- Mon Oct 21, 2024 1:40 pm
#110043
dshen123,
Well, since the argument is itself trying to show that one of its premises is false, we're certainly going to have consider the possibility of a premise being false here.
I think there's some confusion because, for a Flaw question, you should certainly not be doubting any premises. But consider an argument like the following:
Assume 2 + 2 = 5.
If that were true, then, if I had two dollars in my pocket and added another two dollars to my pocket, I should have five dollars.
I tried that at the convenience store and the cashier showed me I did not indeed have five dollars.
So, 2 + 2 does not equal 5.
The first premise of this argument is assumed for the sake of argument, and is something the author is going to explicitly deny in the conclusion. So even the author is going to "doubt" his own premise. That's how the argument works.
I would say that, unless an argument is pretty clearly such an argument (assume your conclusion is false, show that this leads to a problem, and infer that your conclusion was true after all), it's safe to say that the author believes every one of their premises, and, further, there's not going to be any possible doubt of the premises for a flaw question.
But look at the stimulus. The author's conclusion is to say that the first sentence is false! So we can't regard the first sentence as something unshakably true even for the author's argument, since the author himself is doubting it.
Maybe a better way to express the idea that we shouldn't doubt premises for a Flaw question is this: We should believe as much in the author's premises as the author himself did. That should dispose of any problem here (and I would think in any other Flaw question).
Robert Carroll
