PT8-S1-Q4 - Help - Method of Reasoning Question

ahnendc-1

Curious if this question is an example of an argument proceeding by attacking the premise of another argument:

Context: Case of French Revolution is evidence for a particular claim.

Conclusion: The French Revolution is a poor example of this claim.

P1: France was unique in a particular way (directly supports conclusion)
MP/SC: Normal disruptions typical of revolution were avoided (directly supports Conclusion)
P2: Same civil servants stayed in office (supports MP/SC)

My question is whether this is an example of an argument undermining the support structure of another argument - providing additional context that uncovers certain assumptions his opponents were making? Or is the author going straight for the jugular so to speak and just claiming that their premise (the French Revolution) is a poor one?

jmarmaduke96

Hi there!

To give you the quick answer to your question, the author is doing both.

To give a little more detail, the author is doing the former in the service of the latter. The author is undermining the support for the other person's claim. Indeed, the author is giving additional information (such as the bit about the civil servants and functionaries) that means that the example of the French Revolution is much less likely to be able to support the other person's claim. That is being done for the broader purpose of discrediting the French Revolution as an example altogether.

I think that it helps to get clear about what the author's argument is doing here. The claim in the context that other people believe is that "societies can reap more benefits than harm from a revolution." This claim is not what the author is concerned about though. In fact, the author really expresses no opinion about it. What the author is concerned about is whether or not the French Revolution really presents solid evidence for that claim being true. Obviously, the author is not satisfied with the example. So, the author gives additional information to demonstrate why the French Revolution really doesn't prove what some other people seem to think that it proves. Just to emphasize the importance of that distinction, I think that the LSAT writers could have made this question tricky by including some attractive wrong answer choices. For example, stating that the author disagrees with the main claim - "societies can reap more benefits than harm from a revolution."

The point is that just because one line of support for a given claim is nullified, that does not mean that the claim itself is therefore untrue. It could very well be that societies can reap much more benefit than harm and that the author passionately agrees with that claim. However, the author just thinks that the French Revolution is a terrible example to support it. Who knows, maybe the author is so passionate that he/she thinks that only certain examples should be used to support the claim and if the other people had only talked about the Bolshevik Revolution then all would be well. I hope this helps, if I didnt answer your question or if something wasnt clear let me know!

ahnendc-1

@jmarmaduke96 Thank you for the response! I think this makes more sense in my head now; I think I had been just confused by the multi-tiered argument - someone is making a claim, and our author supplies premises that result in a conclusion which attack the premise, but not necessarily the conclusion, of another argument.

Do you think it is fair to suppose that the author really is arguing against or pushing back against the general claim, after all he does say that the French Revolution is regarded as the BEST example and that EVEN this example serves this role poorly.

Am I on to something here or is this just a very clever use of English to bait me into believing that is what the author is doing?

jmarmaduke96

Hi!

In short, yes. While it is certainly not a MBT, I do think that we can support the idea that the author is opposed to the general claim. Although, to be clear, this is a unique case and I think that the word "even" is where the support comes from. The author says "but even the French Revolution serves this role poorly..." The way the author says "even" may potentially suggest that other support may not even be at the level of the French Revolution. However, I think I could see a reading of the stimulus that doesn't conform to that reading.

If the word "even" were deleted though, I think that it would be completely different. If the sentence just said "but the French Revolution serves this role poorly" then there would be no real indication that the author disagrees with the general claim. Simply discounting an argument for a conclusion does not speak to the veracity of the conclusion itself.

ahnendc-1

@jmarmaduke96 I concur entirely, certainly it isn't a must be true and agree that without the EVEN this it does not follow that the author is pushing back against the claim. To really drive home the point, I think the author could have even said "the French Revolution is the often trumpeted as the best example of X, however, it serves this role poorly". Here all we know is that the author disagrees with the conventional wisdom about what is the best evidence, perhaps he supports the claim but believes that the French Revolution is not actually a counterexample or non-example.

jmarmaduke96

Exactly! That's perfect, I think you are absolutely correct. Im glad you picked up on that. I was a very slow learner when it came to this lesson and it cost me points on several PTs, so I try to emphasize it whenever I can. You are a faster learner than I!