All German Philosphers, except for Marx, are Idealists GMAT Critical Reasoning

Question: All German philosphers, except for Marx, are idealists.

From which of the following can the statement above be most properly inferred?

1. Except for Marx, if someone is an idealist philosopher, then he or she is German.
2. Marx is the only non-German philosopher who is an idealist.
3. If a German is an idealist, then he or she is a philosopher, as long as he or she is not Marx.
4. Marx is not an idealist German philosopher.
5. Aside from the philosopher Marx, if someone is a German philosopher, then he or she is an idealist.

“All German philosphers, except for Marx, are idealists.”- is a GMAT critical reasoning topic. This GMAT Critical Reasoning topic has been taken from the book ‘GMAT Prep Plus 2021.’

This GMAT critical comes with five options and candidates need to choose the one which is correct. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. To answer the question, a candidate can either find a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or have logical flaws in the argument. Candidates get 65 minutes to answer 36 MCQ questions in the critical reasoning section of the GMAT.

Answer: E
Explanation: The question asks to find an answer choice from which we could deduce the sentence in the stem. If E is true, then all Germans (except for Marx) are idealists. Of course it then follows that all German philosophers (except for Marx) are idealists. So we can indeed draw the conclusion in the stem. If, as (E) says, anyone who is a German philosopher is an idealist except for the philosopher Marx, then all German philosophers except for Marx are idealists. That being the case, it would certainly be true that, as the stimulus says, with the exception of Marx. All German philosophers-these folks being a subset of all Germans-are idealists. Now while (E)'s claim that all German philosophers are idealists may sound a bit absurd (perhaps we know some German philosophers who aren't idealists). We're concerned with strict logic here, not content. So E is correct, and no word is missing.

Option A

The prompt talks about German philosophers who are not Marx. Option A talks about all philosophers except Marx. This subtle difference makes Option A incorrect.

Option B

If Marx is a non-German philosopher who is an idealist, the correct inference would be All non-German philosophers, except Marx, are non-idealists. Option B is incorrect.

Option C

This option reverses the conditions of an idealist and a philosopher. Therefore, it is incorrect.

Option D
This is subtle. If Marx is not an idealist German philosopher, there would be doubts such as "is Marx not an idealist?" or "is Marx not a German?" or "is Marx not a philosopher?" Because of so many doubts, option D is incorrect.

Option E

This option establishes Marx as a philosopher. It also undoes the problematic reversal observed in Option C. Therefore, E is the correct answer.

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