Q6 - Historian: Alexander the Great

[b91302310]

Answer (E) is correct. The student is claiming one of the historian's criteria for judging Alexander is inconsistent with the principle that the historian has advanced.

Does the principle refer to- " Alexander the Great should not be judged by......of his own culture" ? Also, does the criterion refer to- "Did Alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice?"


Could anyone explain it?

Thanks!

[noah]

Looks like you understand the answer perfectly.

Why do you think (B) is wrong?

[b91302310]

I think (B) is wrong because the student just challenges the historian's principle but not its consequence. Also, the student does not mention whether or not the consequences of the principle are consistent with "each other". He just judges the application of one standard, which is "Did Alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice?".

Any better idea?

[uhdang]

Very good question to see an example of contradiction.
This is a Method of Reasoning question. Hard to say this is a complete argument, since Historian only gives his claim with no premises.

This stimulus in summary,

(Historian) Alexander the Great should not be judged by current notions of justice, but judged by his own culture: 1) "did he live up to his culture's ideal of leadership?", 2) "Did alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice?" and 3) "Was he, in his day, judged to be a just and wise ruler?

(Student) 2) has to involve standards other than his own culture.

@ While historian claims for using Alexander’s own culture to judge the notion of justice for him, NOT current notions of justice, his second issue for standard of Alexander's culture HAS to involve some other culture than his own. He is contradicting himself, and this is what Student points out.

A scope change occurs here. Historian first brings in notions of justice as a scope, but later brings in culture as a scope. Along with this change, a noticeable part is the first scope of notions of justice seems to be included in a scope of culture, since last two questions that Historian present involves notion of justice.

Let's get into answer choice.

A) “inaccessible” to current scholarship is not supported by the stimulus. No where have we talked about this. Out of scope.

B) We have NOT talked about consequences of any principle. Out of scope. If we replace it with "claims", it would sound much better, because his first claim of should not be judged by current notion of justice is inconsistent with another claim of his, did Alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice? which has to involve current notion of justice.

C) Historian nor students asserted that Alexander was heroic.

D) “Historian's motivation” is not discussed nor the issue of “standard of behavior being raised or lowered” is discussed. Standards of JUSTICE has been discussed.

E) In order to answer Historian’s own question of “Did alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice?”, we need to take into account a notion of contemporary justice while he at the same time insists NOT to consider this when answering his own criteria. Bam.

[KanaroL490]

Alexander was really the best leader.