Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

There are two ways of doing this:

The harder way

The phrase "without seeming unworldly" means "without appearing unworldy".

The word "seeming" means "appearing to be real or true, but not necessarily being so". So "seeming uworldly" means appearing unworldly, while in actuality it might be worldly. Therefore "without seeming unworldly" implies unworldliness.

So the sentence should complete as "William James appeared wholly removed from the world"

OR

Without appearing unwordly, William James appeared wholly removed from the world.

But we have "from the _________ of society".

The only word from the choice list which comes close to "world" is "commonplaces". For the world is indeed made up of "commonplaces of society". Ethos comes close, but does not make the cut. Ethos refers to the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations. Idealism, romance and paradoxes are nowhere near close to "world".

The easier way

Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

Now, we do not know from what aspect of the society he was removed from. But we do have a comma, which continues the idea and states "the conventionality of the academe"

So,

"the ________ of society" = "the conventionality of academe"

Therefore the word for the blank should be a synonym of "conventionality". Therefore commonplaces is the correct choice.

The word conventionality also helps you to reject "ethos" when you do it the harder way enunciated first.
_________________

why is it not D but E since "Academe" seems to fit well with "Paradoxes".
Thanks in advance for replying.

The academia and the scholars related to it basically are scientists.

They study all the environment and interactions we do have in our surrounding world AND conversely our society.

He was aware and perfectly he did know of being detached from the commonplaces that society has as a whole.

A is quite tricky but we do not have a clue about the ethos which is guidelines we should have when act: respect, sense of common good , and so forth.

B and C are out of scope.

D has no clue in the entire sentence

E is the answer
_________________

Could you perhaps elaborate why B would be out of scope?
I was between B and E, yet both seemed to fit for me

Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

Without seeming unworldly= unworldly means he, in his writing, had a lack of sophistication.

However, we do have also without which denies the previous statement I did

So, deconstructing and reconstruction the meaning is the following:

he still had or used complex writing, he, nonetheless, did not have the commonplace typical of the academia.

I.E we wrote in a complex manner BUT he did not have commonplace. For instance, he did not write sophisticated just to look wacky or erudite.

All this to say that B is out of scope. the word does not have any implication with the meaning of the sentence.

Regards
_________________

Is the "Without seeming unworldly" a trap that can be ignored because of the double negations?

what was the clue in the sentence for choosing the answer ?

I also used something like the easier method that you mentioned. But how we can ignore "Idealism" as a synonym of Conventionality? I choose B instead of E (Commonplaces)

How is "idealism" the synonym of "conventionality" ? In fact "idealism" is almost the antonym of "conventionality"
_________________

Still dont get it How's the answers i was torn between not even in the conversation

tell me Sir

How can I help you ??
_________________

Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

there is no contrast or opposite feeling in this sentence. After the comma, rephrasing the blank of society, that will be something conventional or common.

So the right answer will be commonplaces.

No need to focus on "without seeming unworldly". Seeming gives a negative feeling, seeming unworldly means worldly and ultimately it ends with "without worldly or unworldly". And this actually adds nothing to the blank. It is showing that without the conventionality of the academy William appears to be nothing or thrown out.

Without seeming unworldly = he was aware of the things, it's not that he was not aware.
even tough he was aware of the standards, he did not match up with it and hence he lost his commonplace as per the conventionality of academia.
Here conventionality of academia is traditional approach followed by the academia.

Can someone explain what conventionality of academe mean..

A way to see the question is the following

William James was an original or unusual guy"

He was out from a standard frame or incapsulation. he was funny, weird NONconventional. The same conventionality that are promoted by academe=academia=university
_________________

What does sentence means overall?
Without seeming unworldly, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

I interpret it as : WJ pretends/appears to be experienced. He appeared isolated from ______ of society, which is tradition of academy.
is this correct interpretation? And I find these society and academy different. But the explanation have equated them.

Without seeming unworldly

Means: being straightforward or saying the things as they are, directly ORRR without weird or awkward things I.E. saying something that makes sense

, William James appeared wholly removed from the (i) _______ of society, the conventionality of academe.

he was detached from what were the norms. I.E he was an unconventional person

therefore he did not adhere to the norms or rules of normal living

Hope this helps
_________________

Fitting academe with Paradoxes is based on an assumption that is, perhaps, coming from your mind (external information). This is an incorrect approach because of two reasons:

1. It is possible that the convention of academia is positive towards the society, i.e., they admire the society or think that the society is ideal. In that case, they won't be having paradoxes with it.

2. Linking of the disposition of academia with the society is something that requires information from outside the sentence, because the sentence does not provide any information about the relationship of the thoughts of academia and the subject of society. However, in the GRE, we are not expected to answer a question based on outside information. So, we should strictly refer to only the information evolving from the given sentence.

I hope my reasoning is correct. If not, please correct me, otherwise give me a kudo.