Re: Straw man

[Carla D McAuley <carlamcauley@juno.com>]

A straw man is a type of logical fallacy.  In rhetoric, It involves
creating an irrelevant, or weak, opponent (the straw man) and then
attacking him.  It only works if your opponent identifies with the straw
man and accepts your criticism.  Once an argument is identified as using
the straw man device, it usually evaporates.  Another similar device is
the red herring, something used to divert attention from the real issue. 
Wish I  could think of some examples, but I haven't had a logic or
rhetoric textbook in years.
Hope that helps.
Carla McAuley

On Sun, 09 Dec 2001 20:18:09 -0500 Claude  Genest <genest@together.net>
writes:
> I don't know what a straw-mam is, can someone tell me please ?
> 
> 
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