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The following sentence is from Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman:

Questioning what we believe and want is difficult at the best of times, and especially difficult when we most need to do it, but we can benefit from the informed opinions of others.

I'd like to know how the last clause connects semantically to the rest of the sentence. Is it true to rephrase it as follows?

Although questioning what we believe and want is difficult..., we can benefit from the informed opinions of others.

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    Your supposition is correct. What makes it hard to understand for you is no doubt that the final clause doesn't explicitly tie itself back to the subject of the sentence. The author feels perhaps that it was redundant to add further elucidation.
    – Robusto
    Sep 22, 2017 at 0:48
  • Thanks @Robusto. I thought maybe the last clause is somehow connected to "when we most need to do it" and not the beginning clause. I was considering a sentence like "when we most need to do it but we aren't able to".
    – user60033
    Sep 22, 2017 at 0:58
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    I suspect that the logical follow-on to that clause would be something like "... at such times," or "... in matters like these," etc.
    – Robusto
    Sep 22, 2017 at 1:09

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Your rephrase is correct, but I think "this is why" works better than "although" to link the two parts of the sentence:

Questioning our own beliefs and ideas is difficult, and this is why we can benefit from the opinions of others.

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