Science, philosophy, and government - message
Question
Which one of the following statements best reflects the most rational, logical and practical message conveyed by the passage?
Options
Modern statesmen need to be well trained in scientific methods and philosophical thinking to enable them to have a better perspective of their roles, responsibilities and goals.
It is not desirable to have Governments managed by empirical statesmen unless they are mixed with others who are grounded in learning and reflect wisdom.
As the statesmen/bureaucrats are the products of a society, it is desirable to have a system of education in a society that focuses on training its citizens in scientific method and philosophical thinking from a very early age.
It is desirable that all scientists need to be philosophers as well to make their work goal-oriented and thus purposeful and useful to the society.
Explanation
The author builds an explicit parallel: science needs philosophy to coordinate its results toward a meaningful goal, and government similarly suffers from "bedlam" when divorced from philosophy[cite: 4347, 4348, 4390]. Philosophy is defined as providing "total knowledge and perspective" [cite: 4348, 4390]. To practically translate this message into the realm of governance, political leaders must be grounded in both method and philosophical thinking to manage their responsibilities intentionally[cite: 4350, 4392]. Option (a) directly captures this synthesis[cite: 4350, 4392]. Option (c) introduces extraneous arguments about early childhood schooling systems, and option (d) isolates only the scientific branch of the comparison[cite: 4374, 4394, 4395].
Answer: (a).
Question details
Year
2023
Paper
CSAT
Question
Q72
Section
Reading Comprehension
Sub-topic
Philosophy / Governance passage
Type
RC - Critical message
Difficulty
Medium
Source hint
Passage-based comprehension
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