Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S1 · Q21 Catmull: Although historians consider themselves

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Catmull: Although historians consider themselves to be social scientists, different historians never arrive at the same conclusions about specific events of the past.

Conclusion (Thus)

Historians never determine what actually happened. They just create interesting fictional stories about the many different problems that people have faced.

Evidence

Different historians never arrive at the same conclusion about specific events of the past.

Evaluate

We're ignoring the filler of an "although" counterpoint, as well as the unsupported throwaway of "like novelists" in the conclusion.

The argument is just making this move, "if different historians never arrive at the same conclusions about specific events, then that means that historians never determine what actually happened / they just make up stories.

Given that ... they arrive at different conclusions How could we argue that ... historians sometimes do determine what actually happened?

Isn't it possible that one of the historians is correct and all the others are wrong? If I ask a room full of 3rd graders a tough math question and none of them arrive at the same result, does that mean that all of them were wrong? Not necessarily. It's possible one of them was right.

Goal

I'd be anticipating an assumption answer like, , or looking for an objection idea like, .

21.

The reasoning in Catmull's argument is flawed because the argument

  1. draws a conclusion that simply

    Wrong Flaw: not Circular

    The conclusion here is that "historians never determine what happened; they just invest stories". Was there a premise that said that? No, the premise said "historians never arrive at the same conclusion". That doesn't mean the same thing.

    4% picked this

  2. Correct

    concludes, solely on the basis

    Why this is right

    If a flaw answer is structured like concludes, solely on the basis of Y, that X then we know we need to ask ourselves, "Does X match the conclusion? Does Y match the evidence?" Was the conclusion saying / thinking that "none of these conclusions is true"? Sure, it's saying none of the conclusions arrived at by historians are a determination of what actually happened. Was the premise saying that "different people have reached different conclusions about a topic"? Sure, it said that different historians never arrive at the same conclusions. So the parts match. Does this seem like a logic problem? Is it bad to assume that if people give us different answers, then all of them are wrong? Sure, that's bad. It's impossible for all of them to be correct, but it's possible for one of them to be correct.

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

    86% picked this

  3. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Too Strong: no value whatsoever

    Whenever we see Necessary Assumption wording start off a Flaw answer choice (i.e. presumes / takes for granted / fails to establish), we should be wary of strong language, just as we are on Necessary Assumption questions. Did the author need to assume that historians conclusions have no value whatsoever? No, the author never spoke to the value or lack of value at all. If anything, the author contradicts this answer by suggesting that historians' conclusions have some value as interesting fictional stories.

    4% picked this

  4. bases its conclusion on premises

    Wrong Flaw: not Internal Contradiction

    Just like Circular Reasoning in (A), this names one of the ten famous flaws that is almost always wrong (Circular, Self-Contradiction, Equivocating some "term"). There is only one premise, so it's impossible for the author to have had premises that contradict each other.

    1% picked this

  5. mistakes a necessary condition for

    Wrong Flaw: not Necessary vs. Sufficient

    Whenever we see this famous flaw show up in an answer choice, we should ask ourselves whether there was any conditional logic premise. If not, get rid of the answer. Here, the only premise was "different historians never arrive at the same conclusions about specific events of the past". The word never could be turned into something conditional. Okay, let's look deeper. Did the argument present something that is required for the objective truth of the historians' conclusions? No, there's nothing in the argument that says, "in order for the conclusions to be objectively true, it must be that X". Furthermore, this answer choice is saying that author took something required for conclusions to be objectively true and then argued like this, "Since X is the case, we can conclude that the historians' conclusions are objectively true". (This was treating X as a sufficient condition) That doesn't match at all, since our author concluded that the conclusions aren't true. In order for this answer to be right, both the evidence and the conclusion would have been dealing with the concept of true. In this actual argument, the evidence dealt with "whether conclusions are same" and the conclusion dealt with "whether conclusions are true".

    5% picked this

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