#25 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

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

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[est15]

Can you explain why the answer is not D? I thought that answer took into account both the linguists and scientists' views on language as described in the third paragraph. It seems like B ignores the entire latter half of the paragraph discussing mathematical statements in science.

[Robert Carroll]

est,

There is a difference in that paragraph between the linguists' view and the scientists' view. The linguists are looking at mathematical language in science as an instance of their broader hypothesis about the strong or weak analogy between the language and the thing described by that language. The scientists are looking at mathematical language as a tool for explaining phenomena and making discoveries.

The key to the difference is that linguists are thinking about mathematical language, whereas the scientists are just using the language and concerned about science rather than the linguistic theory. So when answer choice (D) talks about "a current debate among scientists about the nature of explanation," it's adding new information. The linguists, not the scientists, were talking about the nature of explanation. That's why (D) is incorrect.

Robert Carroll

[tanushreebansal]

Hi! I eliminated D for the reasons stated above, but I was stuck between B and E. Ultimately, I went with E because I thought it accounted for the latter half of the paragraph while B did not. And I thought the latter half of the paragraph was its main purpose. Would you explain why this is incorrect?

[Francis O'Rourke]

If answer choice (E) is correct, then we should be able to now explain from this paragraph that the "theory that mathematical statements are a kind of language."

Although the author of this passage agrees that there is a mathematical language, and uses this theory to explain paragraph 3, there is no theory presented here for why or how mathematical statements are a kind of language. In fact, the author already gave a summary of this theory in the first paragraph, lines 2-6.

In the third paragraph, the author cares more about explaining the "latter theory" (line 25) which refers to the theory that "the relationship between things is purely a matter of agreed-upon conventions." (lines 22-24)

[andriana.caban]

Hi! I don't understand the explanations at all.

How do linguists believe that truth is a matter of convention? In fact, the passage says linguists claim that a statement is "only true when there are no promising alternatives" (line 32). So, how does no promising alternatives = convention?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Andriana!

In this question, we're being asked what the primary purpose of the third paragraph is. The third paragraph begins with "Lately, the latter theory has been gaining wider acceptance. According to linguists who support this theory..." and then continues describing the viewpoint of the linguists who support the latter theory. So that paragraph is all about elaborating on the viewpoint of the linguists who support that latter theory. What exactly is the "latter theory"? For that, we need to go back to the second paragraph. The latter theory is "whether the relationship between language and things is purely a matter of agreed-upon conventions, making knowledge tenuous, relative, and inexact" (lines 21-24). That's where the idea of truth being merely a matter of convention comes from, providing support for answer choice (B).

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[kenlars5]

est,

There is a difference in that paragraph between the linguists' view and the scientists' view. The linguists are looking at mathematical language in science as an instance of their broader hypothesis about the strong or weak analogy between the language and the thing described by that language. The scientists are looking at mathematical language as a tool for explaining phenomena and making discoveries.

The key to the difference is that linguists are thinking about mathematical language, whereas the scientists are just using the language and concerned about science rather than the linguistic theory. So when answer choice (D) talks about "a current debate among scientists about the nature of explanation," it's adding new information. The linguists, not the scientists, were talking about the nature of explanation. That's why (D) is incorrect.

Robert Carroll

Hi,
I don't really understand what you mean by the "linguists are looking at mathematical language in science as an instance of their broader hypothesis..." I guess more specifically I don't see where in the passage the linguists even discuss the topic of mathematical language at all. How I understood the passage was that there's this debate going on between linguists about the role language has in the pursuit of knowledge where some argue that it directly corresponds in some essential way to objects, and others say it doesn't, rather its an agreed upon convention. The third paragraph then expands on the latter explanation which is then applied to the topic of mathematical language and science. So it's not the linguists that are debating about mathematical language in science, but rather that their general debate about the relationship between language and knowledge is used by the author to understand/explore the relationship of mathematical language in science. Is that right, or am I missing something?

At first I chose D for this answer because I think I just misunderstood the paragraph in a sense.. But after going over it again I think I see why D is not right, because it's not about the similarities of the 2 debates, rather it's about using the latter explanation of language from the linguists debate and applying it to the specific example in science (as I described above). Therefore, B is right.

I'm really struggling on RC so just trying to really understand if my thought process and understanding is correct?

Thanks so much!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Ken,

I think you've got exactly the right understanding of the third paragraph of the passage. All I would add, which I think Robert was getting at in the second paragraph of his discussion, is that the third paragraph of the passage doesn't bring up a "current debate among scientists" that could be said to be "similar to" the linguists' debate . Instead, as you pointed out, the author uses the linguists' debate to suggest that science may eventually need to have a similar debate ("this question has yet to be significantly addressed in the sciences," i.e. there's no current debate about this "correspondence" issue in science). Since the author thinks there is no current debate, similar to the linguists' debate, about the correspondence between scientific theories/formulas and the nature of the world, answer choice D cannot be right.

I hope this helps!

[olimcc20]

Is this entire third paragraph just referring to the perspective of the linguists? For example, in the latter half of the section in question, when it states, "...for every aspect of a phenomenon it is applied to, but some would argue, there is nothing inherent in mathematical language..." Is the "some would argue" still referring to the linguists?

Thanks!
Liv