What is the fallacy of poisoning the well?

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

Which is an example of poisoning the well?

Poisoning the well occurs when negative information that is irrelevant is presented ahead of time to discredit the argument. For example, in a political campaign, candidate 2 presents negative information about candidate 1 (true or false) so that anything that candidate says will be discounted.

How is poisoning the well a logical fallacy?

Poisoning the well is one type of logical fallacy that occurs when negative information about a person is presented to an audience in an attempt to discredit the following arguments made by that person. It’s a variation of the ad hominem fallacy; it attacks directly the source of an argument, instead of addressing the argument itself.

Which is the best definition of poisoning the well?

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.

When do you use the poisoned well argument?

Poisoned-well arguments are sometimes used with preemptive invocations of the association fallacy. In this pattern, an unfavorable attribute is ascribed to any future opponents, in an attempt to discourage debate. (For example, “That’s my stance on funding the public education system, and anyone who disagrees with me hates children.”)

When did John Henry Newman use the term poisoning the well?

Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864).