GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: NO9

Historically, a cornerstone of classical empiricism has been the notion that every true generalization must be conformable by specific observations. In classical empiricism, the truth of "All balls are red," for example, is assessed by inspecting balls; any observation of a nonred ball refutes unequivocally the proposed generalization.

For W.V.O. Quine, however, this constitutes an overly "narrow" conception of empiricism. "All balls are red," he maintains, forms one strand within an entire web of statements (our knowledge);individual observations can be referred only to this web as a whole. As new observations are collected, he explains they must be integrated into the web. Problems occur only if a contradiction develops between a new observation, say, "That ball is blue," and the preexisting statements. In that case, he argues, statement or combination of statements (not merely the "offending" generalization, as in classical empiricism) can be altered to achieve the fundamental requirement, a system free of contradictions, even if, in some cases, the alteration consists of labeling the new observation a "hallucination.

Question List: 1 2 3 4

As described in the passage, Quine's specific argument against classical empiricism would be most strengthened if he did which of the following?

  • A Provided evidence that many observations are actually hallucinations.
  • B Explained why new observations often invalidate preexisting generalizations.
  • C Challenged the mechanism by which specific generalizations are derived from collections of particular observations.
  • D Mentioned other critics of classical empiricism and the substance of their approaches.
  • E Gave an example of a specific generalization that has not been invalidated despite a contrary observation.

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