Meaning
A misrepresentation of an opponent's argument, invented so it can be easily attacked and defeated. Instead of engaging with what was actually said, the arguer substitutes a weaker, distorted version and knocks that down. The term also names the fake argument itself. Neutral descriptive term in logic and debate, but accusing someone of it is inherently an allegation of bad faith. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Derived from the older phrase 'man of straw', which the Online Etymology Dictionary dates to 1620 for an easily refuted imaginary opponent. Isaac Watts described debaters attacking 'images of straw of their own making' in his Logick (1724), and Martin Luther complained of similar misrepresentation as early as 1520 (though the straw phrase appears only in a later English translation). As a named informal fallacy it is surprisingly recent: Douglas Walton traced its first textbook appearance to Stuart Chase's Guides to Straight Thinking (1956), and Hamblin's Fallacies (1970) did not mention it at all. A popular etymology linking it to men with straw in their shoes outside courthouses is false.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- straw man argument
- straw man fallacy
- straw-manning
Usage Examples
- Nobody is arguing that cars should be banned outright, so stop attacking that straw man.
- She realised mid-debate that he had quietly replaced her modest claim with a straw man about abolishing industry overnight.
- The review straw-manned the book by treating a passing aside as its central thesis.