LR Question 11 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Some psychologists claim that, in theory, the best…
QUESTION TYPE: Weaken
CONCLUSION: The psychologists are wrong that deep empathy would be the best way to understand someone else.
REASONING: Deep empathy is impossible. So if the psychologists were right there would be no way to understand anyone. But we can understand people.
ANALYSIS: This argument makes a simple error. The psychologists said the best way to understand someone would be deep empathy. They didn’t say it was the only way.
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- Deep empathy is pretty clear: a complete grasp of someone else’s motivations and feelings.
- The only thing the argument denies is that deep empathy is possible. And the argument never claimed that deep empathy was possible.
- CORRECT. The psychologists only said it would be the best way (“would be” doesn’t necessarily mean the psychologists thought it was possible.) The argument misunderstood them and thought they meant deep empathy was the only way.
- Actually the argument is denying the claim of the psychologists. And the argument gives (flawed) evidence for its own claim.
- This doesn’t matter. The argument is about disproving the claim. The stimulus didn’t say how many psychologists believed it.
More Resources for Weaken Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Weaken questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers weaken questions.
The reason I chose answer choice B was because of the line, “But suppose they are right…”
Because of this line I assumed that the argument was taking “… one would gain a direct and complete grasp of that person’s motivations” as a fact.
Can you explain to me why I am wrong for making this assumption? Because from what I see there is no justification for the argument’s denial. It comes off as saying, “let us assume the psychologist is correct in saying such and such. They are wrong because such and such is impossible.”
I see why answer choice C is correct and in fact it was my second option that I was considering between answer choice B.
I made the exact same reasoning and same choices and same mistakes. I guess we fell in the same ” trap”. Looking back at the stem: the MOST vulnerable to criticism is something that is most obvious and easy to prove. A theory is not a whole. Seems quite clearly the answer is C. Going back to B. This is not an assumption. ” Even if they were right” blah blah blah is NOT an assumption that they are right. It’s a sufficient preface ( =IF). I could be wrong but this is all I can figure on my own. If they are right, then…… It’s a conditional statement.