

























AN EXISTENTIAL-LOGICAL ANALYSIS 
OF FALLACIES ON THE HUMAN PERSON

Benedict Egbuchunam

ABSTRACT
In everyday discourse, arguments, which are expected to be 
logical and reasonable, are used to advance positions and 
to make statements. However, some arguments are known to 
be illogical and are generally referred to as fallacies which 
are errors in reasoning. These informal fallacies are known 
to have a psychological dimension in the pattern of illusions 
and deceptions that violate argument rules used in rational 
thinking or argumentation. The problem this paper deals 
with is that these fallacies are deceptive and unfortunately 
are sometimes deliberately used to deceive and mislead 
others. The deliberate intention to deceive, mislead or 
induce someone or people to accept a claim undermines 
human dignity and cannot allow for genuine dialogue and 
authentic communication. The question of the effect of 
fallacies in human communication and relationship has 
raised concerns. Using the existential theories of Martin 
Buber, Gabriel Marcel, and Karl Jaspers, this paper seeks 
to give an existential analysis of the inuence of informal 
fallacies on the human person. Through the expository and 
analytical method, this paper concludes that the deliberate 
use of fallacies in communication and relationships to 
deceive others is an affront to human dignity and militates 
against authentic existence. By learning to recognize 
fallacies and having a critical thinking disposition, we can 
avoid being deceitful and being misled by others. 



Key Words: Fallacies, Existence, Arguments, human dignity

�
INTRODUCTION
In logic, an argument consists of a set of statements, the premises, 
whose truth supposedly supports the truth of a single statement called 
the conclusion of the argument. An argument is deductively valid 
when the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion; 
that is, the conclusion must be true, because of the form of the 
argument, whenever the premises are true. Some arguments that fail 
to be deductively valid are acceptable on grounds other than formal 
logic, and their conclusions are supported with less than logical 
necessity. In other potentially persuasive arguments, the premises 
give no rational grounds for accepting the conclusion. These 
defective forms of argument are called fallacies. The term fallacy 
originated from a Latin word, fallacia, from fallac-, fallax which 
means deceitful, or fallere to deceive. Fallacies are sophisms or errors 
in reasoning which is connected with inferences as these errors sound 
reasonable and valid, however, their unreliability is vague. They are 
known to have a psychological dimension in the pattern of illusions 
and deceptions that violate argument rules used in rational thinking or 

1
argumentation.

In everyday speech, one may have heard someone refer to a 
commonly accepted belief as a fallacy. What is usually meant is that 
the belief is false, although widely accepted. A fallacy refers to a 
logically weak argument that is usually psychologically persuasive 
but logically weak and not a belief or statement that is widely used 
and successful. That is fallacious arguments work in getting many 
people to accept conclusions, that they make bad arguments appear 
good even though a little commonsense reection will reveal that 
people ought not to accept the conclusions of these arguments as 

2
strongly supported. Although logicians distinguish between formal  
and informal fallacies, our focus is on traditional informal fallacies 
because they are patterns of mistakes that are made in the everyday 
use of language.
� Informal fallacies are fallacies that are expressed in ordinary 
language and are common in everyday affairs which may be 

74 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



psychologically persuasive but logically awed. It is an important 
concept among students as well as the public at large because some 
parts of human thinking deceives itself while deceiving others. These 
fallacies are highly persuasive and deceptive, hence their widespread 
use in everyday dialogues. It is the point of this paper that these 
fallacies, which are manipulative and tricky, go against the 
existentialist thesis of existence and others because they denigrate the 
dignity of the human person who is to be treated as wholly an Other. 

Nature of Informal Fallacies
Informal fallacies are dened as reasoning errors with three features: 
(1) the reasoning employs an implicit cogent (deductively valid or 
inductively strong) pattern, (2) the fallacy results from the presence 
of one or more false premises, and (3) there is some degree of 
culpable ignorance or deception associated with the falsity of the 
premises. Thus, the source of fallaciousness is the falsity of the 
premises and not the invalidity of the reasoning, unjustied appeals to 
"irrelevant" reasons, incorrect moves (rule violations) in 
argumentative discourse, or anything else specied in other accounts 

3
of informal fallacies.  They are errors in reasoning that we fall into 
because of carelessness or inattention or because we want to trick 
others into accepting our position based on convictions that are not 
factual. Informal fallacies are fallacies that can be detected through 
analysis of the content of the argument (or content of discourses) and 
they take many forms and are widespread in everyday discourse. Very 
often they involve bringing irrelevant information into an argument 
or a discourse, wrong use of language, or they are based on 
assumptions that, when examined, prove to be incorrect – informal 

4fallacies are more dependent on misuse of language and evidence.
� Informal fallacies are concerned not with the form but with 
the content (and possibly the intent) of the reasoning. They are 
"proofs that appear at rst glance to be sound but are fatally awed in 
their reasoning or construction. And from a psychological 
perspective, "a fallacy is often dened as a mistake in the reasoning 
used for deceptive purposes." While this certainly is not categorically 
true of all informal fallacies, many of the informal fallacies are often 
used in the manipulation of opinion. Informal fallacies can also be 

75An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



difcult to identify. For instance, a slippery-slope argument often 
straddles the line between being persuasively plausible and 
fallaciously exaggerated. A fallacious argument is either inductively 
very weak, contains an unjustied premise, or ignores relevant, 
available evidence that the arguer should know about, and the 

5
argument can be used to persuade.  Informal fallacies are persuasive 
tools that tend to induce errors in the way that other people process 
and think about information, and they are used to manage what 
people perceive and eventually believe. They are known to have a 
psychological dimension in the pattern of illusions and deceptions. 
They violate argument rules used in rational thinking or 
argumentation. According to Shamala, informal fallacies are 
elucidated for violations of the rules for dispute resolution through 
rational discussion and are used for arguments that are 
psychologically persuasive but logically incorrect. In other words, 

6
these fallacies persuade humans when it is not supposed to.

The two most fully developed theories of fallacy so far are the 
pragmatic theory and the pragma-dialectical theory. According to the 
pragma-dialectical theory, a fallacy is a violation of a rule of a critical 
discussion where the goal is to resolve a difference of opinion by 
rational argumentation. In other words, it is a speech act that 
prejudices or frustrates efforts to resolve a difference of opinion. For 
the pragmatic theory, a fallacy is a failure, lapse, or error that occurs in 
an instance of an underlying, systematic kind of wrongly applied 
argumentation scheme or is a departure from acceptable procedures 
in a dialogue, and is a serious violation, as opposed to an incidental 
blunder, error, or weakness of execution. The weakness of these 
theories is that neither theory has fully taken into account that 
longstanding intuition, very much evident in Aristotle's treatment of 
the SophisticiElenchi, that fallacies are deceptive. They are not just 
arguments that prejudice efforts to resolve a difference of opinion, 
wrongly applied argumentation schemes, or departures from 
acceptable procedures in a dialogue, although they are all that. They 
are arguments that work as deceptive stratagems. They are arguments 

7that seem correct but are not.
� Informal fallacies have always been part of human history but 
they became noticeable in fth-century B.C. Athens, when a class of 

76 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



teachers known as the Sophists became the center of attention with 
"their claim to teach 'excellence' or 'virtue' both in mastering one's 
affairs and in providing leadership in the city that makes them 
popular. The Sophists were teachers of rhetoric: the fundamentals and 
art of persuasive speaking, including how to present a case, marshal 
arguments, and appeal to the audience's emotions. Most relevant to 
the present topic was the Sophists' claim to teach "the ability to use the 
spoken word to persuade the jurors in the courts" and how to make the 
weaker argument stronger. The Sophists were trained at manipulating 
other people's perceptions and inducing errors in their thinking to 
manage what they perceive and eventually believe. They also 
indoctrinated in their students the view of skepticism that the 
individual can never get at the truth, and thus the only reasonable 
response is to suspend judgment on all issues and to adopt a theory of 
relativism, which holds that truth is relative to the individual, the 
culture, or the time. Philosophers have generally disagreed with the 
Sophists' ideas of skepticism and relativism because the philosopher's 
end goal is to reach the ultimate truth. Unfortunately, because the art 
of rhetoric had become so bound up with the Sophists' underlying 
beliefs, philosophers have tended to reject rhetoric as a legitimate 
method to get at the truth. Beginning with Aristotle, philosophers 
began to develop well-reasoned and systematic tools for uncovering 

8sophisms, or fallacious arguments that look good but are not.
� Aristotle played a pivotal role in logic as the father of logic. In 
his Sophistical Refutations, (Latin: De Sophisticis Elenchis), he 
identied thirteen types of informal fallacies or absurdities, as he 
used to call them, and classied them into linguistic fallacies, that is, 
those dependent on language and non-linguistic fallacies, that is, 
those outside language. Under linguistic Fallacies, we have Accent, 
Amphiboly, Figure of speech, Equivocation, Composition, and 
Division. Under non-linguistic fallacies, we have Ignorance of 
refutation, Many questions, Unqualied generalizations (Accident), 
Hasty generalizations, Wicked circle (Circular reasoning), False 

9
cause, and Afrming the consequent.  Thus, philosophers were 
trained at recognizing the Sophists' manipulations and are the ones 
who labeled their rhetorical tactics logical fallacies. While Aristotle 
focused mostly on formal logic, he also recognized some informal 

77An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



fallacies as mentioned above. Modern philosophers and logicians 
have greatly expanded upon Aristotle's foundational work and have 
developed a much broader understanding of informal fallacies. A list 
of more than 100 fallacies has been developed. There is thus no 
precisely exact number of informal fallacies.

Classication of Fallacies 
Informal fallacies are numerous and can therefore be best understood 
if they are grouped into categories, each with clearly identiable 
features. This classication of fallacies is a controversial matter in 
logic. There is no one correct taxonomy of fallacies. Logicians have 
proposed lists of fallacies that vary greatly in length; different sets 
have been specied, and different names have been given to both the 
sets and the individual fallacies. The grouping of fallacies mentioned 
here is borrowed from Patrick Hurley which is not exhaustive and 
does not encompass the fallacies developed by logicians. The aim 
here is to provide a comprehensive scheme within which the most 
common informal fallacies can be helpfully identied—and avoided.

Fallacies of Relevance,
 As the name suggests, they are informal fallacies with premises that 
are logically irrelevant to the conclusion. There are two major causes 
of fallacies of relevance: the use of emotional appeals as evidence and 
introducing evidence that shifts focus away from the thesis being 
considered. However emotional evidence is said to be dangerous for 
two reasons: it is unstable and it is subjective. These fallacies are also 
known as material fallacies. These are fallacies that depend, for their 
appeal, upon mistakes concerning the truth by the premise(s) or the 
possibility of such truth being known. Stated differently, material 
fallacies or fallacies of relevance refer to arguments that fail to prove 
the material truth of that being argued about; the premise(s) of such 
arguments is/are logically immaterial or irrelevant to, and therefore, 

10incapable of establishing the truth of the conclusion.  They include 
appeal to the populace, appeal to emotion, red herring, straw man, 
attack on the person, appeal to force, accident, and missing the point.

78 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Fallacies of Weak Induction
Fallacies of weak induction are not committed because the premises 
are irrelevant to the conclusion; they are committed when the 
premises are not strong enough to justify the conclusion. The 
emphasis here is derived from the name “weak”: the premise(s) is/are 
in connection with the conclusion but the connection is loose or weak. 
The premises of the argument, although relevant to the conclusion, 

11
are so weak and ineffective that relying on them is a blunder.  They 
often involve emotional grounds for believing a conclusion. They 
include arguments from ignorance, appeal to inappropriate authority, 
hasty generalization, false cause, slippery slope, and weak analogy.

Fallacies of Presumption 
Fallacies of presumption occur when an argument contains premises 
that assume what they (the premises) purport to prove, or when an 
unwarranted assumption is used to draw a conclusion. In such awed 
reasoning, the conclusion rests upon certain assumptions not 
explicitly stated in the premises. Such assumptions are false, or at 
least uncertain, implausible, or unjustied so that the premises do not 
strictly support the conclusion. Explicating the lurking assumption 
usually sufces to demonstrate the argument's insufciency, either 

12
due to a lack of relevant information or unacceptable premises.  They 
include begging the question, false dichotomy, and suppressed 
evidence.

Fallacies of Ambiguity
Fallacies of ambiguity refer to an error in a reasoning due to unclear or 
imprecise use of language. It often arises because of confusion in the 
meanings of words or the handling of an idea. The arguer normally 
makes use of a word, a phrase or a sentence that has two or more 
possible meanings or an event that has more than one interpretation. 
In this case, the listener may or may not realize that more than one 
interpretation is possible, so, he may arbitrarily have to select one of 
the possible choices. This lack of clarity may lead to the 
misinterpretation of an idea and an unwarranted conclusion. The 

13
fallacies of ambiguity include equivocation and amphiboly.

79An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



Fallacies of Grammatical Analogy
These fallacies are arguments that are grammatically similar to other 
arguments that are good in every respect. Because of this similarity in 
linguistic structure, such fallacious arguments may appear good yet 

14bad.  They include composition and division.

Existence and Inter-Personal Relationships
In the existentialist thesis, authentic existence can only be realized in 
and by the solitary individual. Nevertheless, authentic existence 
cannot do without a world and the others. Existence requires not only 
a worldly environment but also a personal environment. The existent 
so to speak lives in constant interaction with other existents. These 
other existents are not objects belonging to the world but are persons. 
In other words, they are co-existents.  Following from this, it means 

15that existence is being with others.  Existence fullls itself and 
becomes authentic in genuine communication.
� The experience of the Other (when written with a capital 'O') 
is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world 
as a person does. Essentially, it is this experience of the Other that 
constitutes inter-subjectivity and objectivity. Inter-subjectivity 
occurs when people agree on a given set of meanings or a denition of 
the situation. It refers to the shared meanings constructed by 
individuals in their relations with one another and used as an 
everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and 
cultural life. This is because each thought community is unique and 
shares social experiences that are different from that of other thought 
communities. It is through inter-subjectivity that one experiences 
oneself as different from the other and at the same time available to 
him/her.
� Different existentialists of inter-subjectivity in their teachings 
emphasize the dignity of the human person. The human person is a 
mystery to behold and ought to be treated as a Thou, an Other. This 
implies respect and love and is devoid of manipulation, arrogance, 
and insincerity. Martin Buber, a Jewish-German existential 
philosopher; theologian, and Biblical translator, in his theory of 
existence, revolves around a concept of relation. Persons and things 

16are seen to exist only in relation to other things and persons.  

80 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Relation, as an event or action, occurs between two entities, that is, 
between a person, whose attention is completely turned toward 
someone or something other than himself, and another person or 
thing who confronts him. Buber says that the essence of man which is 
special to him can be directly known only in a living relationship. The 
individual is a fact of existence in so far as he enters into relationships 
with other individuals. He denes man as a creature capable of 

17
entering into living essential relations with the world and things.

According to Buber, the principle of human life is not simple 
but twofold, being built up in a twofold movement that is of such kind 
that one movement is the presupposition of the other. He calls the rst 
movement the primal setting at a distance and the second, entering 
into relation. In other words, one can only enter into relation with that 
which is not himself - an independent other, a being that has been set 
at a distance. The primal setting at a distance involves the self-
understanding itself as being separate and apart from the being which 
is not the self: the self identies the other as an Other.  Identifying the 
other as an Other allows the self to enter into a relationship with it. 
This setting at a distance that makes entering into relation possible is 

18
proper to the human category.
� The underlying principle in Buber's philosophy is the idea 
that man has two modes available to him through which he can 
engage the world. The rst mode (I-It) is that of experience, while the 

19
other mode (I-Thou) is that of relation/encounter.  These two 
primary word pairs according to him, represent the two modes of 
existence. An individual becomes human only in a relationship, and 
these paired terms describe two possible ways of relating. The 'I-
Thou' relationship is one of intimacy, mutuality, sharing, and trust. 
While on the contrary, the 'I-It' relationship is one of having, using, 
manipulating, and exploiting. To put it differently, the 'I-It' 
relationship is unidirectional moving only from the subject to the 
object, from 'I' to the thing. But the 'I-Thou' relationship is a form of 
relating in which the 'I' gives and receives from the 'Thou'. When we 
relate to another person as a 'Thou', we do not treat that person as a 
thing or an object. This is what Buber means when he says, 'when I 
confront a human being as my Thou and speak the basic word I-Thou 
to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of 

81An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



20things'.
� Buber believes that authenticity can be gained only in the 
genuine dialogue between two individuals - a dialogue in which the 
experiencing senses and the real fantasy which supplements them 
work together to make the other present as a whole and one. For this, 
dialogue to be real, one must not only focus on the other, but also 
involve oneself, and that means truly expressing what one thinks 
about the matter in question. Genuine dialogue can thus be either 
spoken or silent. Its essence lies in the fact that 'each of the 
participants has in mind the other or the others in their present and 
particular being' and turns to them intending to establish a living 
mutual relation between himself and them.' The essential element of 
genuine dialogue, therefore, is 'seeing the other' or experiencing the 
other side'. 'Experiencing the other side' means to feel an event from 
the side of the person one meets as well as from one's side. It is the 
inclusiveness that realizes the other person in the actuality of his 

21being.
Another existentialist that upholds the dignity of the human 

person is Gabriel Marcel, a French philosopher, dramatist, and one of 
the foremost thinkers of the 20th century who sought a philosophical 
position, which was immediately relevant to the deepest concerns of 
human life. These include love, loyalty, hope, faith, death, 

22communication, and community.  Marcel's philosophy of existence 
is tied to his problem of being. His existentialism is based on the 
development of the individual's concrete existence, the restoration of 
mutual respect, and trust in human relationships; recognition of the 
true worth of man in relation to his fellow man in the feeling of 
bondness. And as such, he holds the position that the question of 
man's existence is not a problem but a mystery. Marcel makes a 
distinction between a problem and a mystery. A problem is a 
conceptual difculty that can be attacked with the appropriate  
technique. Furthermore, a kind of distance exists between the 
individual and a problem such that it is possible to solve a problem or 
withdraw from it. A mystery, on the other hand, is something a person 
is intimately involved with and which can neither be solved nor is any 
withdrawal from it possible.  The unfortunate tendency of philosophy 
in the mid-twentieth century was to turn all mysteries into problems. 

82 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



This degradation of philosophy results when human beings are 
23

objectied among other objects.
According to Marcel, the most appropriate relationship to 

what is most intimately associated with us is being which is clear in 
the relationship with our bodies. Our mode of being in the world is to 
be embodied such that through our bodies, we extend ourselves into 
the world and actualize our intentions. Although we are not identical 
with our bodies, they, however, become the means through which we 
can become a part of the objective world of nature. There is a 
transcendent dimension to our experience that can be described only 
as the mystery of Being. For Marcel, it is through the experience of 
faith, hope, and love that man can open himself up to the mystery of 
Being. These distinctions point us beyond ourselves to relationships 
with others. A fundamental fact of human existence involves inter-
subjective relations with others. These relationships with others are 

24
dening moments in our selfhood.

For Marcel, the meaningfulness and the authenticity of one's 
existence as an individual is totally conditioned by the generosity 
with which the person makes himself/herself available in mutual 
love, delity, faith, and responsibility to the other. It is absolutely 
anchored on one's genuineness, and openness to the other, and it does 
not give much condence for being exceptionally sensitive, 
thoughtful, and honest without the other; one has to establish a loving 
and mutual relationship with other human beings to ensure and live a 

25meaningful and authentic existence.  When one treats the being of 
another as a mystery, one does so with a sense of humility and 
respects the fundamental dignity of the other. This leads to 
abandonment of one's self, dynamic openness, and delity to others. 
In this way, Marcel calls for greater responsibility to others, not 
merely through the traditional notion of doing good deeds, but also 
primarily by being humbly present and open to others with one's 
whole being. Through this availability, a dynamic and creative 
encounter happens between people, with which they make contact. A 
person's relationship with others which develops this way helps one 

26to be open to the transcendent.  We relate to God precisely by turning 
towards the other and nd the eternal thou through the nite. When 
this is realized there would be peace in society.

83An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



Marcel also points out two ways of comporting oneself 
towards others that can be used as barometers for intersubjective 
relationships; disponsibilite and indisponsibilite which can be 
translated as availability and unavailability. Pride is an example of 
indisponsibilite, although the same state of non-availability would 
also exist in a person who has come to view himself in functional 
terms, or who is blinded by a purely technical worldview. To be 
disponsibilite, (available) to the other is to be present for the other, to 
put one's resources at his/her disposal, and to be open which will lead 

27
to peace and greater responsibility to others.

Karl Jaspers is another existentialist who says that existential 
communication occurs between two selves that are not 
interchangeable. This communicative relation is unique, singular, 
historic, and unrecognizable from without, and in it lies the assurance 
of selfhood. It means to say, a person cannot be his free self unless the 
other is and wants to be himself - and that person is with him. The 
necessity of existential communication is one of freedom only. And 
as such, it is objectively incomprehensible for that which is 
existential lies outside the objective realm of a person's purposive 
volition. Existential communication is a whole that does not arise 
utilizing an individual gaining something in addition to his/her 

28
nished being. 'It is the person who comes to be in it.
� According to Jaspers, authentic existential communication 
requires equality, mutual recognition, afrmation, solidarity, 
questioning, abandonment of ego protection, no quest for victory, 
unlimited clarication, and no sophistry while inauthentic existential 
communication has several defective modes, including affectation, 
insincerity, deceit and lying, and "pseudo-communication" arising 
from shyness, fear, suspicion, prejudice, self-centeredness, presumed 
superiority, callousness, combativeness, bad will, and continually 

29idle talk (Gordon 113).  Communication cannot be achieved simply 
by the goodwill of the purposive intellect. It is attainable through the 
commitment of self-being. It is only in communication that an 
individual comes to himself/herself. In other words, communication 
is a source of Existenz. Existenz stands for the non-empirical, non-
objective actuality of self-being and true self-hood. It is the authentic 
ground of human beings, exemplied by the intimate dimension of 

84 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



personal autonomy, existential freedom, authenticity, and 
undetermined moral decisions. It is the absolutely unique inner core 

30of the individual that creates the authenticity of the person.
� From the above, authentic being with others is precisely that 
mode of relation with others that promotes existence in the full sense 
while inauthentic being with others suppresses and manipulates the 
genuinely human and personal and imposes insincerity, deceit, and 
brutishness. Authentic relations between two existents require 
respect, trust, equality, recognition, availability, and so on.

Negative Effects of Fallacious Statements on Inter-personal 
Relationships and their Implication for Formation
Fallacies are errors that occur in discourses. It has been afrmed in 
this paper that fallacies are erroneous forms of reasoning that can 
obstruct the validity of an argument. Strictly speaking, a fallacy is a 
mistake in reasoning. One commits a fallacy when the reasons 
advanced or accepted in support of a claim fail to justify its 
acceptance. A fallacy can be committed either when one is deciding 
whether to accept a claim based on a fallacious argument with which 
one has been presented or when one is presenting the fallacious 
argument oneself. Committing aws in reasoning is very common. 
Sometimes fallacies just pass unnoticed. But sometimes they are 
intended, whether because the arguer is uninterested in being 
reasonable or wishes to induce someone else to make a rational error; 
they mislead people to accept faulty reasoning or arguments as 
correct or good reasoning. And that is the point of this paper, that a 
deliberate intention to deceive, mislead or induce someone or people 
to accept a claim undermines human dignity and is an affront to the 
human person. 
� Buber says entering into relation means entering into an I-
Thou relationship, and at the same time one cannot identify distance 
with I-It. The 'I-Thou' relationship is one of intimacy, mutuality, 
sharing, and trust. While on the contrary, the 'I-It' relationship is one 
of having, using, manipulating, and exploiting. Deliberating 
deceiving or misleading a person is not entering into an I-Thou 
relationship which implies trust, respect, and sharing. Rather, it is 
having an I-IT relation that involves using, manipulating, and 

85An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



exploiting. Intentionally using fallacies to trick someone into 
accepting an argument is reducing the person to an It; seeing the 
person as an object to be used for one's purpose. Mental trickery is 
devoid of mutuality and reciprocity, which are characteristics of 
dialogue, and cannot allow for genuine dialogue.
� Marcel teaches us that it is through the experience of faith, 
hope, and love that a person can open himself/herself up to the 
mystery of Being. The meaningfulness and the authenticity of one's 
existence as an individual is totally conditioned by the generosity 
with which the person makes himself/herself available in mutual 
love, delity, faith, and responsibility to the other. It is absolutely 
anchored on one's genuineness, and openness to the other, and it does 
not give much condence for being exceptionally sensitive, 
thoughtful, and honest without the other; one has to establish a loving 
and mutual relationship with other human beings to ensure and live a 
meaningful and authentic existence. When one treats the being of 
another as a mystery, one does so with a sense of humility and 
respects the fundamental dignity of the other. A deliberate use of these 
informal fallacies to trick others to accept a claim does not give room 
for openness and growth in the authenticity of one's existence. It has 
within it a trait of arrogance and lack of respect for the mystery of 
being and the fundamental dignity of others and is an example of 
unavailability (indisponsibilite) which has pride as one of its 
characteristics.
� According to Jaspers, authentic existential communication 
requires equality, mutual recognition, afrmation, solidarity, 
questioning, abandonment of ego protection, no quest for victory, 
unlimited clarication, and no sophistry while inauthentic existential 
communication has several defective modes including affectation, 
insincerity, deceit and lying, and "pseudo-communication" arising 
from shyness, fear, suspicion, prejudice, self-centeredness, presumed 
superiority, callousness, combativeness, bad will, and continually 
idle talk. A deliberate intention to deceive and manipulate people 
through these fallacies portrays inauthentic existential 
communication which is characterized by insincerity, deceit, and 
lying. Authentic existential communication needs no sophistry, no 
quest for victory, no manipulation, and so on. 

86 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



� As is clear from existentialists' teaching, deliberately 
deceiving or misleading a person or persons to accept a conclusion is 
belittling and demeaning. There are times that unconsciously, we fall 
into these fallacies. But efforts must be made to come out of them 
once we recognize that we've fallen into it. Buber notes that most 
encounters (I-Thou meetings), unfortunately, cannot last very long - 
they are necessarily eeting. Eventually, an individual comes to 
reect on the Thou, to see it for its various qualities, to analyze it.  
Once this is done, the Thou dissolves into an It, and man falls back 
into the realm of experience. The I-Thou relationship, therefore, 
needs to be ever actively re-established and renewed - it demands 
constant effort. The I-It situation can also be reverted to I-Thou by a 

31change of attitude.  In other words, being in the I-Thou relationship 
requires effort. Sometimes, the person may fall into I-It mode due to 
human nature. But through constant effort, the person returns to I-
Thou mode. In the same vein, we may fall into these fallacies without 
knowing them. But as soon as we become aware of it, we ought to 
extricate ourselves from it rather than indulging in it to the detriment 
of human dignity.
� We must make a conscious effort to avoid deliberately using 
these fallacies to deceive, mislead, attack, show superiority, or 
dominate others. Philosophy is not studied to intimidate people or put 
others down. It is a search for truth. Human beings must cultivate a 
disposition toward critical thinking. It is noted that critical thinking 
skills do not stand alone for one to become a good critical thinker. It 
needs to be accompanied by good habits of thinking which are termed 
as “critical thinking disposition”. Critical thinking disposition can be 
traced back to education philosopher, Robert Ennis, who denes it as 
a tendency to do something given certain conditions. To qualify as a 

32
thinking disposition, the disposition must be exercised reectively.  
The dimension of critical thinking disposition has seven conceptually 
non-discrete constructs which emphasize developing the habitual 
intention to be truth-seeking, open-minded, systematic, analytical, 
inquisitive, condent in reasoning, and mature in making judgments. 
Dispositions are thought to be a critical spirit, a probing 
inquisitiveness, and a keenness of mind that weak critical thinkers 
generally lack. A person can be positively or negatively disposed 

87An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



33toward certain thinking skills but not toward all dispositions equally.  
According to Shamala, 

Truth-seeking involves intellectual integrity and a 
courageous desire to strive for the best possible 
knowledge, asking probing questions, accepts 
reasons and shreds of evidence although they are 
against the person's beliefs. Open-minded refers to a 
person who has tolerant divergent views and is 
sensitive to biases, a person who respects others' 
opinions. An analytical person is habitually alert to 
potential  problems and alert  in predicting 
consequences. A systematic person is always orderly, 
focused, persistent, and diligent in problem-solving. 
They are condent in their reasoning skills which 
produce good judgments. A person, who yearns to be 
well-informed and wants to know how things work is 
termed inquisitive. A judicious person has the 
cognitive maturity to distinguish between black and 
white as well as able to make judgments in an 
uncertain context.

It is important to note that in every rule, there may be an exception. 
When it comes to the question of justice and saving a life, things are 
not always straight. According to Cory, informal fallacies should not 
be viewed to completely avoid them-at least not in the law. Truth and 
justice hold a unique place together in the legal world. This is why the 
lawyer has a different end goal than both the sophist and the 
philosopher: the lawyer's attempt to seek justice for his client is 
presumed to be in line with the truth. And the skilled, persuasive 
lawyer knows that pure appeals to reason alone using deductive 
reasoning and syllogisms are not sufcient to win his client's case. 
Informal fallacies may help to persuade the listener to care about the 

34outcome of a case and to see things the way the lawyer sees them.  
This is further buttressed in the story about Socrates:

Socrates asked his friend Euthydemus if he thinks that 
cheating is immoral. Of course, it is, answered 
Euthydemus. However, what happens, replied 

88 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



Socrates, if your friend, feeling terrible, wants to 
commit suicide and you steal his knife? There is no 
doubt that you cheat him in that case, but is this 
immoral? No, said the embarrassed Euthydemus. 
Here Euthydemus followed the statistical way of 
thinking since in most cases cheating is considered to 
be an immoral action. Socrates, however, taught him 
to combine it with critical thinking. It is recalled that 
critical thinking is considered to be a higher mode of 
thinking by which the individual transcends his 
subjective self to arrive rationally at conclusions 

35
substantiated using valid information.

But in all, seeking truth, the primary purpose of studying fallacies is 
to avoid falling foul of them and using them in deceiving others. By 
showing why and when a certain way of reasoning does not support 
the truth of the conclusion, that is, does not offer enough convincing 
evidence for it, the study of fallacies becomes inescapable. Further, 
identifying these fallacies requires more than relying upon formal 
logic; it also involves a good deal of discourse analysis. That is, we 
are required to ask key questions related to the content of the relevant 
arguments: Who speaks? To whom? From which perspective? With 
what purpose? For this reason, the study of fallacies must take into 
account not only failures in logic but misuses of argumentative 
techniques. What is argumentatively appropriate in one context may 
not be in another. The appropriateness will depend on, among other 
things, the purpose of the argument and the intended audience.

We must pay attention to three basic characteristics of good 
reasoning:

1. A good argument is logically well-framed. This is the 
minimum requirement: the premises of a good argument offer 
reasons for the conclusion. However, different individuals 
can have different ideas about what counts as a good reason or 
not—good reasons for one person can be inadequate for 
another. So, while necessary, this requirement isn't sufcient.

2. As there may be disagreement about the premises, a good 
argument starts from acceptable premises, or premises that 

89An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



are warranted, and not only for the reasoner but mainly for the 
audience. Of course, even though not true or plausible at all, 
certain premises may be acceptable, depending on the 
audience or even on the function of the argument in a given 
context. Considerations of form and content necessarily have 
to be taken together then.

3. The premises must contain relevant information for the 
conclusion—if not all that is relevant, at least enough to make 
the conclusion acceptable. Concealing relevant information 
is a well-known form of deceiving people, just as taking 
certain information for granted when it has been widely 

36
contested is a mistake.

Fallacies contain errors in one or more of the senses given above. Of 
course, there are uncountable reasons for accepting a conclusion, 
such as social, cultural, and psychological reasons. However, the 
criteria for identifying good arguments are nevertheless logical that 
is, they are rational criteria, publicly open to evaluation. So, anyone 
could identify fallacies by paying attention to the following:

1. Do the premises support the conclusion, or only offer very 
weak support for the conclusion?

2. Are the premises well-supported?
3. Do the argument's premises include all the important relevant 

37
information?

To avoid being fallacious, an argument must be able to answer all of 
these questions in a positive. Bearing this in mind, we do not need to 
attempt to provide an exhaustive list of every possible fallacy. All we 
must do is learn how to identify when and how those criteria are not 
met, so we can understand when and how arguments fail to be good.

Conclusion
This paper examined the nature of informal fallacies, the 
existentialist thesis of existence and interpersonal relationships and 
the negative impact the negative use of fallacies has on human 
dignity. It is obvious from the foregoing that the deliberate use of 
informal fallacies to deceive, manipulate or mislead people to accept 

90 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



a conclusion militates against the dignity of the human person. It is 
belittling and shows disrespect and disregard for the individual.
� As human beings striving after truth and excellence, we must 
cultivate respect for one another and learn to treat one another as 
Thous and not as an It (as something to be used for your purposes). 
Having that respect for one another and seeing one another as a 
mystery of being would guide our actions. We must also cultivate a 
critical thinking disposition, pay more attention to the study of 
fallacies, and learn to think in critical, analytical, and evaluative ways 
using mental processes such as attention, alertness, selection, and 
judgment. This will help in recognizing fallacies and avoid being 
deceitful and manipulative and also being misled by others.

1 Shamala, Ramasamy, Informal Reasoning Fallacy and Critical 
Thinking Dispositions: A Univariate Study of Demographic 
Characteristics among Malaysian Undergraduate, (Malaysia: Asia e 
University, 2011), 3.

2 A formal fallacy is any violation of any of the six rules of the 
categorical syllogism or the rules of the hypothetical or disjunctive -
alternative syllogism. It is an argument whose conclusion could be 
false even if all its premises are true. It can be detected merely by 
examining the form (hence its name) or structure of the argument.

3 Daniel, Boone, “The Cogent Reasoning Model of Informal Fallacies,” 
Informal Logic 19 (1999): 1.

4 Richard, Ansah, A Critical Study of Informal Fallacies in Some Socio-
Political Discourse in Ghana (University of South Africa, 2019), 62.

5 Cory, Clements, “Perception and Persuasion in Legal Argumentation: 

Using Informal Fallacies and Cognitive Biases to Win the War of 

Words,” BYU Law Review 319 (2013): 333.

6 Shamala, “Informal Reasoning Fallacy,” 3
7 Douglas, Walton, “Why Fallacies Appear to Be Better Arguments than 

They Are” Informal Logic, 30, (2010): 17.
8 Cory, “Perception and Persuasion,” 22 

9 Evangelos, Athanassopoulos and Michael Gr. Voskoglou, 

“Quantifying Aristotle's Fallacies,“Mathematics 8 (2020): 2-3.

10  Richard, A Critical Study, 64.

11 Irving, Copi M., Carl Cohen, and Kenneth McMahon, Introduction to 

ENDNOTES

91An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...



th
Logic, 14  ed., (Delhi: Pearson, 2012), 107.

12 Cassiano, Rodrigues T., “Informal Fallacies,” Introduction to 

Philosophy: Logic, accessed October 2, 2021. https://press.rebus. 

community/intro-to-phil-logic/chapter/chapter-4-informal-fallacies/
13 Richard, A Critical Study, 88.  

rd14 Patrick, Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic, 3 . ed., (Belmont: 

Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1988), 136.
nd

15  Kurt, Reinhardt, The Existentialist Revolt. 2  ed.,(New York: 

Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1960), 231.
16 Maurice, Friedman, Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue,(Chicago: 

The University of Chicago Press, 1955). 57.
17  Martin, Buber, The Knowledge of Man: Selected Essays,(Amherst: 

Humanity Books, 1998), 7.
18 Martin, Buber, The Knowledge of, 50.

19 Martin, Buber, I and Thou,(Edinburgh: T & T. Clark, 1937), 3.

20 Diwan, Khan T., The Concept of Authentic Existence in Existentialism, 

(Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 2007), 71.
21 Diwan, Khan T., The Concept of Authentic, 83.

22 Robert, Katsina, An Appraisal of the Existentialist Philosophy of 

Gabriel Marcel,(Nsukka:University of Nigeria, 2009), 29. 

23 Gabriel, Marcel, Philosophy of Existence,(London: Harvil Press, 

1954), 1.
24 Gabriel, Marcel, The Mystery of Being, Reection Mystery. Vol. 

1.(New York: Regney Gateway Inc., 1978), 2.
25 Adesewa,  Ogundele  C. ,An Essay  on  Gabrie l  Marcel ' s 

Existentialism,(Lagos: University of Lagos,2018), 6. 
26 Gabriel, Marcel, The Mystery of Being,34.

27 Adesewa, Ogundele C., An Essay on, 6.

28 Lichtigfeld, A. and Lichtigfeld, F. J. “K arl Jaspers (1883-1969)” 

TijdschriftvoorFilosoe 34:1 (1972): 109.
29 Ronald, Gordon, “Karl Jaspers: Existential Philosopher of Dialogical 

Communication” Southern Communication Journal 65 (2000): 113.

30 Onyenuru, Okechukwu, The Theme of Existence in the Philosophy of 

Karl Jaspers. (Ibadan:Dominican Institute, 2014), 6.

31 It is important to note that although the I-Thou and I-It relationships 

seem to be radically opposed to each other; though the I-Thou is an 

ideal relation, the I-It relation is an inescapable, but also a vital, one. 

32 Robert, Ennis, (1987). “A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions 

92 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



and abilities” in Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice, eds., 

J.Boykoff Baron &R.J.Sternberg, (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1987), 

33 Shamala, Ramasamy, “Informal Reasoning Fallacy and Critical 

Thinking Dispositions, 2.

34 Cory, Clements, “Perception and Persuasion in Legal Argumentation, 

360, 324.

35 Evangelos, Athanassopoulos and Michael Gr. Voskoglou, 

“Quantifying Aristotle's, 5.

36 Cassiano, Rodrigues T., “Informal Fallacies.

37 Cassiano, Rodrigues T., “Informal Fallacies.

93An Existential-logical Analysis of Fallacies...


