Logical Reasoning

PT14 · S4 · Q11 Conservative: Socialists begin their arguments

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Conservative: Socialists begin their arguments with an analysis of history, from which they claim to derive certain trends leading inevitably to a socialist future.

Conservative's Claims

1. Socialists begin with an analysis of history 2. They claim to derive from analyzing history certain trends that lead inevitably to a socialist future. 3. History never has such discernible trends. 4. We only see inevitability looking backwards. 5. History occurs through a lot of random happenstance.

Socialist's Reactions

1. Mostly agrees. She doesn't say whether they begin with history, but she does say it's important so it's more or less agreement.

2. Disagrees. The socialist says,

3. No comment. 4. No comment. 5. No comment.

Evaluate / Goal

The only overlapping concept that they seem to disagree about is whether or not sociologists look at history and see inevitability.

11.

In the dispute the issue between the socialist and the conservative can most accurately be described as whether

  1. a socialist society is the

    Neither Agrees

    We wouldn't be able to derive agreement with this claim from either party. The 2nd speaker disavows the possibility of inevitability, so she disagrees. And the 1st speaker is only saying that socialists act like a socialist society is the inevitable consequence of their analysis of history. He doesn't believe that a socialist society is the inevitable consequence.

    24% picked this

  2. the institutions of capitalist society

    Unsupported Person 1

    While Person 2 would agree with this, we can't derive from the Conservative's claims that he thinks that "the institutions of capitalist society do not need any transformation". He never even speaks on capitalism.

    1% picked this

  3. socialists’ arguments for the inevitability

    Neither Agrees

    We wouldn't be able to derive agreement with this claim from either party. The 2nd speaker disavows the possibility of inevitability, so she disagrees. And the 1st speaker is only saying that socialists act like their arguments are justified. He doesn't believe that their supposed arguments are justified. He pivots with a But in order to rebut the socialists' alleged point of view.

    10% picked this

  4. it is possible for people

    Both Agree Extreme Disagree Position: impossible

    Person 1 says that "history occurs through ... individual struggle" and Person 2 is talking about working hard to transform the institutions of capitalist society, so it seems like they both agree. We certainly couldn't derive the Disagree position from either paragraph, because that would be the extreme claim that "it is impossible for people by their own efforts to affect the course of history".

    11% picked this

  5. Correct

    socialists analyze history in order

    Why this is right

    As we anticipated, they are disagreeing over the Conservative's 2nd claim, that socialists look at history and claim to derive certain trends leading inevitability to a socialist future. So we can derive the Agree position from person 1. We can derive the Disagree position from person 2 because they imply that they don't believe that the outcome of history is inevitable, so thus they are not trying to support any view that socialism is inevitable. Instead, they are working hard to try to make socialism a reality.

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

    53% picked this

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