QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Any philosophy course will serve students later in life.
REASONING: Some philosophy courses teach students to write well. Any course which teaches students to write well will serve them later in life.
ANALYSIS: Hopefully a philosophy professor did not make this argument. We can only conclude that some philosophy course will serve students later in life (those courses which teach students to write well). We don’t know about all philosophy courses.
___________
- There could be many different methods. As long as the course does teach students to write, it will be useful.
- This stimulus draws a stronger conclusion than is warranted.
- An example of this error would be “The army can conquer a foreign country. So this individual soldier can do the same, individually”.
- According to the stimulus, they should be glad they were forced to take that course, as it will help them later in life. In any case, that possibility doesn’t change anything.
- CORRECT. Fancy language, but this is it. We only know philosophy course which teach students to write well will be useful later. And only “some” courses do that. Note: Remember that “some” can include “all”. So this conclusion could be true. It just doesn’t have to be.
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