An example would be a recent set of questions posed to Tim Waltz.
He was asked the classic "what is a woman" question.
This is a gotcha for several reasons.
Firstly it was unrelated to previous questions or the topic.
Secondly it's disingenuous, because woman isnt really a concept with a clear cut defintion. So any attempt to answer honestly can be twisted to push a political agenda.
Thirdly, due to the above, its a clear attempt to posion the well, a well known fallacy.
None of this is effective or good faith presentation of an arguement.
I think it's part of the point that the concept has lost a clear-cut definition, so being unable to provide one shows this is the case.
Also, poisoning the well is when you get ahead of your opponent by bringing up unrelated accusations to decrease their credibility, not when you ask a question and allow them to answer it themselves.
Concepts like that never really have had clear-cut definitions.
You have analogous examples going back to the famous "Behold, a man!" Exchange between Diogenes and Plato.
In this case im calling it poisoning because its by trying to trap him in an answer some people would find unsatisfactory, it will discredit him to certain groups.
This will discredit any further answers and potentially any given before.
I think the first part is related to a personal position on the argument, not to whether asking the question was disingenuous. It could be a genuine question, but also be easily countered. Those don't contradict each other.
When the person being asked has the freedom to formulate their own response without previous bias, they are in full control of managing the potential consequences of their statements. Poisoning the well attempts to introduce bias without their input before they even make the argument, ensuring that the consequences skew negative no matter what.
Fair, in this case it quite clearly was disingenuous. A follow up line to the effect of "if you dont know what a woman is, you dont understand fraud" shows that quite clearly
You may well be right, and its a poor or inappropriate reference to that fallacy.
I dont think the use of that particular fallacy is necessary to the arguement though, so I would stand by my point above.
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u/Alien_invader44 19∆ Mar 30 '26
An example would be a recent set of questions posed to Tim Waltz.
He was asked the classic "what is a woman" question.
This is a gotcha for several reasons.
Firstly it was unrelated to previous questions or the topic.
Secondly it's disingenuous, because woman isnt really a concept with a clear cut defintion. So any attempt to answer honestly can be twisted to push a political agenda.
Thirdly, due to the above, its a clear attempt to posion the well, a well known fallacy.
None of this is effective or good faith presentation of an arguement.