Self-study
Commentator: Conclusion Human behavior cannot be fully understood without inquiring into nonphysical aspects of persons. ██ ████████ ██ █████ █ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████ █████ ██████████████ █████████████ ██████████████ ███ █████████████ █████ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████ █████████ █████ ███ █████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ██ █████████
Argument Summary
The author concludes that human behavior can't be fully understood without looking into nonphysical aspects of people. In other words, physical information alone isn't enough.
What's the evidence? The author asks us to imagine having a complete scientific account of every physical aspect of a human action, covering every neurological, physiological, and environmental event involved. Even with all of that, the author says, we "obviously" still wouldn't truly comprehend the action or know why it occurred. So we must need something beyond the physical.
Circular Reasoning
The flaw is circular reasoning. The author's "evidence" already assumes the conclusion is true.
The premise says: even if you had every physical fact about an action, you still wouldn't understand it. But why should we believe that? The only reason to accept that claim is if you already think physical information isn't enough to understand behavior. And that's the conclusion. So the author is essentially saying, "Physical information isn't enough. How do I know? Because physical information isn't enough."
The word
23.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ █ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████████
a
No support is ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ █████████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████
The author doesn't use an analogy. An analogy would involve pointing to similarities between two different things to conclude that they share another similarity. The author's argument is about human behavior directly, not about something like human behavior. The hypothetical scenario (imagining we had a complete physical account) isn't an analogy. It's a thought experiment about the very thing the argument is about.
b
The purported evidence ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████
The author's "evidence" is the claim that even a complete physical account of a human action wouldn't give us true comprehension. But the only way to accept this claim is to already believe that understanding human behavior requires looking beyond the physical, which is the conclusion. The premise just restates the conclusion in the form of a hypothetical scenario. Nobody who's open to the idea that that physical information is sufficient to understand behavior would accept the premise, because the premise assumes that physical information isn't sufficient.
c
It concludes that █ ███████████ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ██████
The author isn't saying "no one has proven physical accounts are enough to explain human behavior, so they must not be enough." The flaw isn't that the author is pointing to a lack of evidence. It's that the author's premise just restates the conclusion.
d
It fails to ████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ █████ █████████ ███ ███████████
An argument doesn't need to disclose the speaker's awareness of potential counterevidence. Imagine if you try to apply this standard to other arguments: every argument would then be "flawed" for not mentioning whether the speaker knows of counterevidence. That's not a logical flaw. The real problem with this argument is the circular relationship between the premise and conclusion, not the author's failure to mention counterevidence.
e
It presumes, without █████████ ██████████████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ █ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████
The author asks us to