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Difficulty: EasyComposition and Division (Part to Whole)

The university's symphony orchestra is world-renowned and critically acclaimed for its brilliant performances. Therefore, it must be true that every individual musician in the university's symphony orchestra is a world-renowned and critically acclaimed musician.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the argument's reasoning?

  1. A
    infers a causal relationship from a mere association between two phenomena
  2. B
    takes a condition that is necessary for an outcome to occur as a condition that is sufficient to guarantee that outcome
  3. C
    treats a statement about some members of a group as if it applied to all members of that group
  4. infers that each part of an organization has a certain property merely on the grounds that the organization as a whole has that propertyAnswer
  5. E
    relies on the ambiguous use of a key term in two completely different senses

Answer

The correct answer is the option that states the argument infers that each part of an organization has a certain property merely on the grounds that the organization as a whole has that property.
The argument commits a Fallacy of Division. It states that a group (the symphony orchestra) possesses a certain quality (being world-renowned and critically acclaimed), and then incorrectly concludes that every single member making up that group must individually possess the exact same quality. The correct answer precisely identifies this flawed logical leap from the whole to its constituent parts.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the argument's conclusion.
The conclusion is that every individual musician in the orchestra is world-renowned and critically acclaimed.
Finding the conclusion is always the critical first step in evaluating an argument's reasoning structure.
2
Identify the premise supporting this conclusion.
The premise is that the symphony orchestra as a whole is world-renowned and critically acclaimed.
Understanding the evidence allows us to see how the author derived the conclusion.
3
Analyze the relationship between the premise and the conclusion to find the logical gap.
The author moves from a characteristic of an entire group (the orchestra) to claiming that the exact same characteristic applies to every individual part (the musicians) of that group.
Identifying the gap reveals the logical flaw.
4
Match the identified flaw with the correct abstract description in the answer choices.
The correct answer accurately describes inferring that parts of an organization have a property because the organization as a whole has it.
This is the precise definition of the Fallacy of Division demonstrated in the stimulus text.

Key Concept

Fallacy of Division (Whole-to-Part Flaw)
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Topics

Composition and Division (Part to Whole)

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