Verbal Ability – Summary – Both Socrates and Bacon were
Verbal Ability – Summary
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the summary that best captures the author’s position.
Question
Both Socrates and Bacon were very good at asking useful questions. In fact, Socrates is largely credited with corning up with a way of asking questions, ‘the Socratic method/ which itself is at the core of the ‘scientific method, ‘popularised by Bacon. The Socratic method disproves arguments by finding exceptions to them, and can therefore lead your opponent to a point where they admit something that contradicts their original position. In common with Socrates, Bacon stressed it was as important to disprove a theory as it was to prove one – and real-world observation and experimentation were key to achieving both aims. Bacon also saw science as a collaborative affair, with scientists working together, challenging each other.
A) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated clever questioning of the opponents to disprove their arguments and theories.
B) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated challenging arguments and theories by observation and experimentation.
C) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated confirming arguments and theories by finding exceptions.
D) Both Socrates and Bacon advocated examining arguments and theories from both sides to prove them.
Answer
Option (D)
Solution
After reading the above passage about Summary from CAT 2017 – Verbal Ability, we can infer that,
Both Socrates and Bacon believed that arguments and theories can be validated only by examining them from both sides. This point is stated only in option D.
Option A, which states that Socrates and Bacon advocated clever questioning in order to disprove the arguments and theories put forth by opponents, is not the appropriate summary of the paragraph.
Option B captures only a part of the argument.
Option C is a distortion of the paragraph.
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