question the question

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question the question (third-person singular simple present questions the question, present participle questioning the question, simple past and past participle questioned the question)

1. To ask that a proposed question's presuppositions be explicitly justified, especially as a preliminary to answering it, for example a complex question or loaded question.
   • 1989, Douglas N. Walton, Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation, →ISBN, page 58, →ISBN:

     To say that a question is fallacious is to say that it is objectionable to the answerer because it is constructed to force him to accept a proposition that he should not. This problem is compounded if the question is also semantically complex. A semantically complex question is one that contains a connective, ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘if–then’ in its presupposition. Once again, the answerer must question the question by requesting that the propositions in the presupposition be separated into units that he can reasonable deal with.

• beg the question