Straw man
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A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fa
U.S. president William McKinley fires a cannon (labeled "McKinley's Letter") at a "straw man" and its constructors (Carl Schurz, Oswald Garrison Villard, Richard Olney) in a great explosion. Caption: "SMASHED!", Harper's Weekly, 22 September 1900.
Principle of charity
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In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, consi
Straw man
…irrationality. A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form…
Dialectical principle of charity algorithm