<p>The ______ of the early Greek philosopher's attempts to explain the operations of the cosmos led certain later thinkers to inquire into the ______ of human reason. </p>
<p>The right answer is E. I know all the words in the answer choice. I just don't understand the entire sentence and the answer. It seems to me that none of the answers is correct. Please help. Thanks</p>
<p>Well the first blank seems to have a negative connotation. Thus B, C, and D are out. The second blank seems to deal with finding veracity, so the answer choice is E.</p>
<p>Paraphrasing: The failure to explain how the world works led people to ask about the usefulness of human reason.</p>
<p>Since the early Greek philosophers weren’t able to explain how the well ordered Universe (“cosmos”) operates (using human reason), and that is such an important and visible problem, later we started to question the usefulness (“efficacy”) of human reason itself.</p>
<p>Well the first blank seems to have a negative connotation. True </p>
<p>Thus B, C, and D are out. No, Only B is neutral, All others are “negative” or “difficult” </p>
<p>The second blank seems to deal with finding veracity, so the answer choice is E. Not what is needed!
What you need is to have a contradiction and a “positive” in the second term. None of A, C, or D offers such a match. E with efficacy is right on the money! </p>
<p>Because the Greek philosophers couldn’t figure out how the cosmos worked, later thinkers began to suspect that the Greek philosophers weren’t so smart after all. Plugging in the words and trying to rephrase the resulting sentence can help.</p>