PrepTest 150, Section 2, Question 20
A philosophical paradox is a particularly baffling sort(66 more words not shown)
If the statements above are(10 more words not shown)
- ASolving a philosophical(10 more words not shown)
- BThe conclusion of(13 more words not shown)
- CPhilosophical paradoxes with(12 more words not shown)
- DAny two people(13 more words not shown)
- EIf it is(23 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I want to separate two questions: does the conclusion follow from the premises, and are the premises actually true?
Suppose every person lived for a billion years. If Maya is a person, it would follow that Maya lives for at least 900 million years. The reasoning would work under that premise, even though the premise is absurd. That example isn't itself the philosophical paradox described here; it just helps distinguish a good logical connection from true starting information.
The passage adds a complication. Our intuitions say the premises are true and the reasoning works, yet they also say the conclusion is false. Those are reports of what seems right to us, not a guarantee that each impression is correct.
What we’re looking for
We are then given three ways to solve the paradox: accept the conclusion, reject a premise, or reject the logical connection. I don't yet have a particular answer in mind for what must follow. I'll test the choices against those stated options rather than assume something about philosophical paradoxes that the passage hasn't told us.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Match each possible solution with the earlier intuition. Accepting the conclusion conflicts with the intuition that it is false. Rejecting a premise conflicts with the intuition that the premises are true. Rejecting the logical connection conflicts with the intuition that the conclusion follows. Whichever of the three routes solves the paradox, we have to accept something that initially seems incorrect. That connection becomes clear once we compare the final sentence with the one before it.
- B
True premises don't guarantee a true conclusion unless the conclusion really follows from them. The passage explicitly leaves open a solution in which the logical connection fails. Our intuitions may tell us it works, but an intuition isn't proof. B keeps the true-premises requirement and leaves out the valid-reasoning requirement.
- C
Nothing compares paradoxes by their number of premises. Having fewer premises might make a particular argument easier or harder to untangle, but the passage gives us no rule about that. We cannot infer the comparison merely from the claim that philosophical paradoxes are baffling.
- D
Three available approaches don't tell us which approach any person will take, much less that two people will probably take different ones. Both might reject the same premise or question the same logical step. The passage describes possible ways to solve a paradox, not how approaches are distributed among people.
- E
This removes only one of the three options: accepting the conclusion. We could still solve the paradox by rejecting a premise or showing that the conclusion doesn't follow. Losing one route doesn't eliminate the two others the passage expressly allows.
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