LR Question 15 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Linguist: You philosophers say that we linguists do…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: The two sentences don’t have the same meaning.
REASONING: The two sentences aren’t identical, the word order is different.
ANALYSIS: The philosopher is being a pedantic nerd. Meaning doesn’t have to do with word order.
Here’s an example using math: 3 + 2 = 2 + 3
Both expressions equal 5. It doesn’t matter what order you add the numbers in.
The math equations are different (different order), but they have the same meaning.
- Word order doesn’t always affect the meaning of sentences.
- The meaning of sentences isn’t always affected by word order.
See what I just did there?
___________
- The question isn’t whether the sentences are identical. It’s whether they have the same meaning.
- This helps you prove that two sentences don’t have the same meaning. We want to prove that these two sentences do have the same meaning.
- Tempting. This is certainly a true fact about what the sentences mean.But this true fact doesn’t prove the two sentences are the same, or that they have the same meaning.
- CORRECT. Exactly. The two sentences can mean the same thing even if the word order is different.
- This is an appeal to authority, which is almost always a bad argument.A linguist has expertise on the meaning of words, but so does a philosopher.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
Hi Graeme, thanks for your explanations online! I just have a quick question about this one… I don’t really understand why D is the answer. So the philosopher is saying, “Your saying A is identical in meaning to B is wrong because they are physically different.” How come answer A is incorrect? Wouldn’t the linguist be able to argue that although there are some minor differences, they are still identical? I feel like D doesn’t really provide support for counterargument. D basically says, “Oh, you say I’m wrong because two things can’t mean the same thing if they are physically diff, but I’m just arguing that they mean the same thing,” which to me sounds like the linguist is missing the point. The philosopher acknowledges that the linguist is saying that A and B mean the same thing but goes on to disprove the linguist by arguing that they cannot since they are physically diff. Am I misinterpreting the question? Thanks in advance!
Your reading is going a bit too far beyond the letter of the stimulus. You’d be right if the philosopher also said something to the effect of: “in order for two sentences to mean the same thing, they must be physically identical and here’s why”. Then, the linguist wouldn’t actually be addressing the philosopher’s argument and it’s likely that the philosopher would also employ a different definition of meaning than the conventional one.
But, the stimulus we’re given doesn’t include that information; the philosopher’s quibble is with whether or not the sentences are structurally identical, and we know that in this case, a slight structural shift wouldn’t change the meaning of the sentences. So, (A) is incorrect because the linguist doesn’t really care to prove that the sentences are identical in a general sense; the linguist is concerned with whether they are identical in meaning. (D) is correct because it shows how exactly the philosopher is missing the point by getting hung up on whether the sentences are identical as opposed to identical in meaning.