ALWAYS accept premises?

[MaximusK796]

Just wanted to confirm whether premises are always accepted as given/true? I know this is true for the majority of cases, but is it universal?

For some strengthen/weaken questions can attack/help the premise and its relationship to the conclusion, right?

Under what circumstances do we question the validity of a premise or consider an answer choice that negates/attacks a premise?

[ohthatpatrick]

Practically always. There are maybe 3 examples ever in which the question seems to be invalidating a premise.

Premises that are put in future tense, "i.e. _____ will occur", have sometimes been disputed. They are technically opinions, so they're fair game I guess.

But it's still vanishingly rare.

There are a handful of other examples in which an answer weakens, not because it INVALIDATES a premise, but because it makes us think the premise is worthless.

ex:
Bob's study recently concluded that the new health care plan will raise the deficit by $2 trillion over the next five years. Thus, we should not implement the new health care plan.

(obviously, there's are tons of assumptions/objections we could discuss in making this move, such as "What about the ADVANTAGES of the new health care plan? Are they worth the cost to the deficit?")

But, a correct Weaken answer could be
(A) Bob's study was conducted without any accurate knowledge of the health care plan or deficit-forecasting.

This doesn't CONTRADICT the premise: Bob DID still conclude what he concluded.

But it makes that premise feel totally worthless and untrustworthy, thus we've weakened the argument.