Professor: One cannot frame an accurate conception of one’s physical

Professor: One cannot frame an accurate conception of one’s physical environment on the basis of a single momentary perception, since each such glimpse occurs from only one particular perspective. Similarly, any history book gives only a distorted view of the past, since it reflects the biases and prejudices of its author.

Premise: Each such glimpse occurs from only one particular perspective
Conclusion: One cannot frame an accurate conception of one’s physical environment on the basis of a single momentary perception
Comparison: Similarly, any history book gives only a distorted view of the past, since it reflects the biases and prejudices of its author

For those who can't comprehend what the argument is trying to say, break it down as I have done above. This will make it easier to think about the question in a non-abstract way. We are being told something cannot be framed in a certain way, followed by some evidence why. We are then given an analogous comparison to support our premise and, subsequently, our conclusion. Let's see which answer choice does this the best.

The professor’s argument proceeds by

(A) attempting to show that one piece of reasoning is incorrect by comparing it with another, presumably flawed, piece of reasoning -- Oh, so close. A trap answer choice. Think about this for a moment. If I rewrite the sentence like this: attempting to show that one piece of reasoning is incorrect by comparing it with another, presumably flawed, piece of reasoning. Are we trying to show that we are incorrect with the comparison? No! We are trying to support it. This twists the words around to sound good, but in reality it really goes against the argument. Out.

(B) developing a case for one particular conclusion by arguing that if that conclusion were false, absurd consequences would follow -- Where do we talk about these absurd consequences? We are told that one action occurring is wrong and given a situation to support it. This would correct in a case like "I think milk is good for you because cows are good. I also believe that if cows are considered bad, the world is going to end. Therefore, cows are good". This would be pretty close to absurd.

(C) making a case for the conclusion of one argument by showing that argument’s resemblance to another, presumably cogent, argument -- Perfect. We are given an analogous situation that is supportive of our claim that something is bad. This is word for word what we need, and it fits our diagram above very well!

(D) arguing that because something has a certain group of characteristics, it must also have another, closely related, characteristic -- So this skips the comparison/analogy all together, although it tries to sound like it is comparing something. This is saying that, for example, cows are black and white therefore they all must have something else in common. Really? Breaking this down, we can see that this does not match anything above and just says that things are similar because they are similar. But our argument is arguing for something. This ignores almost the entire issue.

(E) arguing that a type of human cognition is unreliable in one instance because it has been shown to be unreliable under similar circumstances -- Kind of weird, and kind of like (C), except it is talking about human cognition, which is never touched upon in this question. And who knows if human cognition is used in both circumstances? We are just told about viewpoints, which may or may not use cognition. Be careful not to make assumptions about something being talked about. It is easy to say that we probably use human cognition for the above items, but we just don't know. In this case, we are comparing moments in time.