Q2 - Those who do not learn

[alovitt]

I narrowed it down to A and C, and incorrectly picked A. My thoughts:

I understand that Lewis' point is that we must know about history in order to learn lessons from it. For Morris, my initial take was that he says but anything can be proven or disproven given the variety of historical events. Thus, I thought he was claiming there are not any UNCONTESTED historical facts, since anything can be proven or disproven. I saw this as attacking Lewis' view that we MUST KNOW history. If we cannot know, then we cannot benefit from the lessons. However, from the stim I guess I may have been making too big of an assumption. It is possible for an historical fact to be contested even if it cannot be proven or disproven. Maybe for the intellectual exercise? Is that right?

At the same, I realize now that C cuts right to the chase, in that if nothing can be proven or disproven, then we cannot have any unequivocal lessons. Where did my reasoning go awry with A? How can I quickly eliminate A, nd how can I make C a more attractive choice. Thanks.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Ah! You're real close... There's a slight difference between

For Morris, my initial take was that he says but anything can be proven or disproven given the variety of historical events.

When you say "anything" I believe you're reading it relating information about the actual event. Instead the interpretation should be relating a lesson to be learned from history. So while the events are uncontested, the lessons one would draw from them are contested for there is a contrary lesson that could also be learned from another historical event.

If you read the word "anything" as an event, answer choice (A) makes sense, but if you read it as a lesson to be learned "from" a historical event, then answer choice (C) is better.

Let's look at the incorrect answers:

(A) is about the wrong sort of contest. The contest is over the lessons to be learned, not the historical events themselves.
(B) lines up against a point made by Lewis (though only apparently) but is not the issue raised by Morris.
(D) is not a point raised by either Lewis or Morris.
(E) is truism (making it maybe for some tempting), but is a point that they would probably both agree with as it seems to be implied in both their positions. But just because it might be an implication, does not make a point raised.

Hope that helps!

[schmid215]

One other thing about (A) is that even if Morris is talking about facts and not lessons, he appears to be saying that there are no facts that are in principle incontestable, not that there are no uncontested facts.

[Mab6q]

Regarding B:

1. we would say that Lewis would disagree with this, as he holds that it's not too narrow to be useful


2. does the issue comes with Morris, because his claim is limited to history being too broad (various) to be useful.

Thanks..

[ohthatpatrick]

I think we could split hairs over whether Lewis would agree/disagree with (B).

By urging us to acquire broad historical knowledge, in order to benefit from the lessons of history, one might say Lewis suggests that insufficiently broad knowledge of history wouldn't be useful (wouldn't allow us to benefit).

This kinda the contrapositive of
Benefit from history's lessons -> broad knowledge of H

I think you're treating historical knowledge as one, stable binary idea. You have it or you don't. Clearly Lewis thinks having it is useful.

But other posters were saying that since Lewis puts the "broad" knowledge modifier in his conclusion, he might implicitly be warning people against shallow historical knowledge (which presumably wouldn't be as useful / valuable).

Anyway ... this is all pretty boring stuff for a moot point.

As you said, Morris doesn't take a position on whether historical knowledge stops being useful when it's too narrow.

He's basically saying historical knowledge isn't useful. Period. Why? Because it's too varied. It provides us evidence for any conclusion we'd like to support.

So the focus of the debate isn't about how broad one's knowledge of history must be in order to be useful.

The debate is simply over whether learning "the lessons of history" is useful ... or alternatively, whether there ARE even "lessons of history", since Morris thinks that any lesson you could learn from ONE event could potentially be falsified by a DIFFERENT event.

[kristinaroz1001]

Hi Patrick,

How do we know Morris is talking about lessons versus historical facts? Is it because you cannot prove a fact and then its contrary?

Thanks!

[seychelles1718]

Hi Patrick,

How do we know Morris is talking about lessons versus historical facts? Is it because you cannot prove a fact and then its contrary?

Thanks!

I have the same question...can someone please help with this question?

Thanks!!!!

[ohthatpatrick]

There's no great answer to this question, because it's just based on contextual understanding.

The quickest answer would probably be that when Morris speaks of history's "inexhaustible storehouse of events", he seems to be talking about "the facts of history".

He doesn't seem to be saying, "We don't have ANY idea what ACTUALLY happened in history. EVERY historical fact is contested." (A) is accusing Morris of that incredibly extreme position.

Morris's wording is weird, because it shouldn't EVER be possible to prove something and to prove its contrary. (doesn't matter whether that something is a 'fact' or a 'lesson'. Either one would be expressed as a claim, and every claim should have a true, false, or undetermined truth value. There shouldn't be any claim that is both true and false.)

But in context, Morris is saying "prove anything" in the sense of "formulate a lesson of history". I interpret 'Lessons of history' to mean cause-effect relationships. If we're trying to avoid mistakes of the past, we're trying to avoid taking (or not taking) certain actions that previously resulted in undesirable consequences.

Morris is saying that it's hard to set up stable cause-effect relationships.

You can find an example when
[squelching rebellion] ----led to----> [revolution]
and another example when
[squelching rebellion] ----led to ---> [solidifying an administration's power]

So it's possible to prove "you SHOULD squelch the rebellion" as well as to prove "you SHOULDN'T squelch the rebellion".

And again, Morris's wording is lame. He really means it's possible to support any claim or its contrary.

Hope this helps.