Logical Reasoning

PT153 · S3 · Q12 The Discourses, a work attributed to

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The Discourses, a work attributed to the ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus, is believed to have been compiled from Epictetusʼs lectures by his student Arrian.

Conclusion

That is highly unlikely. rephrased: It's very unlikely that Arrian, the student, wrote The Discourses and then falsely attributed the work to his teacher Epictetus.

Intermediate Conclusion

If Arrian tried to pass off his own views as Epictetus's, this deception would soon be exposed.

Evidence

Epictetus' views were well known by his contemporaries in Roman society.

Evaluate

Some people think that The Discourses was Epictetus's thoughts (via academic lecturers) that were compiled by Arrian; other think that Arrian just wrote it himself.

The author finds that 2nd hypothesis very implausible, so to strengthen her argument we want to either make it seem more like Epictetus really is the source of the material in the book, or that Arrian did not write it, or both.

If we were opposing counsel, we'd be trying to defend the idea that Arrian did write. The author is saying, . What could opposing counsel say?

- Maybe Arrian didn't realize that people would figure it out; Arrian thought he could get away with it.

- Maybe Arrian wrote the book but never wrote his name on it, and someone else came along and assumed it was Epictetus

- Maybe Arrian knew people would figure out the deception but didn't care because he either likes pranking people or knew he would be dead or out-of-town by the time people figured it out.

- Maybe the views in the book aren't related to the well-known views of Epictetus. Perhaps they're on a topic not previously addressed by Epictetus. Thus, there would be no basis for people noticing a mismatch between what they knew to be Epictetus's view on a matter and what view this book was attributing to Epictetus.

- Maybe Arrian's views actually aligned so much with Epictetus' that no one reading the book who already knew Epictetus's views would find anything that seemed noticeably different.

Goal

We want to rule out any of these potential objections (e.g. we want to hear / "Arrian did have different views from Epictetus and this book did cover topics for which it was already well-known what Epictetus' views were).

Or we just want any new fact that makes it more likely that Arrian would not have written this book or would not have tried to fool people into thinking that Epictetus wrote the book.

12.

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

  1. The Discourses would have received

    Weakens

    This answer would do more to support the case of people arguing that Arrian wrote the book and falsely attributed it to his teacher, Epictetus. After all, this answer would say, "If Arrian had put himself as the author, the work would have received very little attention". In other words, this answer is establishing that Arrian had a motive to falsely attribute one of his works to Epictetus, which strengthens the notion that Arrian make a false attribution, which goes against the author's conclusion.

    7% picked this

  2. Some of the philosophy that

    Weakens

    This is a very weakly worded answer choice, so it's very unlikely to be correct no matter what (on Strengthen, Weaken, or Paradox). And given that this answer is saying that some of the stuff in the book matches what we know of Arrian's thinking would support the idea that Arrian wrote it, which goes against what the author is arguing.

    2% picked this

  3. Arrian in some ways modeled

    Weakens, if anything

    This answer is saying that Arrian modeled himself (in part) after a dude who wrote works and falsely attributed them to someone famous. So, if anything, this answer is helping someone argue that Arrian wrote this work and falsely attributed it to someone famous, which is the opposite of what the author is arguing.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    Arrian had high status in

    Why this is right

    This adds more plausibility to the author's conclusion that Arrian would not have written this book and falsely attributed it to Epictetus. We already knew that were Arrian to do so, he would have his deception discovered. This answer adds onto that by saying that were his deception discovered, it would cause great harm to his high status. By pointing out a meaningful negative consequence that Arrian would face were he to deceive people into thinking that Epictetus had written Discourses, this answer makes it less plausible that Arrian tried to deceive people into thinking that Epictetus wrote Discourses, which strengthens the author's conclusion.

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

    87% picked this

  5. During his long career, Arrian

    No Impact

    Learning about all the jobs Arrian went on to have tells us nothing about whether or not Arrian tried to deceive people into thinking that Discourses was really written by Epictetus.

    1% picked this

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