Self-study
Philosopher: Support Scientists talk about the pursuit of truth, but, like most people, they are self-interested. ████████████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██████ ████████ ██████ ████████████ ███ ████ ████████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ █ ██████ ███ ████ ████████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████
Summarize Argument
The philosopher concludes that the scientific community’s activities are mainly about enhancing the community’s status, and only incidentally about pursuing truth. She supports this by saying that scientists are self-interested and most scientists’ professional activities are mainly about enhancing their personal careers, and only incidentally about pursuing truth.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a cookie-cutter “part to whole” flaw, where the author takes a characteristic of one part or parts of a group and assumes it to be true of the group as a whole.
The philosopher takes a premise about most scientists— that they’re motivated by career-enhancement rather than truth— and uses it to draw a conclusion about the scientific community as a whole— that it too is motivated by status-enhancement rather than truth.
18.
The reasoning in the philosopher's ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████
a
improperly infers that ████ ███ █████ █████████ ███ █ ███████ ██████████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████████████
The philosopher does draw an improper inference from the premise that most scientists have a certain characteristic. But that inference is about the scientific community as a whole, not about “each and every scientist.”
b
improperly draws an █████████ █████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██ █ █████ ████ █ ███████ █████ ██████████ ██████████
The philosopher improperly infers that the scientific community as a whole is motivated by status-enhancement rather than truth from a premise stating that most individual scientists are motivated by these things.
c
presumes, without giving ██████████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ ████████ ██████ ███████████ █████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████
The author never assumes this. In fact, she allows for the possibility that the aim of career enhancement can advance the pursuit of truth by saying that scientific activities are directed “only incidentally toward the pursuit of truth.” She just claims that truth isn’t the goal.
d
illicitly takes advantage ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████████████████
The author simply doesn’t make this mistake because she uses the term “self-interested” clearly in her premise about most scientists.
e
improperly draws an █████████ █████ █ █████ ████ ████████ █████ ███ ███████
The philosopher doesn’t use causal reasoning in her argument; she never argues that one thing causes another. So (E) can’t describe her flaw.