#17 - People cannot devote themselves to the study of

[Steve Stein]

Thanks for your response.

The sentence that you reference could really be broken down into two sentences: people have leisure when resources are plentiful. People don't have leisure when resources are not plentiful (that is, scarce).

You are correct about the first part of the sentence: "when" introduces the sufficient condition, and you can diagram it as: plentiful --> leisure.

...but then the author provides the other part of the relationship, when going on to say, "...not when they are scarce." In other words, people do not have leisure when resources are scarce. Again, in this case, "when" introduces the sufficient condition:
NOT plentiful --> NOT leisure.

The contrapositive, then, is: leisure --> plentiful

This is a very tough one, and fairly unique--I wouldn't get too stressed about it.

I hope that's helpful--let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,

I just want to make sure I get this question correcctly, when I diagrammed the sentence,

When plentiful--->leisure

however on the explnations it has, leisure--->plentiful, please let me know why they diagrammed it this way.

Thanks

Ellen

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Ellen,

This is an example of a question where you need to look at the statement in context:

People have leisure when resources are plentiful, not when resources are scarce.

If all the author said was, "people have leisure when resources are plentiful," then - yes, you'd have a valid point: plentiful resources would be sufficient to have leisure:

Plentiful resources Leisure

However, the second clause in the sentence reveals such resources to also be a necessary condition for leisure, because we cannot have leisure when our resources are scarce:

Resources NOT plentiful (i.e. scarce) NO leisure

Contrapositive: Leisure Plentiful resources

In the context of the second part of the statement, the first one should be interpreted to mean, "people have leisure only when resources are plentiful." Does that make sense?

Thanks,

[ellenb]

So, basically because of the the second statement, the sentence meaning is changed, because we can do a CP of the statement, and not necessarily base our diagram on the first statement, but on the sentence as a whole,

thus if I had, People have money when they work, and not when they do not work.

Thus, we can assume that to have money you need to work
Money -->Work

Is this example similar to what you mentioned?
Thanks

Ellen

[Nikki Siclunov]

Absolutely. In fact, the conditionality goes both ways:

People have money when they work

work $

...and not when they do not work

NO work NO $

i.e. $ work

Taken together, these statements establish a bi-conditional relationship:

work $

In other words, either you work and have money, or you don't work and you have no money. Simply put, you have money if and only if you work

Does this make sense?

[prep88]

My conditional diagram for the statement "People have leisure when resources are plentiful" is "Plentiful resources ----> Have leisure"; the homework explanation's is the opposite. Anyone?

Thanks

[Andrew Ash]

Hi Prep,

Great question! You are totally correct in your diagram for "people have leisure when resources are plentiful," because "when" is a sufficient indicator. The tricky bit with this phrase is that it's immediately followed by, "not when resources are scarce." So actually, the relationship being described here is a double arrow: leisure plentiful resources. They're a package deal, and you can't have one without the other.

Because this is a double arrow, your diagram is correct, but the reversal is also correct (as we discuss on page 2-16, a double arrow is actually a conditional statement and its reversal wrapped into a single sentence). And the reversal is what allows us to form a conditional chain that leads us to answer choice C.

I hope this helps!

Best,
Andrew

[prep88]

Hi Andrew,

If I got correctly, "Not when resources are scarce" will be diagramed as "resources scace = resources not plentiful------>No Leisure", via contrapositive "leisure-----> plentiful"?

Thank you!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Prep,

Let's break down this sentence bit-by-bit:

People have leisure when resources are plentiful, not when resources are scarce."

On the one hand, we know that when resources are plentiful, people have leisure:

Plentiful Leisure

On the other, we know that people don't have leisure when resources are scarce, i.e. not plentiful:

NOT plentiful NO Leisure

Contrapositive: Leisure Plentiful

We can combine both of these statements using a double-arrow, as Andrew indicated above:

Plentiful Leisure

Clearly, then, plentiful resources and leisure are tied in a bi-conditional relationship: either our resources are plentiful and we have leisure, or the resources are not plentiful and we don't have leisure. Neither condition is allowed to occur without the other.

Hope this helps!

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello

I know the unless equation is covered in the books as well as the logic reasoning bible and has a blog post, but I'm having a hard time diagramming this question because the unless is in the middle of the sentence. I tried putting an if not in there but it doesnt fit. Would someone mind diagramming this. I dont think I did it right.

people can devote themselves to the study of natural proceesses leisure

Also what kind of question stem is this? The argument is structured to lead to the conclusion that .4
I don't remember covering this question in the courses or the bibles?

Thankyou
Sarah