Negation of Even if

[lathlee]

I know negation of necessary condition invovles even if, as in sufficient condition can occur with or without the necessary condition, that the necessary condition is not necessary to occur in order to suffici3ent condition to occur.

Then I got into thinking what about the negation of even if? as in "Lebron James will not overcome MJ's place as the greatest basketball player of all time even if he wins 4 more NBA championship titles. "

in here lebron james will not overtake MJ's place regardless what he does , right?

the negation of the prior form would be Lebron James will not overcome MJ's place as the greatest basketball player of all time unless he wins 4 more NBA championship titles.

Is this correct? that in this occasion LBJ will overcome MJ ----> he wins 4 more NBA championship titles.

[lathlee]

Hi. can i get an answer? haha

[lathlee]

Also, shouldn't EVEN IF be treated as

Unless, until, except, without, TM equation by Powerscore.

as in Even if TM (By Powerscore and possibly ME) is a necessary condition modifier that enables the term that is modified by EVEN IF to be a necessary condition but a rest of condition, sufficient condition, can or cannot occur regardless of the condition that is modified by Even IF, to be met or not.

I am somewhat shocked/puzzled that other people see EVEN IF as more like sufficient condition modifier in the FORUM.

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there lathlee, let me see if I can help. It looks like we may be dealing with two different conditional issues here.

Sometimes we have a conditional claim and we want to negate a term (usually the necessary term) to create a contrapotive, or perhaps to parallel a Mistaken Negation or Mistaken Reversal. That sort of negation is saying that the condition DID NOT HAPPEN. So, if an argument contains the claim "If Lebron wins 4 championships, then he will overtake MJ as the greatest ever", we would negate the necessary condition this way to create a contrapositive: "If Lebron does not overtake MJ, then he did not win 4 more championships."

The use of "even if" mostly comes into play when we are doing a different type of negation, typically for the Assumption Negation Technique on an answer choice to an Assumption question. In that case, we are not interested in saying that a condition does not occur. Instead, we are looking to show that the conditional claim is a false claim. "It's not true that If Lebron wins 4 championships, he will overtake MJ as the greatest ever." We can say that another way, using "even if": "Lebron will not overtake MJ even if he does win 4 more championships" or "even if he wins 4 more championships he will still not overtake MJ as the greatest player ever." This type of negation isn't about conditions happening or not happening; it is about showing that the purported sufficient condition is NOT sufficient. Essentially, it becomes irrelevant, because it no longer tells us anything about the supposed necessary condition.

Now, your original claim was "Lebron James will not overcome MJ's place as the greatest basketball player of all time even if he wins 4 more NBA championship titles." This is not, as written, a conditional claim. Just the opposite - it is saying that one thing is NOT sufficient for another. I would not do any conditional analysis on this claim. However, if this was an answer choice to an Assumption question, and I wanted to logically negate it, I would be trying to make it into a false statement. I might say "Lebron James WILL overcome MJ if he wins 4 more titles." I could also say something like "Lebron could overcome MJ as the greatest ever if he doesn't win 4 more titles." That's not a conditional issue at all, but just a focus on making the original claim untrue. For the purposes of Assumption Negation, that's the end goal - make the answer untrue. The main idea in your original claim is that it is impossible for Lebron to overcome MJ. Negate that by making it possible, however you choose to word that.

Be sure you are not confusing the two types of negation! One type, when dealing with a conditional claim, is about saying a certain condition DID NOT OCCUR. The other type, when dealing with an Assumption and trying to negate it, is to simply make the statement untrue.