Conditional & Causal Reasoning

[ajsadeghi]

Hi Paul!
Thanks so much for your prompt reply, it really helped to clear things up! So I should NOT think of the Necessary condition as something that is "necessary" or "required" to occur FIRST for the sufficient to occur AFTERWARDS, but more of a "flow-of-logic" point of view in which if we know the sufficient, then it necessarily/logically follows that either this happens or this already has happened disregarding the tense the events are written in, and that the sufficient is sort of the piece of information that allows us to determine for certain whether the necessary has happened or will happen?

I should then not think time/tense as much of a factor in determining the respective conditions or "If...then..." phrases as always following a chronological order (where if x happens first, then y happens after), but as phrases that show an order of logic regardless of which came first?

I greatly appreciate your help!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi A,

I'd suggest reading some of these articles—they will help!

• Avoid Real World Interpretations and Follow the Language: http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... p=216#p216
  
  One More Look on what Sufficient and Necessary Means (this is key so that when indicators aren't present, we know what we're doing): http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 6166#p6166
  
  LSAT Conditional Reasoning: When To Diagram: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/333 ... To-Diagram
  
  The PowerScore LSAT Blog, Conditional Reasoning articles - https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/catego ... reasoning/. We write often about this concept, and there are over 20 articles here discussions all sorts of interesting conditional language and arrow relationships.
  
  My posts on this Forum, all searchable: https://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/searc ... 3&sr=posts

Give those a read and hopefully that will clarify your questions here

Thanks!