Logical Reasoning

PT133 · S1 · Q14 Waller: If there were really

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Waller: If there were really such a thing as extrasensory perception, it would generally be accepted by the public since anyone with extrasensory powers would be able to convince the general public of its existence by clearly demonstrating those powers.

Waller's Claim 1

If there were ESP, public would generally accept

does Chin argue that Yes, it seems like Chin does argue that. He lays out a scenario in which the influence of the elite would lead the media and thereby the general public to remain skeptical and not accept ESP.

Waller's Claim 2

Anyone with ESP could convince the general public of ESP by clearly demonstrating their powers.

does Chin argue that, Yeah, kind of. Our author thinks that the influence of the elite would bias the media which would bias the general public against accepting ESP.

Waller's Claim 3

Anyone who was recognized to have ESP would get rich and famous as a result.

does Chin argue that, No. Chin doesn't get into this hypothetical of what would happen with someone who was recognized to have ESP, mainly because Chin is pessimistic that the general public would ever accept that someone has ESP.

Goal

They seem to disagree about whether the public would generally accept ESP, if it actually existed, and whether someone who possessed ESP could convince the general public by clearly demonstrating those powers.

14.

Waller's and Chin's statements commit them to disagreeing on whether

  1. extrasensory perception is a real

    Neither Comments

    This was all hypothetical, so we don't know either author's stance on whether ESP actually exists.

    1% picked this

  2. extrasensory perception, if it were

    Too Strong

    We know that Chin would disagree with this, as he does explicitly in his first sentence. However, we don't have support that Waller would agree to this incredibly extreme claim. She believes that ESP, if real, could be accepted by the general public, but that's a much lower bar than "convincing to all skeptics".

    48% picked this

  3. skeptics about extrasensory perception have

    Trap

    Neither Commits Out of Scope: Weak Case These were hypothetical statements about how people would react. There was nothing evaluative about ESP or how the general public would react. So we have no idea whether either author would consider skeptics of ESP to currently have a weak case.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    the failure of the general

    Why this is right

    Brutal! We might want to look at this in conditional-argument form. The PREMISE is good evidence of the CONCLUSION. Turning this argument into conditional form: General pub fails to accept ESP → ESP does not exist Contrapositive? ESP exists → General pub accepts ESP Okay, well Waller definitely agreed with that contrapositive; that sounds like his very first claim. And as we examined before, Chin disagreed with that very first claim. So we can say that Waller would agree to this answer and Chin would disagree. More conversationally, Chin would disagree by saying, "the fact that the public doesn't believe in ESP isn't good evidence that ESP doesn't exist. It's only good evidence that the elite don't believe in ESP, because the elite influence the media which influences the general public.

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

    45% picked this

  5. the general public believes that

    Both Disagree

    While not explicitly stated, it seems like both authors would agree that the general public is not currently believing in ESP. Waller wouldn't formulate a hypothetical that said, "if ESP were real, the general public would believe it" if the general public already believes it.

    4% picked this

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