What’s the difference between ad hominem fallacy and the poisoning the well fallacy?
Poisoning the Well Fallacy. Poisoning the well is an ad hominem attack (see âAd hominem,â above) on a personâs integrity or intelligence that takes place before the merits of a case can be considered. It redirects a discussion to the faults of one of the parties.
An ad hominem (Latin for to the man or to the person), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attack on an argument made by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, rather than attacking the argument directly.