#22 - It is an absurd idea that whatever artistic endeavor

[Sophia123]

Hi,

I am slightly confused on the diagram for the second sentence of the stimulus. I always thought when you see the term "no" you should negate the necessary condition. Also recognizing that this statement has "without" the sufficient condition also needs to be negated. So, in this case, I would have diagrammed the second sentence as:
NOT Create art NOT government subsidy.

The NOT create art is sufficient and negated due to the unless equation
The NOT government subsidy is necessary and negated due to the term "no one"

Can someone help me out with where I went wrong in this diagram?

Thanks in advance!

Sophia

[Shannon Parker]

Hi,

I am slightly confused on the diagram for the second sentence of the stimulus. I always thought when you see the term "no" you should negate the necessary condition. Also recognizing that this statement has "without" the sufficient condition also needs to be negated. So, in this case, I would have diagrammed the second sentence as:
NOT Create art NOT government subsidy.

The NOT create art is sufficient and negated due to the unless equation
The NOT government subsidy is necessary and negated due to the term "no one"

Can someone help me out with where I went wrong in this diagram?

Thanks in advance!

Sophia

Sophia,

"Without" does not negate the necessary condition, it indicates its presence, thus "government subsidy" is the necessary condition. The "no one" starts the sufficient condition off as negative.Thus using the Unless Equation, the sufficient condition must be negated, leaving "allowed to create art."
Create art -----> Government Subsidy

Hope this helps.
Shannon

[Sophia123]

Hi Shannon,

Thanks for your response! Sorry, I think I might not have been clear in my thought process. So I know that with the "unless equation" the sufficient condition becomes negated and the element following the "unless", or in this case, "without" becomes the necessary condition. I think I am okay on that portion of the diagram

However, my confusion is with double negating the sufficient using the "No one" term. My understanding was when you have a sentence that has a "no" or a "none", you would negate the necessary condition rather than the sufficient condition. For example, if you had the sentence: "No one with a name starting with B went to the party" you would diagram that as:
Name with B NOT go to party.

So in the case of this question, I thought that the "No one" term would negate the necessary condition rather than double negating the sufficient condition. Hope that clarifies my question, but let me know if you see where I went wrong in my thinking on this one.

Thanks for your help!
Sophia

[Jamena Pirone]

Hi Sophia,

Thank you for clarifying your question, as I see now exactly where you went wrong. You are attempting to simultaneously apply BOTH the rule about "No" creating a negated necessary condition AND the rule about "unless/without" creating a negated sufficient condition. However, once you've applied one or the other of those rules, then the situation that created the need for application of the other rule no longer exists.

For example:

The sentence in question reads "No one is allowed to create art without a government subsidy."

You could start by addressing the "No" and using it to negate the necessary condition. That leaves us with "If one is allowed to create art, then one has a government subsidy." You have already taken care of the "without"! Once you apply the rule about "No", there is no longer a "without" to address. You're done!

It would be just as valid to start by addressing the "without" and using it to negate the sufficient condition, per the Unless Equation. That leaves us with "If one is allowed to create art, then one has a government subsidy." Once you've done that, there is no longer a "No", and therefore nothing left to do.

I hope it is now clear. Great question!

[riabobiia]

Hi!

I'm still having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around this question since it seems easy in terms of simply looking at the stimulus but it requires a lot of diagramming.

For this question, we have to diagram the conditional before the colon and then the conditional after the colon and then compare them to each other, and then diagram and compare each answer choice the same way before comparing it to the stimulus?

Is there an easier way to do this without getting totally mixed up and lost in the amount of comparisons and conditional statements we're required to diagram? I'm worried about coming across something like this on a test and being able to complete it in the little time given.

[srusty]

Hi!

I'm still having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around this question since it seems easy in terms of simply looking at the stimulus but it requires a lot of diagramming.

For this question, we have to diagram the conditional before the colon and then the conditional after the colon and then compare them to each other, and then diagram and compare each answer choice the same way before comparing it to the stimulus?

Is there an easier way to do this without getting totally mixed up and lost in the amount of comparisons and conditional statements we're required to diagram? I'm worried about coming across something like this on a test and being able to complete it in the little time given.

Hi Ria,

Completely understandable! What I'll do is break this down/rephrase it with full words first, and then translate that into diagramming language. With pattern of reasoning questions, we want to find what matches we can find between the stimulus and the answer choice.

Rephrase of the stimulus: The notion that "if a government doesn't support, then it doesn't allow" is absurd, because this could be rephrased as "if no subsidy, then no allowance of that art".

In diagramming, this could look like: ~no support --> ~allow, which is rephrased as ~subsidy --> ~allow
In this case subsidy stands in for support from the government. Now let's look at the answer choices.

Answer choice (A): absurd claim: ~arrest --> ~break the law. Reword claim: break law --> arrest
Answer choice (B): absurd claim: ~arrest --> ~break the law. Reword claim: arrest --> break the law
Answer choice (C): absurd claim: govt. grant --> successful. Reword claim: ~govt. grant --> ~successful
Answer choice (D): absurd claim: govt. grant --> successful. Reword claim: ~govt. grant --> successful.
Answer choice (E): absurd claim: govt. grant --> successful. Reword claim: ~govt. grant --> ~research allowance.

Notice how in our stimulus, our absurd claim and our reworded claim are logically consistent: they both say the same thing. Answer choice (A) also follows this pattern: the absurd claim and the reworded claim are contrapositives, so they are logically consistent and the same.

Answer choices (B) through (E) however, do not have logical consistency between their absurd claims and their reworded claims. They commit Mistaken Reversal or Mistaken Negation fallacies, or with answer choice (E), a new concept is introduced altogether.

Answer choice (A) is correct because it matches the stimulus in that both the purported absurd claim and the reworded claim are actually saying the same thing. In this case, it would be helpful to diagram the initial stimulus, and diagram the answer choices to see what remains similar.

Unfortunately, diagramming will probably be the best strategy to be accurate with this question, as it requires a strong logical grasp that is not easy for most intuitively. The good thing is, diagramming becomes much easier with time and practice.

Hope this helps!