straw man
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: strawman
Alternative forms
Etymology
From straw + man. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1986 passim, shows first known usages for things insubstantial date to 1585-95. Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1897, Vol 4, p. 4485, notes “man of straw” as “The figure of a man formed of an old suit of clothes stuffed with straw; hence, the mere resemblance of a man; one of no substance or means; an imaginary person.”
Compare West Frisian strieman, Dutch strooman, stroman, German Strohmann, Danish stråmand, Swedish stråman, Norwegian stråmann.
Noun
- A doll or scarecrow, particularly one stuffed with straw.
- (figurative) An innocuous person or someone of nominal or lesser importance, as a front man or straw boss.
- (figurative) An insubstantial concept, idea, endeavor or argument, particularly one deliberately set up to be weakly supported, e.g. by misrepresenting an opponent's argument by broadening or narrowing the scope of a premise, so that it can be easily knocked down; especially to impugn the strength of any related or contrasted thing or idea.
- Antonym: steelman
- 2018, Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J. Sargent, Recursive macroeconomic theory, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 4:
- This Euler inequality recurs as either the cornerstone or the straw man in many theories contained in this book.
- (figurative, engineering, business) An outline serving as an initial proposal for a project, usually refined iteratively.
- a tentative straw-man spec
- Synonym of straw buyer
- 2000, John W. Reilly, The Language of Real Estate, page 381:
- If a broker or a salesperson attempts to use a straw man to purchase property for which he or she has a listing, the real estate person must specifically disclose in writing to the seller this relationship with the buyer.
Translations
doll or scarecrow
|
person of lesser importance
|
insubstantial or weakly supported concept, idea, endeavor or argument
|
Verb
straw man (third-person singular simple present straw mans, present participle straw manning, simple past and past participle straw manned)
- To falsely attribute an insubstantial argument (a straw man argument) to another through direct declaration or indirect implication; to put words in someone's mouth.
- Coordinate term: steelman
- Person A: "Cats have claws."
Person B: "Not all cats have claws: some are declawed."
Person A: "Don't straw man me; I never said all."
- 1996 [Vale Press], Ralph H. Johnson, The Rise of Informal Logic, Windsor Studies in Argumentation, 2014, E-edition, page 178,
- I have also argued that he is guilty of straw manning Copi and that his charge of shoddy reasoning against Kahane makes use of an equivocation on the concept of fallacy.
- 2016, Stijn Smismans, “5: Regulatory Procedure and Participation in the European Union”, in Francesca Bignami, David Zaring, editors, Comparative Law and Regulation, Edward Elgar Publishing, page 133:
- 11 It should, however, also be noted that in certain cases later "neo-corporatist authors" straw manned the pluralist model, making it easier to criticise (Nedelmann and Meier, 1979: 94).
- 2021, John T. Lysaker, Philosophy, Writing, and the Character of Thought, University of Chicago Press, page 39:
- My point does not concern the principle of charity or whether Hickman has straw manned postmodernism.
See also
Further reading
straw man on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - straw man proposal on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
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