#10 - Every political philosopher of the early twentieth

[Kristina Moen]

"No one who was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg advocated a totalitarian state." means that the groups are mutually exclusive. It's like if I said "No dogs are cats." The groups are mutually exclusive. You can't be both!

We can diagram that as:
influenced by RL advocate of totalitarian state

[FA22raptero]

Hi all,

Hate to bring this back up from the dead, but I am a little bit confused about the wording. The question very clearly reads that every political philosopher who was a socialist or a communist was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg. Now, this makes sense to me, but answer A doesn't. Let me be clear about why:

It makes sense if: "Every political philosopher of the early twentieth century was either a socialist or a communist, and was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg".

However, the original wording doesn't make sense to me.

Doesn't make sense: "Every political philosopher of the early twentieth century who was either a socialist or a communist was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg".

What i'm getting at here is that the stimulus doesn't make it clear that all political philosophers were communists or socialists in the early 20th century. There could just as easily be political philosophers who were NOT communists and NOT socialists. You might say that I'm bringing outside information in, but I'm not sure I agree. The stimulus clearly says "who was...". When you use who in this context, it clearly implies that under the umbrella term of political philosophers, there were socialists, communists, and "some other", otherwise "who" is a completely redundant and ambiguous word.

Thus, answer A only makes sense to me if it read:

"No socialist or communist political philosopher of the early twentieth century advocated a totalitarian state."

I totally understand the formal logic that was used in the answer reply. In fact, I 100% agree with it. I just don't think that the contrapositive of the logic chain allows you to select answer A as the answer.

I really appreciate anyones advice on this!!

[FA22raptero]

Hi all,

I SWEAR, SWEAR, my brain takes entire words out of sentences and makes them invisible to me. Even when read dozens of times. A reads "No early-twentieth-century SOCIALIST political philosopher advocated a totalitarian state.

Ignore everything I just posted.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi all,

I SWEAR, SWEAR, my brain takes entire words out of sentences and makes them invisible to me. Even when read dozens of times. A reads "No early-twentieth-century SOCIALIST political philosopher advocated a totalitarian state.

Ignore everything I just posted.

That happens to everyone at some point or another, so I wouldn't worry about it to much. I'm glad that it makes sense now though

[Jgalkin]

Hi, can somebody please clarify for me how answer A is correct? The question doesn't seem to be dicussing ALL political philosophers, only socialist and communist philosophers. Doesn't answer A seem to over generalizing?
Thank you,
Jeffrey

[Daniel Stern]

Hi J:

Answer choice "A" refers to "No early-twentieth-century socialist political philosopher," so it is not in fact over-generalizing, but narrowly referring to one of the subsets of political philosophers whom we've been told, in the first premise of the stimulus, were influenced by Rosa Luxemberg.

You may be reading A too quickly and your eyes brushing over the word "socialist," as an earlier poster on this thread also did.

I hope this is helpful,
Dan Stern

[MannyH]

Powerscore,

Can someone please give some clarity as why E is the incorrect answer?

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Hey, Manny!

Kelsey gives a good explanation against answer (E) above--I'll quote it here:

Answer choice (E) is not quite a mistaken reversal because it refers to "every political philosopher who did not advocate a totalitarian state." A true mistaken reversal would refer to everyone who did not advocate a totalitarian state, not just the political philosophers.
Kelsey

Let me know if you need further clarification!

[lina2020]

Hi PowerScore,

I was able to diagram this stimulus correctly and chose the right answer. However, in an effort to better understand diagramming I'm looking to get some clarification on how to diagram answer choice C and the general method for dealing with "the only" versus "only" versus "only if". To note, I am aware that this answer choice can be eliminated without diagramming because Rosa was not "the ONLY person to influence".

ANSWER CHOICE C:
"Rosa Luxemburg was the only person to influence every early-twentieth-century political philosopher who was either socialist or communist."

My understanding is that "THE ONLY" always leads to the sufficient first and then the necessary. But in this case, they listed "Rosa Luxemburg" before "the only". It almost seems like a bi-conditional to me because if Rosa was the only person to influence then it seems like it could be both sufficient and necessary for "every early-twentieth-century political philosopher who was either socialist or communist". Please advise.

[Robert Carroll]

lina,

I want to draw attention to the fact that I'm about to intentionally make a mistake! Be aware! Here's the mistake:

"The word 'only" indicates a necessary condition. So if I see 'only' or 'only if' or 'the only' in a stimulus, the statement after that is the necessary condition, and the statement before that is the sufficient condition."

This is a really common mistake! And it is a mistake, as I warned!

"Only" and related terms DO refer to the necessary condition. The problem is thinking that you can always look at what's AFTER "only" for the necessary condition. The proper way to say it is the following:

"Whatever 'only' or 'only if' or 'the only' modifies is the necessary condition of a conditional."

So when answer choice (C) says that Rosa Luxemburg was "the only person," what does "the only" modify? Well, it says that Rosa IS "the only" such person! So Rosa is the necessary condition - the statement is telling you that Rosa is the thing to which "the only" applies.

What "only" modifies can be before or after the word, and sometimes long after it! So you can't just identify the statement right after "only" with the necessary condition. It requires more attention to the grammar of the sentence.

I agree that "the only" sets up a biconditional here, but that's because it says Rosa was the only such person. So any such person is her, and she is such a person. Compare the following: "The only people who can skip the final exam are those who attended every seminar." If you can skip the final, you must have attended every seminar, but that doesn't mean everyone who attended every seminar HAS to skip the final. The difference is the "can" here, compared to the "was" in the Rosa case.

Robert Carroll