#22 - For the writers who first gave feudalism its name, the

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Hailey,

I'm glad you asked, because this is one of the things that can be a little frustrating as you're developing a sense for the presence of conditional reasoning.

A couple guides: first, remember that conditional reasoning is about establishing a relationship in which the occurrence (or presence) of one thing is necessary for the occurrence (or presence) of another. If a statement's meaning (regardless of the language used) is that one thing's occurrence is necessary for another's, you've got a conditional statement. Second, there's definitely a vocabulary of terms and statement types beyond just the most common indicators terms (which is where we want students to start, but never to finish!).

The first sentence of this stimulus uses the term "presupposed," which you can think of in this context as an indicator of a necessary condition. Something "presupposed," is something "assumed," and something "assumed" is something necessary. Since that first sentence is saying that certain writers thought the presence of a noble class is necessary to the presence of feudalism, it's saying those writers thought there was a conditional relationship between those things.

The takeaway is to keep an eye on the term "presupposed," particularly where it creates a relationship between the presence or occurrence of two different things. In that context, it's likely a necessary condition indicator.

Hopefully this helps!

Jeremy

[simonsap]

This was chained and explained well, but I like putting things in my own words.

Feudalism Noble Class Title + Law for Title Inheritance

1. Feudalism existed in 8th century
2. Law for Title Inheritance didn't exist till 12th century

These two claims are at odds according to our definitions. Either feudalism can exist without law for title inheritance and the definition is wrong, or the definition is right and what they say was feudalism wasn't really feudalism (because it didn't have the law).

ANS choice A captures this. It basically says that the logic of our definition as illustrated in the chain is wrong because nobility depends not only on 1) titles (which may have been there), but also 2) a law for passing on titles (which wasn't there until later), and history showed that feudalism can exist without both.

[salgado145]

Hi

My question is when do we have to diagram? As I was reading the passage I got confused when I read "Yet there cannot be a noble class properly speaking unless both the titles that indicate superior , noble status and the inheritance of such titles are sanctioned by law "

What I diagrammed was

Not noble -----> the titles that indicate superior , noble status and the inheritance of such titles are sanctioned by law "

But then I notice that in the sentence there was the word "unless" which reminded me of the UNLESS Equation
Im not sure if my diagram Is the UNLESS equation
thank you

[Jeff Wren]

Hi salgado,

My general advice is that anytime you see conditional statements, just go ahead and diagram them (and their contrapositives too, while you're at it). It's basically a good habit to get into that you should develop early. The practice will also improve your accuracy and speed of diagramming, so that it has become second nature by the time that you take the LSAT. The goal is that by test day you should be able to read and diagram conditional statements without hesitation. (For example, you don't want to be sitting there on test day trying to recall The Unless Equation!)

That being said, it is also true that, later on, once you've really mastered conditional reasoning, you may be able to do some of the easier, more straightforward conditional LR questions without needing to diagram them. At that point, you may decide to "back off" diagramming, as long as you're clear on exactly what is happening in the stimulus and answer choices. In other words, if you are getting the question correct and you know exactly why the answer is correct (i.e. you are not guessing), then that's fine.

However, if you find that you are missing any conditional LR questions that you did not diagram, then you should have diagrammed them. It is far better to take a few extra seconds to diagram a question and get it correct than to try to do it in your head to save a few seconds and get it wrong.

Unfortunately, your diagram of the second sentence in the stimulus is incorrect. It does have the indicator word "unless" and does require using the Unless Equation. You'll definitely want to go back and study the Unless Equation and just memorize it/know it cold.

In short, you forgot step 2, which is to negate the remaining term and then put that in the sufficient condition.

Basically, the word "unless" has a built-in negative in its meaning/usage that needs to be accounted for so that your diagram properly reflects the meaning of the sentence.

The correct diagram should be:

Noble -> the titles that indicate superior, noble status and the inheritance of such titles are sanctioned by law

Which means, "if there is a noble class, then there must be both the titles that indicate superior, noble status and the inheritance of such titles are sanctioned by law."

The way that you diagrammed it is basically saying, "if there isn't a noble class, then there must be both the titles that indicate superior, noble status and the inheritance of such titles are sanctioned by law." This is not the meaning of the original sentence.

[salgado145]

I will do that . Thank you for your response !