PT17.S3.Q20 - in order to succeed

Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
edited March 2017 in Logical Reasoning 123 karma

Hi all,

I am quite puzzled by the answer to this question altogether. The answer to this is answer choice A (circular reasoning of the first sentence and the last part of the last sentence following "because"), but I am not quite sure why this is circular reasoning. When I saw this question and when I stumbled across answer choice A, I eliminated this by:

1) seeing the premises as the first sentence and the part of the last sentence that followed "because" which both state "in order to succeed in today's society, one must have a college degree," while seeing the conclusion as "the skeptics objection of counterexamples are only apparent success (the conclusion indicator of however pointed to this)." Thus, the premise and conclusion were different.

2) even if we were to see the first sentence and the last part of the last sentence to be the conclusion and premise, this wouldn't be circular as the first sentence is a general statement of succeeding in today's society, whereas the last sentence discussed the concepts of : 1. "true" success (a matter of degree in the success), and 2. why a college degree was important (because it showed that a person did not have enough "education").

3) Again, even if we were to see the first sentence and last part of the last sentence to be the conclusion and premise (and assume that they are stating the same thing), it is not circular reasoning if you provide additional premises. It took me a while to find the 7sage lecture on this but here it is https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-25-section-2-question-09/ (see from the 2:20 mark).
So the structure would be like this:
Conclusion: In order to succeed in today's society one must have a college degree
Major Premise: The skeptics version of success is only apparent
Premise: without a college degree a person does not have enough education to be truly successful
The addition of the major premise would, according to J.Y., sidestep this from circular reasoning.

Any take on these three understandings of this question? Any help would be great!

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-17-section-3-question-20/

Comments

  • JustDoItJustDoIt Alum Member ⭐
    edited February 2017 3112 karma

    Hi again!

    So you raise all great points! But if we look at the logical structure of this question, we can see that it indeed circular. Remember, when we dealing with conditionals, we want to use a general understanding of what is being said in order to apply that to its corresponding condition.

    Firstly, everything above the last sentence is context, but still relevant. The conclusion is the skeptics are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because “without a college degree, a person doesn’t have enough education to be truly successful.” In other words, /CD (college degree) --> /S (success). This is actually a subconclusion because it is supported by a premise in the context, which we will talk about now.

    The context is crucial here. We have both the critics POV and a statement that [attempts to] support the subconclusion. That statement is “In order to succeed in today’s society, one must have a college degree. In other words, S (success) --> CD (college degree). Everything else is just extraneous and not relevant to the condition because it is inherently contained in the conditional, such as “in today’s society.” It’s obvious that this is the case.

    So we predicate our argument on a premise – subconclusion – main conclusion structure. The last sentence contains the latter two of these elements. The reasoning that follows the actual conclusion, receives some support. What reason do we have to believe this (subconclusion)? The first sentence, which (tries to) support the subconclusion. Our reason for believing /CD (college degree) --> /S (success) is S (success) --> CD (college degree), which is circular.

    It is not common that this happens in flaw questions. Usually the reasoning between the premise and subconclusion is borderline valid and/or super strong. The flaw usually comes in between the subconclusion and main conclusion. Just a note!

    Hope this helps!

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    edited February 2017 123 karma

    @JustDoIt Thanks for your reply, again :smile: . If I am understanding your explanation correctly, the argument structure is one of premise - subconclusion - main conclusion structure. So the structure would look like:

    *Minor Premise : Succeed -> Have college diploma (first sentence)
    *Subconclusion : /College degree -> /Success (the last part of the last sentence)
    *Main conclusion : the skeptics view of success is only apparent

    Therefore, the circular reasoning flaw occurs not when the subconclusion supports the main conclusion, but rather when the minor premise supports the subconclusion.

    I can see this structure working but still this seems to be off from answer choice A, which states that it assumes what it sets out to conclude. Here, what it sets out to conclude would be the main conclusion that the skeptics are wrong, but this conclusion is not stated as a premise in the argument... Still a bit confused. Any feedback would be great!

  • JustDoItJustDoIt Alum Member ⭐
    3112 karma

    Man...this is hard. I totally get what you are saying. And I am not 100% sure if this is right. But I do know that they are basing their conclusion off circular reasoning.

    Must it be true that what you set out to conclude is necessarily your main conclusion? I am not sure. Why can't you set out to conclude something and also set out to conclude something to larger. For example, if I set out to prove why the grass is green, don't I also need to set out to prove stuff about chlorophyll too (subconclusion) (sorry, not a science person so hopefully my analogy makes sense anyways)? Or if I set out to prove how cars work, can't I also set out to prove how the engine operates to support my claim? I am not sure they are mutually exclusive. It may be possible that setting out to prove something doesn't necessarily mean that you are setting out to prove your main conclusion.

    Great question! Really made me think about this one :)

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    123 karma

    @JustDoIt So answering more questions of circular reasoning (that was actually one of my first, so I wasn't sure what to expect), it looks like what you have stated is right on the mark! Wow.. just like the last question you have helped me with, it seems like I am making too many subtle assumptions that shouldn't be made... anyways thank you so much for this! I will be ready with this piece of knowledge the next time I see a circular reasoning!

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    123 karma

    @JustDoIt So, to my disbelief, another circular reasoning question hit me in the face again...! I'd greatly appreciate it if you could have a look at this! Here is the link! https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/10517/pt24-s2-q8-sociologist-the-claim-that

  • JustDoItJustDoIt Alum Member ⭐
    3112 karma

    Glad to help! I will try my hand at this later today :)

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