The content Fallacy I have decided to discuss is the “strawman.” It is defined as misrepresenting or putting words in the other person’s mouth, which is stated in Epstein. It is an informal fallacies that misrepresents the other opposing sides argument or statement. An example would be: Person 1: “we should provide more help for the poor and give them a better opportunity to make their life better” Person 2: “So you think we should just hand it to them and not have then work for it. There is no way this would work because this would just show people they do not need to try to make a better life and cause more poverty.” This would be an example of “strawman” because the opponent took person 1’s statement and twisted the words so that it becomes something different then what the person really was stating. This is called putting words in person 1’s mouth. |
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Strawman
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Nice way of finding the definition for this fallacy. This fallacy is used very often I think. A lot of people misinterpret what people usually mean. When word goes around, often the main concept of what someone is trying to say gets misled with someone else's interpretation of what they think of that person's idea. I liked your example you used because you showed how people take someone else's idea and turn it around to make it their own idea. It just comes to whether to first person catches the other person misleading what they are really trying to say. Other wise, good definition and good example.
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