Q17 - It is a mistake to

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Glad to help.

The argument is designed to establish that one can have an idea of what something is without having a name for it. There is an appeal to an example to illustrate this point, but there is an assumption between the example and the principle the argument attempts to establish.

Having a name for something is actually consistent between the example and the principle. Where there is a gap is between the example of the fruit tree and having an idea of what something is. So it's conceivable that one could repeatedly harvest from a fruit tree and return to study it while still not having a notion of what the tree is. Best expressed in answer choice (D).

Here's an analogy to try and help you see the structure. It's like saying that every basketball player who makes it to the pros practices a lot. Therefore Gary practiced a lot, since he made it to the All-Star game.

There's an assumption in there that if you make it to the All-Star game then you play in the pros. It links two unconnected terms.

(A) weakens the conclusion which is that one can know something without naming it.
(B) is out of scope. The degree to which someone knows something is not discussed. You either know it, or you don't!
(C) is too strong. We want to distinguish knowing something from naming it, but the name can provide information about the nature of the thing without undermining the conclusion.
(E) undermines the wrong claim. Suppose one need know what something is before naming it. Then if you can name it, you must know it. The conclusion is that it's not true that if you know it, then you must have a name for it. It's reversed!

Does that help clear this up?


#officialexplanation

[gyfirefire]

i narrowed down to (D) and (E) but didn't pick the right one. Could anyone explain why (D) is right while (E) is wrong?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[gyfirefire]

It is a shame that i understood (E) as "One need not be able to name it before one can know it", even though what (E) really states is "One need not know what something is before one can name it". I don't know what was with me during the test, but it was not the first time recently.

Thank you very much once again for the help.

By the way, if (E) is what i interpreted as ""One need not be able to name it before one can know it", it should be qualified as the correct answer as well, is it correct?

[john]

17. (D)
Question type: Assumption

The argument concludes that it is possible to have knowledge of moral rights even if a society does not have an explicit expression for "moral rights." As evidence, the author compares the situation to that of a person who harvests and studies a tree without knowing its name. This passage is tricky mostly because it’s such a strange argument; you might expect that the assumption would call for making some connection between trees and moral rights. But in fact, the key point here is that the premise, as given, doesn’t come out and say that the person who harvests and studies the tree has knowledge of it before having a name for it. It might sound as though (D) just repeats what the argument has claimed. But what (D) adds is verification that anyone who makes the statement cited in the premise is wrong.

(A) goes in the wrong direction; the point of the argument is that you can know what something is without knowing its name.
(B) adds an additional, unnecessary comparison between people who first encounter something and people that have a name for that thing.
(C) is too strong; it’s possible that someone can know a thing without knowing its name, and that a name can still add information about that thing.
(E) is backwards: the question is not whether you can name something without knowing it, but whether you can know something without naming it.

[farhadshekib]

It is a shame that i understood (E) as "One need not be able to name it before one can know it", even though what (E) really states is "One need not know what something is before one can name it". I don't know what was with me during the test, but it was not the first time recently.

Thank you very much once again for the help.

By the way, if (E) is what i interpreted as ""One need not be able to name it before one can know it", it should be qualified as the correct answer as well, is it correct?

Negate your version of (E): "One needs to be able to name something before one can know it". It would hurt the arguments conclusion, which suggests that people can know something without naming it.

So, yeah, I think it would be a correct assumption.

[T.J.]

Is it an argument by analogy between ancient people and a person who discovers fruit?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Is it an argument by analogy between ancient people and a person who discovers fruit?

Sure, you could characterize it that way! The author is making an analogy between ancient people and moral rights and some person and fruit. So for the argument to make sense, we need the analogy idea to have the characteristic we are trying to prove, and we also need the two things to be appropriately similar.

Note that the correct answer here targets the first of those, but the argument is also assuming that ancient people used/interacted with moral rights in the same way that this hypothetical person interacted with fruit - if they didn't, then the fruit situation would not be analogous. The LSAT could just as easily have tested that idea!

[robinzhang7]

17. (D)
Question type: Assumption

The argument concludes that it is possible to have knowledge of moral rights even if a society does not have an explicit expression for "moral rights." As evidence, the author compares the situation to that of a person who harvests and studies a tree without knowing its name. This passage is tricky mostly because it’s such a strange argument; you might expect that the assumption would call for making some connection between trees and moral rights. But in fact, the key point here is that the premise, as given, doesn’t come out and say that the person who harvests and studies the tree has knowledge of it before having a name for it. It might sound as though (D) just repeats what the argument has claimed. But what (D) adds is verification that anyone who makes the statement cited in the premise is wrong.

(E) is backwards: the question is not whether you can name something without knowing it, but whether you can know something without naming it.

Can someone show me how answer (E) is the reverse?

It seems to me the conclusion is saying:
~(~name --> ~know), otherwise known as ~name --> know

(E): name --> ~know

Is this correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

Some people concluded
"Since no name for moral right, people didn't KNOW about moral rights"

That's symbolized
No Name for X -> Don't Know X

The author says that this conditional is a mistake. Refuting a conditional always means saying it's possible to have the left side WITHOUT having the right side.

So the author is saying "it's possible that they had no name for moral rights, but that they DID know what moral rights are."

Put another way, "one need not have a name for something in order to know what it is."

This is the reverse of what (E) is saying.

[rpak]

I got this question correct, but can someone let me know if my thinking process is right?

I chose D because it seemed like the only assumption that is REQUIRED by the argument given in the stimulus. The other answers seem a bit too vague or too generalizable.

Also, will most Required Assumptions be like this? Having wrong answer choices that are too generalizable or require us to infer more than what the stimulus contains.

[AnnaT620]

Hi Team

I picked C because when I negated "The name or expression that is used to identify something can provide some information about the nature of the thing that is identified."

I thought that D was too narrow, because it just discussed fruit trees (i.e. only the discussed the premise, rather than any comment on the conclusion and the relationship between the premise & conclusion)? How do I avoid making this mistake in the future?

Thanks so much!
Anna