Hurting the conclusion?? Forum

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lsatkid007

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Hurting the conclusion??

Post by lsatkid007 » Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:10 pm

What is the difference between hurting the conclusion and hurting the argument. If you hurt the conclusion don't you automatically hurt the argument? This is for NA questions with the negation technique.

bp shinners

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Re: Hurting the conclusion??

Post by bp shinners » Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:52 am

lsatkid007 wrote:What is the difference between hurting the conclusion and hurting the argument. If you hurt the conclusion don't you automatically hurt the argument? This is for NA questions with the negation technique.
Hurting the conclusion means going after the truthfulness of what the author is trying to prove. Hurting the argument is done by separating the conclusion from the premises, making those premises less likely to prove the conclusion. For purposes of a NA question, you're looking to hurt the argument - in other words, pick an answer that is necessary to use the given set of premises to get to the given conclusion.

For instance:
bp shinners bought more beer than other supplies to ride out Sandy.
________________________________________________________
bp shinners is awesome

If I attack the conclusion, I could say, "bp shinners cried at the end of 28 Dresses, which is decidedly not awesome," or "bp shinners's favorite color is pink, which is decidedly not awesome." This has nothing to do with my premise.

If I go after my argument, I would say, "Buying more beer than water is just dumb, and someone who acts in a dumb manner is not awesome." That drives a wedge between my premises and my conclusion, and that's what you're looking to do on the LSAT.

As a note, I'd expect the NA answer to be along the lines of, "Someone who purchases more alcoholic beverages than other supplies might be awesome," or something along those lines.

And, as a final note, this attack the conclusion/argument distinction is a weird one, and there's an argument to be made for the nomenclature being reversed. Hopefully, I provided a detailed enough definition of how I view them to be helpful.

lsatkid007

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Re: Hurting the conclusion??

Post by lsatkid007 » Fri Nov 02, 2012 5:59 pm

Love the example BP and thank you for the explanation.

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