#11 - Some psychologists claim that, in theory, the best

[ilenerf]

Also for question 11 I had it down to C and D and chose D because I did not believe the argument was confusing a best way of accomplishing something with the best way. Maybe I just need answer choice C clarified in its relation to the argument.

[Steve Stein]

Thanks for your message. For question 11, the author basically says this:

Some psychologists claim that the best way to understand someone is to deeply empathize.

Even though total empathy is not feasible, we still know that understanding others is possible, so the doctors must be wrong.

The problem with this argument is that the doctors didn't claim that empathy was the only way to understand others--if so, they would be wrong.

Instead, they claimed that it was the best way, so the presence of other possibilities does not refute their claim.

Consider this analogous situation:

Abe: You claimed that the best way to be prepared for the test was to get a full nights sleep.

Ben: That's right!

Abe: Well, you're wrong, because I was up all night watching tv, but I was still somewhat prepared.


The problem with Abe's argument is that Ben didn't claim a full night's sleep was the only way to be prepared--he said it was the best way. Abe has confused these two claims in much the same way that the author confused the two claims in the stimulus.

Let me know whether that clears that one up--thanks!

~Steve

[SherryZ]

Hi there! Thank you for helping me in advance

June 2001 LSAT, Sec 2 LR, Q11:

I chose B, but the correct answer is C.

I chose B because I saw "But suppose they are right" this sentence.

Could you explain why B is wrong and C is right?

I appreciate it!


Sincerely,
Sherry

[Steve Stein]

Hi Sherry,

In that one, the author says that, while we continue to transplant almost every other organ, we cannot achieve brain transplants. Based on this, and the fact that people are having increasingly long lives, the author concludes that people with degenerative brain disorders will make up more and more of the population (since we cannot transplant a brain).

The question that follows is an Assumption question, so the right answer will be an assumption on which the author's conclusion relies.

Answer choice (C) provides that there are degenerative brain disorders (let's call them d.b. disorders) that cannot be cured without transplantation. What if this is not the case?

To test whether or not the author relies on this assumption, we can apply PowerScore's Assumption Negation Technique, and logically negate, or take away, the assumption to see whether it hurts the author's argument. If it does, then it is an assumption on which the author's argument relies.

There are no d.b. disorders that won't be curable without a transplant.

In other words, the negated version of this choice says that every d.b. disorder will be curable without a transplant. If this were the case, the author's argument would fail, so the author does indeed rely on this assumption.

As for answer choice (B), when we take that assumption away by logically negating it, we get something like this:

It is common for people to need more than one transplant of any given organ.

That doesn't hurt the author's argument, which is based on the idea that all those other organs can be transplanted, but the brain cannot, so as people's lives are extended, more will have time to develop d.b. disorders.

Tough one...I hope that's helpful! Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[SherryZ]

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your answer. However, your answer does not match the question that I wanna ask. My question is in June 2001 LSAT, Section 2, #11, which the stimulus is "Some psychologists claim that, in theory, the best way to understand another person would be through deep empathy...."

Thank you very much!

Sincerely ,
Sherry

[Jacques Lamothe]

Hi Sherry,

In the question that you are referring to, the stimulus author's use of the phrase "But suppose they are right" is not actually indicating that the author assumes the psychologists' claim is correct. The phrase indicates that the author is asking his or her audience to imagine what would logically follow if the psychologists' claim is accepted. The author then attempts to prove his conclusion by showing that acceptance of the psychologist's claim leads to an absurd conclusion. Since the author does not assume the claim is true, his rejection of the psychologists' claim in his conclusion does not produce a contradiction.

So let's look at why (C) turns out to be the correct choice.

In the first sentence, the author characterizes the psychologists as claiming that "deep empathy" is "the best way" to understand another person. Later in the stimulus,the author argues that it is psychologically impossible to experience deep empathy, and attempts to infer from this that acceptance of the psychologist's claim produces the absurd conclusion that it is impossible to understand other people.

However, the psychologist only claim that deep empathy is "the best way" to understand other people; they never claim that it is the only way to understand others. So even if the author is correct that deep empathy is impossible, it would be incorrect to infer that acceptance of the psychologists' claim entails accepting that understanding others is impossible. At most, the author can argue that, if the psychologists are correct, it is impossible to use the best way of understanding other people. The author's argument therefore requires him or her to confuse the psychologists' claim with a different claim that deep empathy is the only way of understanding others. That is the criticism that answer choice C provides.

I hope that explanation clears things up! Thanks for posting your question!

Jacques

[SherryZ]

Hi Jacques,

Thank you very much for your help!

But I still don't quite understand why the argument confuses a best way with the only way?

The conclusion of the argument says "Thus these psychologists are wrong", which means "The best way to understand another person would NOT be through deep empathy." Since in the argument, it says that because it is impossible to gain a direct and complete grasp of another person's motivation, there would be no way at all to achieve understanding." "But obviously one can understand other people". Therefore, according to the argument, the best way would NOT be through deep empathy.

I don't know what's wrong with my thought. Could you help me out??

Thank you very much!

---Sherry

[Jacques Lamothe]

Hi again Sherry,

There's definitely nothing wrong with your thinking . It's just a tricky question and I may have explained it poorly.

You are correct that the author's claim that the psychologists are wrong is a rejection of their claim that deep empathy is the best way to understand others. The author's confusion of "the best way to accomplish something" with "the only way to accomplish something" happens in the middle of the argument.

In order to prove that the psychologists are wrong, the author attempts to show that it is impossible to have deep empathy. But the author moves from the claim that deep empathy is impossible to the conclusion that the psychologists' claim entails that we cannot understand one another. This is where the confusion that answer choice (C) mentions occurs. If deep empathy is the best way to understand others (as the psychologists claim) than the impossibility of deep empathy does not mean that we cannot understand others. It only means that we cannot understand others in the best way possible.

In order for the author to be correct, the psychologist would have to be arguing that deep empathy is the ONLY way to understand other people. If that was their claim, the impossibility of deep empathy would entail the impossibility of understanding others. But since they do not make this claim, the author's rejection of their claim relies on the confusion described in answer (C)

I hope that clears things up a bit better than the last post.

Jacques

[SherryZ]

Thank you very much! Now I understand

[est15]

I can see that the author makes a jump going from it being psychologically impossible to gain a grasp of another person's motivations to there being no way at all to achieve understanding. However, even taking this logical fallacy into account, isn't the conclusion of the psychologists being wrong still true given that it's psychologically impossible to gain a grasp of another person's motivations? Because if it were psychologically impossible to gain a grasp of another person's motivations, then the best way to understand another person would not be through deep understanding. So does that mean that if an argument is vulnerable, the conclusion could still be right? But it's the way of getting there that is wrong? Thanks.