manning
- steelmanning
Usage Examples
- Before you reply to her essay, try building the steel man of her position and see if your objection still holds.
- A good moderator steel-mans both sides so the audience hears each at its strongest.
- His steelman of the opposing view was so persuasive that several readers assumed he had switched sides.