Q19 - Professor: One cannot frame an accurate

[peg_city]

Why is the answer C instead of A? They both look like they could be right....

[littlebibliophile]

Well, the fact that you narrowed it down to A and C is good because these are the only answer choices in which we see the validity of one argument being compared with the validity of another. The big difference between the two choices are:

(A) says that the professor attempts to show that a piece of reasoning is incorrect. It says he does this by comparing it to an argument that is presumably flawed.

while (C) says that he is "making the case for" an argument. This is just another way to say that he is arguing for the correctness of this argument. It goes on to say he does this by comparing it to a presumably cogent argument.

So basically the two are exact opposites. When we examine the Professor's claim, we see that he argues that one can't frame an accurate conception of the physical environment around oneself based on just a momentary perception, and then gives a premise (that each glimpse comes from one perspective) to support this reasoning. He then compares it to history books, saying that they are similarly distorted views of the past because of author bias, etc. So, the Prof uses a method of reasoning to prove a conclusion, and then gives us another example where we can presume the conclusion is correct and shows that the two args were made using the same method of reasoning, thus proving the method of reasoning correct.

Hope that helps

[LSAT-Chang]

I was really tempted by (E) for some reason. I ended up choosing (C) but didn't feel so confident when choosing it since I wasn't able to eliminate (E) fully. Could someone provide a good reason for eliminating (E)?

[jcl2153]

I was really tempted by (E) for some reason. I ended up choosing (C) but didn't feel so confident when choosing it since I wasn't able to eliminate (E) fully. Could someone provide a good reason for eliminating (E)?

I think it has to do with the fact that the type of human cognition that's unreliable in the analogy of the history book is not the same type of human cognition that's unreliable in the conclusion regarding the physical environment. The type of human cognition that the analogy of the history book alludes to has to do with biases and prejudices - or more simply, conceptual views - whereas the type of human cognition in the argument's conclusion deals with actual perception, or physical views.

[alandman]

What makes answer choice E wrong is the word 'because'.

The argument is using history books to show that a reasoning that is employed there to reach a conclusion is similar to the reasoning that is employed to reach a conclusion about one's conception of physical environment.

E states that the reasoning developed regarding one's conception of physical environment is such BECAUSE of the reasoning developed about history books. Clearly this is false.

[ohthatpatrick]

I would also offer that "unreliable" is not an idea that matches up well with the 1st half of the argument.

The author is saying that a momentary perception is insufficient, or incomplete when it comes to accurately knowing your environment.

He's not saying that perception itself is faulty or prone to error.

I guess "unreliable" matches better to the history book analogy, because we might say that a biased/distorted view provides an unreliable record of its subject matter.

You can also fret about (E)'s pronoun "it".

The type of human cognition discussed in the 1st half of the argument is "momentary perception". (E) is accusing this argument of saying "momentary perceptions are unreliable when one is framing his physical environment because momentary perceptions are unreliable in a similar circumstance, writing a history book."

We aren't comparing the same type of human cognition ("a momentary perception") in two different sets of circumstances.

We're saying that a momentary perception is inadequate for a full picture of one's environment, just as a history book written from a singular perspective is inadequate for a full picture of a historical subject.

[ttunden]

The one thing I didn't like about C is that they used Cogent, which means convincing.

The professor is trying to say a strong statement, and then brings up another argument that is similar. My prephase was that the professor was bringing up some type of example or something that utilized the 1st sentence.

Can someone further explain why C is right. I guess in the future, I can get this question right by eliminating the others because I would not choose C on 1st glance.

[ohthatpatrick]

It's definitely wise to think about getting to your answer by eliminating the four broken ones (rather than searching for the perfect one).

I'm not sure if I understood what you wrote: did you mean you wanted an answer that said "the author brought up an example that illustrated the 1st sentence"?

I don't know what you meant by 'utilized' otherwise. The author utilized the 2nd sentence to support the 1st.

The easiest way to prephrase this answer is to say that the author used an analogy.

If fact, an incredibly high percentage of questions that ask you to describe HOW the author made his argument or what TECHNIQUE the author used are arguments consisting of analogies.

When an author argues by analogy, he assumes that what is true in case X is also true in case Y. He assumes the two cases are relevantly similar. He assumes that any conclusions we come to in case X would also apply in case Y. He assumes the two cases do NOT have significant, crucial differences.

You were hung up on the word "cogent", but the answer choice says PRESUMABLY cogent.

Presumes = assumes.

'Presumably cogent' just means that the author assumes that his second sentence is a valid (convincing) argument.

This is safe to say, since all authors assume their arguments are cogent.

=== answer choices ====

(A) The only difference between this answer choice and the correct choice, (C), is whether the author thinks the 2nd sentence (his analogy) is a flawed argument or a cogent one. Naturally, an author would not bring up an analogous argument to support his current argument unless he thought the analogous argument had as much merit as his current argument. So we can eliminate this based on "flawed".

(B) The second sentence (the author's supporting premise) is an analogy ... a totally new topic ... this answer says that the supporting premise showed that if you think you can get an accurate conception of your environment from a single perception then absurd consequences would follow. The second sentence doesn't sound anything like that.

(C) Correct answer. This just says that the author supported his conclusion by means of some other argument that bears some resemblance. The word 'similarly' justifies that the author thinks the second sentence bears some resemblance to the first. As we said before, 'presumably cogent' just means that the author thinks that the argument in the second sentence is valid (just as he thinks the argument in the first sentence is valid).

(D) Like (B), this also can't describe an argument by analogy. It describes the argument as this:
Because thing X has a group of characteristics,
thing X must have a closely related characteristic.

The premise and the conclusion are about completely different topics. There's no "thing X" that's mentioned in both the conclusion and the premise.

This answer is trying to trap/entice people simply because "closely related" in the answer choice would match "similarly" in the argument.

(E) Does the conclusion (the first sentence) say that "a type of human cognition is unreliable"?

Hmm, kinda? Pretty weak. The type of human cognition in the first sentence would be 'perception' I guess. Is perception unreliable? Not a great match for 'a single perception doesn't give a complete conception of your envirionment'.

What makes this easier to eliminate is that the answer choice would then be saying that the premise says "perception has been shown to be unreliable under similar circumstances".

Well the second sentence has nothing to do with the meaning of 'perception' used in the first sentence, so this answer choice can't match the premise (and it's a stretch for the conclusion).

Hope this helps.