Which one of the following statements most accurately characterizes a difference between the two passages?
sharonvictoryon May 28, 2020
Invalid Arguments
Im a little confused. When presented with premises are we to assume they are true even if in the real world they can be false? Or do we judge based on the reality of the premise?
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Im a little confused. When presented with premises are we to assume they are true even if in the real world they can be false? Or do we judge based on the reality of the premise?
shunheon May 28, 2020
Hi @sharonvictory,
Thanks for the question! When presented with premises on the LSAT, we assume they are true even if in the real world they can be false. We don’t bring in specialized outside information at all on the LSAT; this has been the source of many a mistake. So if the LSAT says, “All cats have three legs. Bob is a cat.” Then you’re forced to conclude that Bob has three legs, even though you know in “real life,” obviously not all cats have three legs. “Invalid” arguments are arguments where the logical flow is incorrect, which isn’t related to the “actual” truth or falsity of any of the individual premises.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
sharonvictoryon May 29, 2020
Yes thank you! So an ivalid argument would be saying "all cats have three legs" "bob is a dog" because there is no logical sequence in that example?
shunheon May 30, 2020
Yup, exactly, an invalid argument is one in which there are problems with the logical connections between the statements. Common examples would be mistaken reversals or negations.
karlafalcon2on June 25, 2020
Then technically in the example shown in the video about, "Anyone named Sue is a girl", is a valid argument because the logical flow was correct. The only thing that made it flawed was the song which was outside specialized information.
