Self-study
If a belief is based on information from a reliable source, then it is reasonable to maintain that belief. ████████████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ████ █ ████████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ████████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████████
Summary
The stimulus can be diagrammed as follows:
Notable Valid Inferences
Some non-self-evident beliefs are not grounded in observable evidence.
Some beliefs that are neither self-evident nor grounded in observable evidence are reasonable.
16.
If all the statements above ███ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████
a
Beliefs for which █ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████████ ███ █████████████
Could be false. We know that some beliefs for which a person does not have observable evidence are reasonable; we cannot infer that some of those beliefs are unreasonable.
b
Beliefs based on ███████████ ████ █ ████████ ██████ ███ █████████████
Could be false. We know that some beliefs based on information from a reliable source are not self-evident; we don’t know if any of those beliefs are self-evident.
c
All reasonable beliefs ███ █████ █ ██████ ███ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ████ █ ████████ ███████
Could be false. We know that all beliefs based on information from a reliable source are reasonable, but we can’t say that all reasonable beliefs (whether or not a person has evidence for the beliefs) are based on information from a reliable source.
d
If a belief ██ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ████████████ ███████
Could be false. All we can say is that some beliefs that aren’t self evident are also not grounded in observable evidence; we don’t know that all beliefs that are not grounded in observable evidence are not self-evident.
e
Among reasonable beliefs ████ ███ ███ █████████████ █████ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████████
Must be true. Chaining together the claims in the stimulus reveals that some reasonable beliefs are both not self-evident and not grounded in observable evidence.