The Crucible

Bo and Maggie

Straw Man Fallacy

Straw Man Fallacy

• A straw man fallacy misrepresents a position to make it weaker than It actually is and claims that the real position has been refuted after attacking the misrepresentation.

Straw Man Fallacy simplified

• Person A has position X.

• Person B presents position Y as a distorted version of X.

• Person B attacks position Y.

• Therefore X is incorrect.

Universal Example #1

• A: Sunny days are good.• B: If all days were sunny, we’d never have rain

and without rain, we’d have famine and death.

• B falsely accuses A's claim to imply that A believes only sunny days are good, and B argues against that statement. A actually states that sunny days are good and says nothing about rainy days.

Universal Example #2

• A: “We should give children ice cream after every school day.”

• B: “That would be rather bad for their health.”• A: “Do you want our children to starve?”

• Person A says that children should be given ice cream after every school day. Person B replies to that statement assuming that children would be getting this as regular meals, and says that this would be unhealthy. Person A replies with the unreasonable suggestion that if children were not given ice cream, they would starve. Person A does this because it is harder for Person B to argue that children should starve than to argue that children should not be unhealthy.

The Crucible Example #1

• Page 211• Procter: “I have no love for Mr. Parris. It is no secret.

But God I surely love.”• Cheever: “He plow on Sunday, sir. • Danforth: “Plow on Sunday!”• Cheever: “I think it be evidence, John. I am an official of

the court, I cannot keep it.”• Procter: “I-I have once or twice plowed on Sunday. I

have 3 children, sir, and until last year my land give little.”

The Crucible Example #1

• Proctor and Cheever are in court and Cheever brings up the argument that Proctor plows on Sunday. By Cheever doing so he makes the argument an even bigger deal because he relates it to Church. By relating it to Church, the argument becomes an even bigger conflict than it already is.

The Crucible Example #2

• Page- 201

• Parris- “I am not used to this poverty… why am I persecuted here?”

• Mr. Putnam- “Mr. Parris, you are the first minister ever to demand the deed to this house.”

The Crucible Example #2

• In this part, Putnam tries to ignore Parris’ question and changes the subject to something unrelated to his question. The point he brings up still worsens Parris’ argument without it answering his question.

Citations

• FloresAPENG. “Strawman Fallacy.wmv” YouTube. Web. 14 April. 2010.

• Fallacy. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.