#9 - Any announcement authorized by the head of the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning—SN. The correct answer choice is (D)

This stimulus contains a classic Mistaken Negation flaw:

• Announce Head Dep Imp
  
  Announce Head Dep Imp

Because this is a Flaw question, you should look for an answer choice that uses conditional language and describes confusion between the roles of the sufficient and necessary conditions.

Answer choice (A): This does not describe a Mistaken Negation/Reversal.


Answer choice (B): The stimulus says they are issued without authorization, so this answer choice does not address the information in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): This is irrelevant. It does not describe a conditional flaw.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This answer choice is a classic Mistaken Negation/Reversal description, and uses conditional language making it easy to identify.

Answer choice (E): The difference between the position and the announcement does not matter. We need to describe a conditional flaw and this answer does not do that.

[Johnclem]

hi,
For this argument I see the flaw being of confusing sufficient and necessary .however the one thing I don't get is the conclusion because it's a "some " statement . How can this be ? Can a some statement contain mismatch between a sufficient and a necessary ?

Here is how I diagramed it.

1) Authorized by HD ---> important
2) announcements issued NOT---> authorization ( negated due to "without ")

C: announcements <---SOME---> not important


Thanks
John

[Jonathan Evans]

John,

Diagramming looks good, except the second part, for which following this system it would be more accurate to write:

Announcements without authorization

The last part, the conclusion, is fine (Announcements not important).

Ask yourself why the author seems to think some announcement are not important. She thinks these particular announcements (a subset of all the announcements) are necessarily not important because they were issued without authorization.

In other words, the author assumes that for an announcement to be important, it must be issued with the authorization of the department head. This "some" statement actually is describing an assumption involving all the announcements issued without authorization.

To diagram the author's assumption, one could write:

Not authorized by HD Not important

This a classic Mistaken Negation (inverse fallacy). The "some" announcements issued without authorization fall into the sufficient condition of the author's Mistaken Negation assumption.

Thus, to answer your question, yes a "some" statement can contain a mismatch between a sufficient and a necessary condition if the "some" thing is considered incorrectly either sufficient or necessary for something else.

[Johnclem]

Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for your detailed explanation . But This question is just not sitting well with me. This is what's going on in my head please set me straight!

The flaw :
The author tells us that if an announcement is made by head office then it is important . Then in the conclusion it tells us some of these announcements are not important. But we know nothing of this . All we know is there is one sufficient condition to make an announcement important.. But other announcement made by whomever can trigger an announcement to be important. So I see that mismatch !

Here is where I go crazy :

1) The second and third statements are both "some statements " and can be read in both directions. So how can it be a mismatch of the argument?

2) The word " without" negates the sufficient condition .. Are we not doing the negation because it's a "some" statement ?

Thanks in advance !
John

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Johnclem,

Thanks for your question.

What do you mean when you say, can be read in both directions? Do you mean that they are bi-directional conditional statements? I don't think there are any bi-directional conditional statements in this stimulus.

We are told (and I think you have understood) that if the head of department makes the statement, that is sufficient to prove that it is important. In visual terms:

Announcement from the dept head important

We are also told that sometimes, announcements are made that are not from the department head, or this tidbit:

~Announcement from the dept head

I don't think that's a conditional statement; it's just the assertion that announcements do exists which are not from the department head. So, then, when the author tries to apply the rule from above, he or she commits an error, because we cannot say:

~Announcement from the dept head ~important

That is a classic mistaken negation.

I don't know if I have addressed your specific questions, but I have tried; does that clarify it somewhat?

[Johnclem]

Hi clay ,
I did not mean biconditional. I meant reading "some " statements in both directions ( A <some>B and B<some>A) .


My question for this problem has to do strictly with the diagraming aspect of it. The official explanation for this problem has diagramed the stimulus as an "all " statement . ( in which I clearly see there's a classic mistaken negation issue )

1) Authorized by headoffice --> important
2) ~authorized by head office --> ~ important

BUT how can statement 2 and 3 be diagramed to be a conditional statement when it's not? Is it not a some " statement ? According to my formal chapter in the bible this is how this whole stimulus should be diagramed .
1) authorized by head --> important
2) announcement <some> Without authorization
C: announcement <some > not important


Thanks a million
John

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey John,

Let me give you by 2c here. Don't make this argument more complicated by introducing Formal Logic into it: the bi-directionality of the link only applies to stimuli that require a formal analysis of the propositional logic in order to arrive at an inference. Such is not the case here.

When the author says that some announcements are issued without authorization, here's how I diagram this:

• Authorization some

Clearly, the announcements in question (they can be labeled as "some" or "announcement A" or what have you) fail to satisfy the sufficient condition of the first premise (Authorization Important). From this, the author concludes that these announcements don't satisfy a necessary condition:

• Important some

The inferential relationship between the second premise and the conclusion is therefore this:

• Authorization some Important some

... which is the Mistaken Negation of the first premise.

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks,

[LustingFor!L]

Premise: Announcement authorized --> Important
Conclusion: Important --> Announcement authorized

Contrapositive of C: X Announcement Authorized --> X Important

Contrapositive of C is a Mistaken Negation of the Premise. Did I diagram this right?

[Adam Tyson]

You sure did, Lusting. Nice work! Got any questions about where to go from there?

[biskam]

I'm struggling to understand how the language of D means Mistaken Negation...

I'm trying to parse it out...

It assumes that if a given condition is sufficient to be important, that that condition is necessary for its importance?

So a mistaken reversal?

And I know that MN = MN, right? They're contrapositives of each other? Where am I going wrong...