Q15 - It has been said that understanding a person completel

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Complete self-forgiveness is beyond our reach. Premises: It's been said that understanding a person completely leads one to forgive that person entirely, but complete self-understanding is unattainable.

Answer Anticipation:
Conditional Logic Flaw! We are told that complete understanding leads to complete forgiveness. While that is technically a causal claim, it has a conditional dimension, too. If one thing leads to another all the time, the first thing also guarantees the second. So, complete understanding guarantees complete forgiveness. But we can't completely understand ourselves. So what? That doesn't allow us to conclude we can't completely forgive ourselves, because that would be an illegal negation.

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Here it is, right out of the gate. If the abstract language is tricky from you, replace it with concrete language from the stimulus: "treats the failure to completely understand yourself as if it’s the only way to completely forgive yourself."

(B) Tricky! But what, in this argument, is presented as "necessary for an action to occur?" Nothing! As soon as we realize this, we can eliminate this one.

(C) Another tricky one! Is there something in this argument that was merely said to be true? Yep: that complete understanding leads to complete forgiveness. Does our argument hinge on it actually being true? It certainly seems that way. But look closer at the phrasing of the conclusion, beginning with the phrase "If so." Why does that matter? Because it indicates that the conclusion is conditional. In other words, the conclusion isn't "complete self-forgiveness is beyond our reach." The conclusion is "if complete understanding leads to complete forgiveness, then complete forgiveness is out of reach. " This means that the conclusion doesn't assume that what was said is true. It simply tells us what the arguer thinks would logically follow from that premise if it were true.

(D) The last premise of this argument is that "complete self-understanding, however desirable, is unattainable." This doesn't ignore the possibility that something can be desirable even if it is unattainable. Quite the opposite, in fact: it states it!

(E) This answer says a claim was used in the argument, but there was no such claim about difficulty or about attempting to attain anything.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Conditional Logic is a common feature of ID the Flaw questions, so it pays to be able to recognize the most common conditional logic errors: Illegal reversal, illegal negation, and the misapplication of principle. This one throws in the added twist of a conditional conclusion. Be on the look out for this, and understand that it means the argument does not assume the truth of the thing that it contingent upon. When evaluating answers, always check to see if the answer choices accurately describe the pieces of the argument they refer to. Often they won't (B and E) and that's grounds for elimination.

#officialexplanation

[WenjiC19]

Hi!

If we change (B)'s order of language to: " confuses something that necessarily results from an action with something that is necessary for that action to occur", will that be a correct answer?

[YiS366]

Hi!

If we change (B)'s order of language to: " confuses something that necessarily results from an action with something that is necessary for that action to occur", will that be a correct answer?

No, the order of the sentence doesn't matter. Answer B is essentially saying A->B and A->C. And you are confusing B with C.

A (as an action) has a necessary condition of B, but at the same time also gives rise to C (a necessary result of A).

"Understanding a person completely (A)" gives rise to "forgives that person entirely (C, the necessary result). But what is the "something that is necessary for understanding a person completely"? We don't know. So answer B is descriptively inaccurate.