Self-study
Critic: Historians purport to discover the patterns inherent in the course of events. ███ ██████████ ████████ ███████ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ██████████ ███████████ █████ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ██████ ████ █████ ███ ███████████████ ██████████ █████████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ █████████
Summary
Historians don’t find but rather create patterns in history by choosing what events to focus on. History therefore tells us more about the presuppositions of the historians analysing it than about history itself.
Notable Assumptions
The argument moves from a general claim about where the patterns in history come from to a specific analysis of what purpose history is therefore capable of serving. There are two parts to that specific analysis - a claim that it provides information about the presuppositions of historians, and a claim that it does so more than it provides information about what actually happened. Each of these requires an assumption. There is one assumption that looking at the patterns historians impose on history tells us about those historians’ presuppositions, and a second that looking at the patterns historians impose doesn’t tell us much about what actually happened.
22.
The critic's argument depends on █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████
a
Historians have many ███████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ████████
The argument concludes that history can tell us about the presuppositions of historians, which can be true whether those historians have the same presuppositions or entirely different presuppositions.
b
There is no ███ ██ █████████ ████ █████████ ███████ █ ███████ █████████ ██ █ █████████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████
The argument isn’t concerned with whether we can figure out if historians are right about patterns in a specific case. Even if we could determine with certainty when historians are right and when they are wrong it could still be true that history as a whole tells us more about historians than about history.
c
Historians presuppose that ███████ ██████████ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████████ █████
The argument does not need details about what specific presuppositions historians might have, it is instead only about the fact that historians have presuppositions that in the first place and that history can tell us about them .
d
Most historians cannot ██████ █████ ██ ███ ███████████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ███████████
Whether or not historians could potentially be aware of their own presuppositions is not relevant to the claim that history tells readers about the presuppositions of those historians.
e
Which pattern a █████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ████████████████
This fills the missing link in the argument. If this were negated, and the patterns imposed were not affected by presuppositions, then studying those patterns would not provide any information about the historian’s presuppositions and the conclusion would be undermined.’