Lesson 10: Question 6

[T.B.Justin]

In the incorrect answer choice (D):

"The only fruit in the kitchen was pears, but the pears were not ripe. Thus, none of the fruit in the kitchen was ripe."

None modifies ripe, but what if the statement stated, "Thus, none of of the fruit in the kitchen was not ripe."

Is that a double negation, so FK R

[Jay Donnell]

Hi T.B.!

This is a funky question, and it involves a fallacy of relativity in a certain way. An analogy to the argument in the stimulus is:

The only NFL players in the room were kickers, but they are big kickers. Therefore the only NFL players in the room are big NFL players.

Sebastian Janikowsi aside, being big for an NFL kicker hardly makes you big for an NFL player.


D is actually valid, as if the only fruit in the kitchen were pears, and none of those pears were ripe, so therefore none of the fruit in the kitchen would be ripe.

To answer the specific diagramming nature of your query, yes you're 100% right that the double negation in question would be diagrammed as you had drawn out.

For example, another way of saying that 'Everyone who lives in Beverly Hills is rich' would be ' no one who lives in Beverly Hills is not rich.' That 'no' negates the second term in the sentence, but if there already exists a 'not' then it double negates back to positive.

Good catch!