Logical Reasoning

PT17 · S2 · Q2 Many people do not understand themselves

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Many people do not understand themselves, nor do they try to gain self-understanding.

Conclusion (It is clear from this)

Anyone who lacks self-understanding will be incapable of understanding others.

Evidence

Many people don't understand themselves, nor do they try to gain self-understanding.

They might try to understand others, but this won't work, because without self-understanding it's impossible to understand others.

Evaluate

Whenever we see conditional logic show up on Flaw (in this case, anyone / incapable / sure to fail / without are all conditional indicator words), we should immediately start anticipating this is going to be a Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw, which means that the author presents a conditional logic premise but then uses that conditional rule in an illegal backwards or negated fashion in order to reach their conclusion.

We have a premise that says "without X, it is impossible to have Y". In other words, "X requires Y". ~self-understanding → ~understand others understand others → self-understanding

The conclusion actually says the exact same thing: If you lack self-understanding, you'll be incapable of understanding others. ~self-understanding → ~understand others

What does it mean if the conclusion just replicates a premise?

It is the mythic beast known as Circular Reasoning. Circular reasoning is one of the ten famous flaws, but it's primarily famous as a wrong answer choice. We see it offered all the time in answer choices (the conclusion restates a premise / the evidence presumes the truth of the conclusion), but it's almost never the real problem.

Goal

This is like seeing a leprechaun underneath a double-rainbow. A rare sight. Let's look for an answer describing the Circular reasoning that "one of the premises literally is the conclusion".

2.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument

  1. mistakes something that is necessary

    Not Necessary vs. Sufficient

    This is nicely trappy, since LSAT knows that if we see conditional logic on a Flaw question, it is going to be a Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw 90% of the time. But the error in this argument wasn't that the author used a conditional premise in some illegal backwards or negated fashion. The error was that one of the author's premises for her conclusion is literally just the conclusion.

    25% picked this

  2. fails to take into account

    Doesn't Fail to Consider

    The author explicitly takes this possibility into account when she says, "many people don't understand themselves, nor do they try to gain self-understanding."

    3% picked this

  3. blames people for something for

    Out of Scope: blame / responsible

    Nothing in this argument is dealing with the concepts of whether or not someone is responsible or blameworthy for something. It's only about whether people have or don't have the capabilities to do certain things.

    1% picked this

  4. makes use of the inherently

    Not Equivocation

    This answer names the famous flaw Equivocation, in which the author uses the same term/concept multiple times in the argument, but in completely different ways. We weren't critiquing this argument by saying, "the first time the author said self-understanding it meant X, and the second time it meant Y".

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    draws a conclusion that simply

    Why this is right

    The conclusion is "if you don't have self-understanding, you won't be capable of understanding others". And one of the evidence claims was "without self-understanding, it is impossible to understand others".

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

    70% picked this

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