Do People Perceive the Disagreement in Straw Man Fallacies? An Experimental Investigation

Abstract

So far, experimental studies on the straw man have targeted the misrepresentational dimension of this fallacy. In order to provide a more detailed understanding of the way the straw man is perceived, the focus of this paper lies on the refutational dimension. In two experiments, I will assess (1) if people are sensitive to the underlying disagreement expressed through the use of a straw man and (2) if question wording plays a role for the perception of disagreement. The results of the experiment show that participants indeed notice easily that the person performing a straw man disagrees with his opponent. It also emerges from the experiment that the difference between a positive or negative formulation of the experimental questions does not affect the perception of disagreement in the straw man. The underlying disagreement in the straw man is thus perceived either way.

Pragmatic perspectives on disagreement

“…Schumann's (2022b) study on the perception of disagreement in argumentative contexts stands out in this respect because it experimentally assesses people's ability to detect disagreement when it is conveyed using a fallacious argument such as the straw man fallacy. When a straw man is performed, the speaker attacks their opponent by misrepresenting their initial standpoint (see e.g., Aikin and Casey 2022a;Schumann 2022a). The inherent disagreement to a straw man fallacy is thus expressed through the misrepresentation of the original content, and, interestingly, experimental results indicate that people are indeed sensitive to its presence, regardless of whether they were asked about the presence of agreement (positive formulation) or the presence of disagreement (negative formulation).…”

“…Meta-linguistic disagreements of this kind can, therefore, emerge for many reasons and, crucially, may be pragmatically expressed in different formats. One example of this type of disagreement can be found in the case of the already mentioned straw man fallacy, in which a speaker misrepresents the original content of their opponent to create a version that is easier to attack (Aikin and Casey 2022a;Oswald and Lewiński 2014;Schumann 2022a). Another example would be when a speaker questions the legitimacy of another speaker's contribution implicitly, by boasting about their own qualities (see e.g., Herman and Oswald 2022, who analyse such a strategy, which they dub 'ethotic straw man'); in this sense, an implicit personal attack which delegitimises a speaker's contribution may be pragmatically conveyed through self-praise (see also Masia's and Lombardi Vallauri's contributions in this special issue).…”