#22 - Concept Reference, Author's Perspective, Must Be True

[LSAT2018]

I noticed from this question that conditional reasoning was used throughout the passage. For the answer (B) it refers to lines 35-36 (For reasoned discourse to occur, there must be shared assumptions or beliefs). And I was just wondering if this could be connected to another part in the following paragraph in lines 45-49 (There is little hope that conflicts between
their competing cosmologies could be resolved by recourse to the texts alone. Only further investigation into the authority of the texts themselves would be sufficient)
So investigation into the authority of the texts is sufficient to resolve the debate? Can this be connected into a long conditional statement like the one below?

Investigation into Authority of Text → Resolve Debate → Common Ground

[Brook Miscoski]

LSAT2018,

Lines 35-36 indicate the answer: "For reasoned discourse to occur, there must be shared assumptions or beliefs." You are correct that it is a conditional statement and that the "only if" in B, the credited response, conveys the conditional relationship asserted by the author. I would not diagram a reading comprehension passage using conditional reasoning, but it is worth recognizing it when you see it.