#8 - Knowledge of an ancient language is essential for reading original ancient documents. Most

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning—Sufficient and Necessary. The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[LeslyLSATinLA]

Can I get help on why A is the correct answer? I chose answer choice E, but I was short on time so I just guessed on this one. Now, I'm reviewing it and diagrammed the premises and conclusions., but still confused.


premise 1: ancient lang docs--> essential for reading anc. docs
premise 2: ancient docs---> in modern langs.
premise 3: scholars--> NOT need to learn anc. langs.
conclusion: scholars--> NOT need to learn langs.

[Robert Carroll]

Lesly,

"Essential" is our necessary condition indicator, and should not itself be diagrammed. The first sentence is saying that one thing is essential, i.e., necessary, for another. So:

reading original ancient docs knowledge of ancient language

I don't see any other conditionals in the stimulus. In fact, it looks like the second premise and the conclusion are negations of conditionals. I don't actually think it's particularly helpful to diagram them, but instead you should think about them more verbally. The author thinks that, because you don't need to know an ancient language to read most ancient documents, you never need to learn an ancient language. That's not true - if "most" docs are translated, some may not be, and those might take knowledge of ancient languages to decipher. Further, there may be other good reasons for ancient-history scholars to know ancient languages. So, the author has shown that, in some cases, a knowledge of ancient languages may not be necessary. The author concludes that such knowledge is never necessary. The flaw here is in fact one of overgeneralization.

Robert Carroll