Which one of the following statements most accurately characterizes a difference between the two passages?
NayeliLealon May 17, 2023
Valid Argument #2
I am confused on the second argument in the valid arguments section. I assumed that the premise was true, so I thought the argument was valid, despite my knowledge that a boy could very well be named Sue. Is my actually logical (that it is possible for a boy to be named Sue) what makes the argument valid?
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Hi. The argument is valid if we assume the premises to be true, however, an argument could still have a flawed premise, which makes it invalid.
Emilyon December 27 at 02:17AM
Wouldn't this make every argument invalid then? For example, argument 1, when it says carrots are vegetables, and x is a carrot so x is a vegetable, couldn't we just say that x is NOT a carrot leaving the argument invalid? If we are to assume that the premise is true, then the argument 2 that says anyone named sue is a girl, x is named sue, x is a girl would be valid? I'm confused as to why this is invalid if we are to assume that the premises are true.
Emil-Kunkinon January 8 at 08:35PM
That is a great point, and the fact is that it's actually really hard to make a truly valid, airtight, unimpeachable argument in three or four sentences. You can always attack an argument by contradicting a premise- so every argument is theoretically vulnerable to this attack. Of course, in many cases the premises are obviously true (if x is in fact a carrot that is hard to attack), but you are correct that in most cases, we can attack an argument by disproving a premise.
The good news is that this is not a major issue in the lsat. We are generally expected to assume the truth or the premises. That is, we should accept the premises for the sake of argument and then just attack the reasoning. However, there are some (relatively uncommon) cases in which a strengthen or weaken question will have a right answer that makes a premise more or less likely to be true.
In sum, no argument is truly immune from disproving premises. However you only really should consider this in terms of strengthening or weakening arguments, and even then, the premise being strengthened or weakened would likely be probabilistic. That is, we are unlikely to be asked to attack "carrots are vegetables" but we may be asked to attack "some evidence suggests that carrots originated in North America, not the andes"
