Editorialist: Despite the importance it

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct52% picked this

   Anything that exists would continue to exist even if everyone were to stop

   Why this is right

   This provides the contrapositive of what we were looking for (as correct answers on Sufficient Assumption so often do). It says something ? would continue to exist even if exists we all stopped believing in it The contrapositive ... would NOT continue to exist ? does not if we all stopped believing in it exist This is definitely a rule that lets us derive that something "does not exist". Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "would not continue to exist if we all stopped believing in it"? It is. We were told that money "would disappear if there were a universal loss of belief in it".

   Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   52%
2. B

   Bad Premise Match6% picked this

   Only if one can have mistaken beliefs about a thing does that thing

   This is also a rule that would allow us to derive that something doesn't exist, by contrapositive. It says something ? it's possible to have mistaken exists beliefs about that thing The contrapositive ... it is NOT possible to have ? does not mistaken beliefs about it exist Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "it's impossible to have mistaken beliefs about"? We were never told that "it's impossible to have a wrong belief about money". (if anything, the example of investors reminds us how often they will have mistaken beliefs about money) Since the trigger of this rule doesn't clearly apply to money, we can't apply the rule to money in order to derive the idea that money doesn't exist.

   6%
3. C

   Bad Premise Match10% picked this

   In order to exist, an entity must have practical consequences for those who

   This is also a rule that would allow us to derive that something doesn't exist, by contrapositive. It says something ? has practical consequences for exists those who believe in it The contrapositive ... it DOES NOT have ? does not practical consequences. exist for those who believe in it Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "doesn't have practical consequences for those who believe in it"? We were never told that "money has no practical consequences for those who believe in it. (if anything, the example of investors reminds us that money does have practical consequences for those who believe in it) Since the trigger of this rule doesn't clearly apply to money, we can't apply the rule to money in order to derive the idea that money doesn't exist.

   10%
4. D

   Bad Conclusion Match22% picked this

   If everyone believes in something, then that

   This rule would never let us derive that something doesn't exist, because you can only derive the ideas on the RIGHT side of the rule. This says, everyone believes in X ? X exists X doesn't exist ? someone doesn't believe in X This rule would only allow us to conclude that something DOES exist or to conclude that "at least someone does not believe in _____ ".

   22%
5. E

   Unrelated to Goal11% picked this

   Whatever is true of money is true of financial

   This does not provide any mechanism for proving that something "does not exist", and since the argument didn't provide that mechanism, there's no way this answer, combined with our evidence, would allow us to derive the idea that money "does not exist".

   11%