A counterclaim is a reason someone disagrees with a position. Option A is correct.
Counterclaim is denined as a statement that someone makes in response to a statement that has been made by someone else, and that is different from it.
In terms of essays, counterclaims are understood to be the opposite of the argument, or the opposing argument that will be develope with examples that support it in order to prove that this point of view or position is correct in opposition to another one.
Answer:
Emerson warns that friendship is “too good to be believed,” because one can never truly know another person; to Emerson, there is a “strict science” that keeps all persons in “remoteness” from one another. Because a person cannot know another person completely, friendship then is based on an imagined concept.