Logical Reasoning

PT135 · S4 · Q21 Philosopher: To explain the causes

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Philosopher: To explain the causes of cultural phenomena, a social scientist needs data about several societies: one cannot be sure, for example, that a given political structure is brought about only by certain ecological or climatic factors unless one knows that there are no similarly structured societies not subject to those factors, and no societies that, though subject to those factors, are not so structured.

Conclusion

In order to determine the causes of cultural phenomena, you need to have data from multiple societies.

Evidence

If you didn't have data from lots of societies, you wouldn't be able to look at how strongly correlated certain ecological / climatic factors are with certain structural features of society.

(The more data points you have, the more you can see whether certain structures co-varied with certain climatic/ecological factors)

Evaluate

They're asking us about the first sentence, which is the main conclusion. Both the colon that proceeds it and the "for example" show us that it's being supported.

The support is just a complicated way of saying,

Goal

Look for something that sounds like Main Conclusion.

21.

The claim that to explain the causes of cultural phenomena, a social scientist needs data about several societies plays which one of the following roles in the philosopher's reasoning?

  1. It describes a problem that

    Overstretch: problem caused by SS's need

    The philosopher is just presenting this conclusion as a fact of life -- a facet of scientific inquiry. We could describe this conclusion as a "problem", but it's more apt to call it a requirement of ascertaining causal relationships. The premise is not making it sound like idiosyncratic needs of social scientists creates a certain problem. The premise is saying, "One cannot tell whether X causes Y unless ... etc." This answer sounds too much like an accusation that social scientists' picky needs create a problem. The argument sounds more like "given the constraints of any science, social scientists need this sort of data".

    4% picked this

  2. It is a premise used

    Not a Premise

    It's our Conclusion, so we can stop reading this the second we see "it's a premise".

    5% picked this

  3. It is a general hypothesis

    Not a Hypothesis

    A hypothesis is a claim that tries to explain a phenomenon. Our conclusion is just a statement about what kind of data is needed to support a certain judgment. We could stop reading there, but the second half of this answer is also inaccurate. The premises do not contain any examples (specific person / place / thing). They contain descriptions of the types of data points we would be considering in order to better figure out if a causal relationship exists.

    13% picked this

  4. It is a dilemma that,

    Bad Premise Match

    This is compatible with the idea that the first sentence is the conclusion. However, the evidence never mentions a struggle to figure out whether a cultural phenomenon is cause or effect. The evidence is saying, "in order to figure out whether a cultural phenomenon is caused by climatic/ecological factor X, we need to see whether factor X and this cultural phenomenon co-vary."

    9% picked this

  5. Correct

    It is a claim that

    Why this is right

    "A claim the author attempts to justify" = Conclusion. The evidence indeed explains the requirements for establishing the existence of a certain type of causal relationship: one cannot be sure that X is brought about by Y unless one knows that ___ and ___ .

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

    68% picked this

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