Barack Obama 2.0 wrote:TAD wrote:Barack Obama 2.0 wrote:Can someone explain this question to me?
Conclusion - Don't need to take seriously their claim that every human discovery or invention is an instance of self-expression till they give a more interesting interpretation
Why this conclusion?
Because it's not just human discovery and invention that are self-expressive, but, at least trivially, pretty much every thing humans do are self expressive.
This is akin to me saying I got an A on my exam and then you rebutting with the claim that everyone in this class pretty much got an A on the exam. So, people shouldn't take my A seriously until I can give you a better interpretation as to why my A is important. Your rebuttal would be supported, if it was true that no one should take seriously any A grade received by a person in which everyone in that person's class received the same A grade. Because what if it is incredibly hard to get an A, and i just crapped out and was in a class of highly smart people and the class wasn't curved.
This is similar to C, in which it states that, anything trivial is not worthy of serious consideration. This helps the conclusion because even though everything trivial that humans do is self expressive, perhaps they are still worthy of serious consideration. Answer C strengthens this argument by preventing this assumption.
Thanks for your explanation. Really helped. I have one other question. There seems to be a term shift between trivial (premise) and what is interesting/what should be taken seriously in the conclusion and so I initially fell for answer choice (A), why is it wrong? it seems to bridge the gap precipitated by the term shift I identified.
You have to go back to the stem again and look at what it is asking you. You are trying to support the reasoning in the argument. So you need to ask yourself what is this reasoning. Well, the reasoning is that, because their claim in not interesting, we don't need to take it serious until they can make a more interesting claim. So you have to subsequently ask yourself, well why do the people need to give a more interesting claim in order for us to take their claim seriously? In other words, why can't we take a boring or uninteresting claim seriously?
Even though A shows that trivial is linked to what is interesting/uninteresting, by saying that trivial claims are uninteresting, it doesn't address the reasoning (back to the stem), let alone support it. It tells me trivial claims are uninteresting, but it needs to tell me (or support) why we shouldn't take these claims seriously. Perhaps we should still take uninteresting claims seriously. The rules a skydiving instructor tells you might be a bore or uninteresting, but you'd be hard pressed not to take it seriously before jumping out of a plane.
C, on the other hand, addresses why we shouldn't take their claims seriously.
Essentially, answer choice A addresses and restates a premise
* Premise: need more interesting interpretation of their claim
* Answer choice: trivial claims not interesting
Answer choice C addresses the conclusion and why it should be followed through a sort of linkage
* Premise: human discovery and invention is instance of self-expression
* Premise: Self-expression is trivial
* Answer choice: trivial claims not worthy of serious consideration
* Conclusion: don't take claim of self-expression seriously
Hope that makes sense.