#24 - It has been said that authors who write in order to

[captainkirk185]

I understand the difference between an author's intent to give pleasure and the actual giving of pleasure. But how do we determine which of the two sufficient conditions that are being equated becomes necessary/suffient? For example:

This argument says, it is not the case that: author's intent to give pleasure Not(True)
Evidence: If this were the case then, popular books gave pleasure Not(True)

The sufficient conditions intent to give pleasure and gave pleasure have the same necessary condition. Since they are, therefore, treated as the same, how do we determine which of them is sufficient and which is necessary? Or does this mean that they are both sufficient and necessary for one another in this argument? In other words:
intent to give pleasure actually giving pleasure ?

I hope this question makes sense. I guess I'm also asking if Answer D would have been equally correct to say:
If a book was intended by its author to give pleasure then it will have that effect.

Thank you for your help!

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for your question, Captain! Always happy to help out someone from Starfleet!

Think of it this way - the premises in this argument are about books that actually give pleasure (popular books). The conclusion is about books that are intended by their authors to give pleasure. In general, when looking at any argument on the LSAT, the author presumes that if his premises are true, his conclusion must follow from them. In other words, the premises are assumed to be sufficient, and the conclusion is assumed to be necessary. That allows us to prephrase, in this case, "if a book gives pleasure (the premises), then it was intended to do so (the conclusion)." Doing it the other way around is making the conclusion sufficient for the premises, which is not how arguments work!

I hope that helps and that you live long and prosper!

[LSAT2HARD]

When I try to figure out why D is the correct answer, I realized D is a necessary assumption only needed to examine the first sentence.
Basically, the first sentence establishes:

Writes to give pleasure Tell the truth

The stimulus is trying to weaken this argument. So if negate D, we will get even if authors who don't intend to give pleasure can still give pleasure (accidentally). Then there will be no need to argue anymore, because those who intend to render truth may give pleasure at the same time. Without this assumption, the rest of the stimulus is pointless.

Am I right?

[LSAT2HARD]

So in other words, this assumption is to strengthen the argument that the stimulus intent to counter. The stimulus doesn't want to disagree with the argument if there is the possibility that authors who don't intend to give pleasure can still give pleasure. If so, the further argument will be otiose.

[Adam Tyson]

It's easy to get tied in knots on this one, right? But you're correct - the assumption will support that idea that you can write to give pleasure and still impart truth, and that is the same as weakening the opposing claim in this case. The key is to recognize that the evidence has nothing to do with the intentions of any authors, but only about their results. To bridge the gap, you need to connect the idea of intending to give pleasure to the idea of actually giving pleasure.

Nicely done!