Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT17 S2 Q2 Explanation

Many people do not understand themselves,

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Many people do not understand themselves, nor do they try to gain self-understanding. These people might try to understand others, but these attempts are sure to fail, because without self-understanding it is impossible to understand others. It is self-understanding will be incapable of understanding others.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Your task

Describe the reasoning error the argument actually commits.

Common trap

Answers that name a real logical flaw the argument doesn't actually make.

Winning move

Articulate the gap in the reasoning yourself, then match it to the choice that describes that gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
2.

The reasoning in the argument is flawed because

Answer choices

  1. Not Necessary vs. Sufficient25% picked this

    mistakes something that is necessary to bring about a situation for something that in itself is enough to

    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.

  2. Doesn't Fail to Consider3% picked this

    fails to take into account the possibility that not everyone wants to gain a thorough understanding

    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. Out of Scope: blame / responsible1% picked this

    blames people for something for which they cannot legitimately be

    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.

  4. Not Equivocation2% picked this

    makes use of the inherently vague term “self- understanding” without defining

    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".

  5. Correct69% picked this

    draws a conclusion that simply restates a claim given in support

    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.

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