The existential fallacy is a logical fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism that is invalid because it has two universal premises and a particular conclusion. In other words, for the conclusion to be true a member of the class must exist, but the premises do not establish this. A logical fallacy is an error in logical argument which is independent of the truth of the premises. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... In logic, an argument is said to be valid if the truth of the conclusion follows from the truth of the premises. ...
Example:
All inhabitants of another planet are friendly people, and all Martians are inhabitants of another planet. Therefore, all Martians are friendly people. (The conclusion assumes there really are some Martians in existence.)
The existential fallacy is a syllogistic fallacy. Syllogistic fallacies are logical fallacies that occur in syllogisms. ...
fallacy of weak induction, in which the fact that we don't know whether something is or is not the case is used as a reason to believe one way or the other.
fallacy of grammatical analogy in which a conclusion is drawn about a part of a whole on the basis of irrelevant characteristics of the whole.
An informal fallacy of ambiguity in which a false conclusion is drawn on the basis of a synonym.
In the latter case, it is a flaw in the structure of a deductive argument as opposed to an error in the premises.
Recognizing fallacies in everyday arguments may be difficult since arguments are often embedded in rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical connections between statements.
Informal fallacies may also exploit the emotions or intellectual or psychological weaknesses of the audience.
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