Juanita has taken six courses at Valley Community College, and she has a grade average of B so far. All the courses she has taken have been in sociology and psychology. She's thinking of enrolling in another course next term, and she expects to make at least a B in whatever she takes. Suppose that when she took the previous courses, Juanita had done all her studying alone because she didn't know any of the other students at Valley but that now she knows several good students and plans to study with them when she takes her next course. Would her argument be stronger or weaker?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Weaker. This may seem paradoxical, but we're thinking of a separate argument (which might go something like this: Juanita studies better when she studies with other good students; she did not study with other students for her previous courses, but she'll study with other good students for the next course; therefore, she'll study better for the next course). This other argument would support the conclusion, provided that its premises are true. But the original analogical argument is weakened because of the addition of a relevant difference between the conclusion-analogue and the premise-analogue.