I was humored by Trudy Knowles’ use of the “strawman” fallacy to try to refute my wife’s argument against mask mandates (Letters to the Editor, The Westfield News, Dec. 24, page 4). I will assume Ms.

I don’t mean to pick on Dargan Pete again, but his Jan. 15 column is a classic example of the “straw man” logical fallacy. For those readers who didn’t have a secondary school English class unit on ...

Jo Ann Rebane’s Opinion piece “What’s wrong with DEI? (The Union 6/18/25) is a master example of the form of fallacious argumentation known as Straw Man. In such arguments, the speaker first builds a ...

https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.54.2.0109 • https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/philrhet.54.2.0109 Copy URL ABSTRACT This paper contributes to the debate about ...

Rich Lowry, in his article (March 26) denouncing Bernie Sanders’ proposal to establish a four-day workweek, sums up his point at the end by saying, “Sanders’ idea is a frank expression of economic ...

One of many problems with Tucker Carlson is his almost obsessive use of the straw man fallacy: rejecting an argument that differs from the one actually being made. Here’s an example: Alice says, “Cars ...

Since I wrote my article about Franklin Graham’s response to Mark Galli’s Christianity Today article, which called for the president to be removed from office, the response from the evangelical ...

A Motte-and-Bailey was a type of medieval fortress. You would have a heavily fortified keep (the motte) and a less defended courtyard (the bailey). If under siege and the bailey’s defenses failed, ...

Since I wrote my article about Franklin Graham’s response to Mark Galli’s Christianity Today article, which called for the president to be removed from office, the response from the evangelical ...

This is not an opinion column — as far as I can tell — but terms come up in contexts that intrigue me. The most recent is a “straw man.” It came up in a commentary on National Public Radio that stated ...