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| Straw Men; Reply to Jayfoxpox. | |
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| Topic Started: 3 May 2012, 07:02 AM (474 Views) | |
| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 07:02 AM Post #1 |
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So, what do you understand the strawman fallacy to be? I wasn't aware I could make myself straw in an opening post, but that may be because I don't understand the fallacy |
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| Hosorrow | 3 May 2012, 07:29 AM Post #2 |
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Sometimes people try to say confusing things to appear more intelligent, I think that was one instance, but perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps he was trying to say that by rephrasing, you risk setting yourself up to be "strawmanned" lol. Wow, I really hate that term already. Edited by Hosorrow, 3 May 2012, 07:35 AM.
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 07:35 AM Post #3 |
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How does that commit the strawman fallacy? Oh, I see what you mean. Do you think people can commit the strawman fallacy about their own position? Edited by fdrake, 3 May 2012, 07:38 AM.
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| Hosorrow | 3 May 2012, 07:40 AM Post #4 |
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I was referring to his post, not yours Again- Perhaps he was trying to say that by rephrasing, you risk setting yourself up to be "strawmanned" lol. Wow, I really hate that term already. Well, that would be "Attacking ones own position in a way that targets a weaker representation of it's position"... so ummm, I really don't see that being possible unless that person is REALLY stupid. Edited by Hosorrow, 3 May 2012, 07:44 AM.
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 07:42 AM Post #5 |
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So you're saying communicating ambigously leads to the risk of being strawmanned? |
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| Hosorrow | 3 May 2012, 07:51 AM Post #6 |
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Look, I always say that 99% of people do not want a true debate. Most people fall prey to their primal instinct to win even if it means being dishonest or unfair. Therefor, 99% of people will try anything they can to appear right, even if they know they're wrong or most likely wrong. That being said, yes, communicating ambiguously does lead to a risk of being victim to not only the strawman fallacy , but attacked by the ad hominem, red herrings, semantics [Misused that is], and other forms of offensive fallacies that will give the opposing position more credit than it deserves. |
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 07:54 AM Post #7 |
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So you believe that communicating ambiguously leads other people to try and prove you wrong? |
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| Hosorrow | 3 May 2012, 08:08 AM Post #8 |
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Well, I believe that communicating at all leads people to try and prove you wrong. Think about it, everything you say has some opposing view and there is always someone out there who disagrees with you. That's why no matter how decimated I get by fallacies, I don't feel as though I've lost, I just move on and accept that some people just aren't up to debating on my level without deceit. |
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 08:10 AM Post #9 |
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Why are other people like you? |
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| jayfoxpox | 3 May 2012, 08:17 AM Post #10 |
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I view strawmaning as misrepresenting ( correct me if I'm wrong). And if you were to try rephrase your argument in 10 different ways , chances are some of them might not accurately represent your view , and it might have some holes in the argument unintentionally. Kinda similar to coming up with bad analogies. Maybe I'm just blowing the term strawmaning out of proportion. The English language is pretty complicated and one slip of a word can change the meaning slightly. |
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 08:19 AM Post #11 |
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This is interesting; what's "the argument" if it's not just what argument is made, then? |
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| jayfoxpox | 3 May 2012, 08:27 AM Post #12 |
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sorry , when you say "the argument" do you mean the rephrased argument that's inaccurate? |
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| Nemesis | 3 May 2012, 08:45 AM Post #13 |
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I think he means that if you rephrase an argument, it becomes another argument (sure, it can be close to the original, but, even if you just change a word or switched from a period to an exclamation point or CAPSed something). Example: Vaginasaur is a moron. =/= Vaginasaur is a moron! =/= VAGINASAUR IS A MORON But, sure, you also have: Vaginasaur is a moron. ~ Vaginasaur is a moron! ~ VAGINASAUR IS A MORON The more you change it, the more it becomes different from the original. @fdrake, off-topic: most of your posts that are made out of 5-10 words are useless and annoying, because they are too ambiguous and you aren't getting your message through and people will always either reply with "what did you mean" or they'll reply to what they thought you meant. Both replies will make you explain your position in a longer post. Edited by Nemesis, 3 May 2012, 09:06 AM.
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 09:26 AM Post #14 |
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Sorry for miscommunicating Jayfoxbox, what I'm saying is this: If we're having an argument, and I've made a post arguing, then surely that is what argument I've made, rather than a picture of what argument I'm making. As in, strawmanning, at its root, seems to be a failure of communication. What I've said may not be what I'm trying to say, nevertheless what I've said is my argument. I was wondering how this relates to strawmanning, since it's entirely possible that the argument someone's made isn't the argument they were trying to make, and thereby we could never tell, without clarification, what the argument at hand was.
Don't worry, I don't understand how you guys can think what you do too.  More seriously, I can't always tell how to respond without a test, and often people don't respond to the brief statements, which is cool, leave it to you guys to decide what's relevant to your thinking. If someone does bite, I'm fine with explaining my position in a longer post if I've not managed to make what I'm saying clear. Edited by fdrake, 3 May 2012, 09:35 AM.
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| jayfoxpox | 3 May 2012, 09:53 AM Post #15 |
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Yea, I guess this highlights the importance of communication. Someone's vocabulary and syntax could be extremely poor ,yet the idea is good. It would certainly be frustrating after analyzing someone's argument to have the person say " oh I meant this and that." Then this begs the question whether he's dishonest ,to manipulate his own position as the discussion progresses. |
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| Ardat | 3 May 2012, 11:01 AM Post #16 |
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Isn't "stawmanning yourself" just a fancy way of saying that what you express may change when you're pushed into rephrasing your statement(s), even if you're unaware of it? How is this a mystery? |
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| fdrake | 3 May 2012, 03:48 PM Post #17 |
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It'll do all sorts of odd things.  If someone's claiming to be conveying the same message, and is sincere in their efforts. To them, the argument, when stated, is identical to the argument they wish to convey. For others - it isn't. Either this is ill posed, statements concerning identification don't obey the law of excluded middle [always, a statement or its negation is true], or the possibility of "strawman" arguments, in this sincere case, immediately causes explosion. "Conveying the same message" = "speaking about the same argument" Edited by fdrake, 3 May 2012, 03:49 PM.
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A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head. | |
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| Dolerbom | 3 May 2012, 04:49 PM Post #18 |
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I used to get into, "debates," with my skype friend Bryan. He would not only strawman everything I said { I mean literally everything}, but he would also strawman almost everything he said. He does not notice why everytime we have an argument, we end up arguing what we were arguing about in the first place. He could not do this if we were typing, but because he is talking to me, I am unable to scroll back and show him what he actually said. His arrogancy makes him convince himself that he is always right on everything, no matter how stupid what he said was. He also grunts insults, which I think is just another way for him to convince himself that he is right. A somewhat related example of this, would be an argument we got into about Buddhism. He said Buddha was a god, I explained to him how he was not, and then he changed it to that he was a prophet, and I proved that wrong too. Then he just grunted and said that I was retarded. I pointed out that he initially said that Buddha was a god, and he denied it. |
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| Multiplexity | 4 May 2012, 04:35 AM Post #19 |
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Hvor din bil en fitta-magnet?
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Strawmen are when you misrepresent the opposing side's argument and continue arguing as if the misrepresentation was their real argument. Example: "Hitler wanted to ban smoking. I think it's a good idea." And the opposition says "Oh, so you agree with his ideals. Do you support his acts to kill the jews?" It's hard to differentiate between a red herring and a strawman, but strawmen continue arguing against a point that was never made. The first guy agreed with the Hitler's ideal to ban smoking, not the genocide against the jews. The second party are strawmanning his opinion/argument. |
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| Dogsi | 4 May 2012, 09:42 PM Post #20 |
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A strawman is when you argue against a false stance that the opposing side never took. For instance, as follows: "Atheism is a belief because Atheists believe that there is no god". It's a common statement from theists that inaccurate portraits the stance of atheism. Atheism is a lack of belief, which is not the same as belief. Many people use strawmen when they can't articulate an attack against a stance as it is currently presented. They present it in a way that's easier for them to comprehend and then attack it. So yes, you can strawman in your opening post if your opening post is addressing the views of others. |
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