Straw Man Arguments: A Study in Fallacy Theory

by Scott Aikin, John Casey

This book analyses the straw man fallacy and its deployment in philosophical reasoning. While commonly invoked in both academic dialogue and public discourse, it has not until now received the attention it deserves as a rhetorical device.

Scott Aikin and John Casey propose that straw manning essentially consists in expressing distorted representations of one's critical interlocutor. To this end, the straw man comprises three dialectical forms, and not only the one that is usually the straw man, the weak man and the hollow man. Moreover, they demonstrate that straw manning is unique among fallacies as it has no particular logical form in itself, because it is an instance of inappropriate meta-argument, or argument about arguments. They discuss the importance of the onlooking audience to the successful deployment of the straw man, reasoning that the existence of an audience complicates the dialectical boundaries of argument.

Providing a lively, provocative and thorough analysis of the straw man fallacy, this book will appeal to postgraduates and researchers alike, working in a range of fields including fallacies, rhetoric, argumentation theory and informal logic.

Genres: Philosophy

240 pages, Hardcover

Published February 10, 2022

Reviews

[Lachlan Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic look at the straw man fallacy, as well as discourse and argument more generally. It's been helpful to read this to give names to, and clarify some ways in which poor arguments can be presented and work (for their intended audience) It was a little dense at times, but it's hard to deal with concepts like this without getting quite into the weeds.

[Roel Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very useful book that breaks down types of straw man fallacies. It really helped me in identifying them better.

Nevertheless, it is very academic, and unnecesarily long because of the many repetitions. At times barely readable.