Yes, I can see some benefits to responding to straw-manning as if it were misphrased enquiry. I do think that at least 90% of the occasions in which straw-manning happens, it isn’t.
Most of the times I see it happen are in scenarios where curious enquiry about the difference is not a plausible motivation. In my experience it has nearly always happened where both sides are trying to win some sort of debate, usually with an audience.
That aside, the proposed mechanism for straw-manning was that it is a particular kind of mistake, so I would expect to see at least some significant fraction of cases where the same kind of enquiry was intended, and the mistake was not made. I haven’t observed any significant fraction of such cases in the situations where I have seen straw-man arguments used.
I agree that the fictional example I wrote does have a tone that implies that there is no difference between my caricature and your position. That matches the majority of cases where I see straw-man arguments being used. We could discuss the special case of straw-manning where such implication isn’t present, but I think that would reduce the practical scope to near zero.
Yes, I can see some benefits to responding to straw-manning as if it were misphrased enquiry. I do think that at least 90% of the occasions in which straw-manning happens, it isn’t.
Most of the times I see it happen are in scenarios where curious enquiry about the difference is not a plausible motivation. In my experience it has nearly always happened where both sides are trying to win some sort of debate, usually with an audience.
That aside, the proposed mechanism for straw-manning was that it is a particular kind of mistake, so I would expect to see at least some significant fraction of cases where the same kind of enquiry was intended, and the mistake was not made. I haven’t observed any significant fraction of such cases in the situations where I have seen straw-man arguments used.
I agree that the fictional example I wrote does have a tone that implies that there is no difference between my caricature and your position. That matches the majority of cases where I see straw-man arguments being used. We could discuss the special case of straw-manning where such implication isn’t present, but I think that would reduce the practical scope to near zero.