Which one of the following statements most accurately characterizes a difference between the two passages?
Lamis-Youssefon March 31, 2019
Valid and invalid arguments
Do we assume the premises are true because they gave us that information or do we question the premises ? I.e in example #2, the conclusion follows the premises perfectly but it is still invalid because IN GENERAL we know that a boy could be named sue?
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Great question. Mehran uses the 'Girl named Sue' reference to illustrate one way that an argument can be attacked (attacking the premises by claiming or showing one or more of them to be false). However, as Mehran notes, if we assumed the premises in that example to be true, it's a valid argument. The argument only becomes invalid when we find that one of the premises is false.
For the purposes of the LSAT you always want to assume the premises are true. The way you're attacking the arguments in the LSAT is to show why, even if we assume the premises to be true, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!
KK.on May 12, 2019
If I understand this correctly and #2 was an LSAT question, #2 would be a valid argument because we are assuming the premises are correct?
