Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world; unreasonable people persist in trying to adapt the world to themselv...

AnthonyH June 23, 2020

Is this a Flawed Argument or Statement of Facts?

Hello, I'm wondering if we can apply must be true principles to flawed arguments? Does introducing the phrase, "assume statements above are all true" in the question stem imply that we should modify the role of the "conclusion" in the argument to become a "premise" in a statement of facts? In reading the stimulus, I was not able to draw a transitive chain from the information provided and thus concluded that the logic did not follow from the general principles. I chose option C, and ruled out option B because there was no supporting evidence that linked unreasonable people (UP) and their persistence to adapt the world to themselves (AWT) to Progress (P). To me, the missing premise here was AWT -> Progress. Here's how I diagrammed the stimulus: RP - AW Not AW -> Not RP Not RP -> AWT Not AWT -> RP Conclusion: Progress -> Not RP RP -> No Progress Transitive: Not AW -> Not RP-> AWT Not AWT -> RP -> AW In this scenario, would we just insert the conclusion (RP-> No P) somewhere to make the chain flow before approaching the multiple choice? Any tips here would be appreciated. Thanks!

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BenMingov June 26, 2020

Hi Anthony, thanks for the question.

Yes, it is a bit different than usual having a flawed argument and approaching it as a Must Be True question. However, it might be even easier to just consider it this way.. you correctly diagrammed all of the premises and conclusion. Now, just accept those as true.

You do not have to treat the conclusion as part of the premises, nor do you have to find the missing link as in an assumption question. Rather you just want to find the answer, based off of the given premises and conclusion that we accept, that follows for sure.

Since the passage specifically said progress -> not reasonable

We can take the contrapositive of this which says: reasonable -> not progress the world.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Brett-Lindsay July 7, 2020

Hi @BenMingov,

I took adapt the world to themselves to be the opposite of adapt themselves to the world. That gave me a common element:

AS (Adapt self to the world)
R (Reasonable)
P (Progress)
Here's my chain:
P --> not R --> not AS
AS --> R --> not P

As I haven't noticed anybody else mention this as a possibility, I'm starting to question my thinking. Is it logically sound?