Philosopher: To explain the causes of cultural phenomena, a social scientist needs data about several societies: one ...

Mehran on August 27, 2018

Hi @RJEh, thanks for your post. Let's first examine the stimulus. This one presents an argument. The conclusion is "to explain the causes of cultural phenomena, a social scientist needs data about several societies." The question stem presents an Argument Structure question, which asks you to identify the role played by this claim in the reasoning in the stimulus.

The correct answer is (E): the claim (the conclusion) is one the philosopher "attempts to justify" (conclusions are justified by premises) "by appeal to the requirements for establishing the existence of one kind of causal relationship." The premise in the stimulus describes this: to say A is caused by B ("that a given political structure is brought about only by certain ecological or climatic factors"), you have to show that you don't have societies like A without B, for instance.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.