Self-study
Linguist: You philosophers say that we linguists do not have a deep understanding of language, but you have provided no evidence.
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Summarize Argument
The philosopher concludes that it cannot be the case that the sentences “Joan and Ivan are siblings” and “Ivan and Joan are siblings” are identical in meaning. He supports this by saying that two things must have all the same attributes in order to be identical, yet these two sentences are physically different from one another.
Notable Assumptions
The philosopher assumes that two things being identical in meaning is equivalent to those two things being physically identical. His argument uses both meanings of the term “identical” interchangeably, overlooking the possibility that they might mean different things.
15.
Of the following, which one ██ ███ █████████ ███████ ███████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████████
a
Two things can ████ █ ███ █████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████
We don’t know exactly what it means for two things to “have a few minor differences,” or whether the two sentences in question can be considered to have a few minor differences. Either way, (A) fails to point out the philosopher’s ambiguous use of the word “identical.”
b
Two sentences can ██ █████████ ███████████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ██ █████████ ██ ████████
This may be true, but the two sentences in question are not physically identical and the linguist argues that they are identical in meaning. So (B) doesn’t apply in the context of these two sentences.
c
It is necessarily ████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ██████ ████████
This may be true, but it doesn’t point out the weakness in the philosopher’s argument, which is that he equates “physically identical” with “identical in meaning.”
d
The issue is ███ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████
This weakens the philosopher’s argument by pointing out his assumption that two things being “identical in meaning” is the same as two things being “physically identical.” (D) argues that the two sentences can be identical in meaning without being completely physically identical.
e
A linguist has ████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████ █ ████████████ ███ ██ ██ ██ █ ██████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████████
The philosopher is not making a claim about who has more experience with language. Instead, his argument is about the identicalness of the two sentences in question.