#9 - In addition to the labor and materials used to make

[Adam Tyson]

I would not approach this stimulus as a conditional argument, mrcheese, in part because there are no conditional indicators in the stimulus, and especially because the conclusion does not make anything necessary. "Plays a role" is a weak causal indicator, meaning that something has some causal influence but is not the sole determiner of the effect.

There is no "depends on" in the stimulus, but the stem asks about the argument depending on an assumption, and that is indeed a necessary condition indicator. That's because Assumption questions are about finding the assumption that is necessary for the argument to be good. In fact, these questions are often called Necessary Assumption questions for that very reason! That doesn't mean that the stimulus contains conditional reasoning, though. It only means that IF the argument is valid, THEN the correct answer choice must have been assumed to be true by the author. For that reason, we can test the correct answer in the same way that we create a contrapositive in any conditional relationship - if we negate the correct answer, it should negate the argument (make it invalid or make the conclusion unsupported).

Forget diagramming, and start by prephrasing what is missing or what would fend off an attack on the argument. Then, sort losers and contenders, and finally, if you have more than one contender, try negating it to see if it wrecks the argument. The right answer will do that, and the wrong answers will not!

[pwfquestions]

Are SOME statements considered conditional statements?

How can the inference be drawn. I thought you had to start at SOME and track away, according to the Formal Logic chapter?

Please explain.

Thanks

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi pwf,

"Some" as a term is not conditional language, it's formal logic. Those are different concepts. Importantly, unlike conditional reasoning, the term "some" is reversable. Some books are written in English means that some things written in English are books. Conditional reasoning can't be reverse in the same way at all. We want to make sure we are clear on the differences between types of terms so that we don't make logical errors.

Here, we have a "not all" in the conclusion. "Not all" doesn't work the same way as "some." They are different terms with different meanings. It isn't reversible in the way that "some" is. For example, not all mammals are dogs, but all dogs are mammals. We can't reverse "not all."

I'd recommend reviewing the section on Formal Logic if you aren't clear on these concepts. However, this question is very doable without any formal logic at all. In fact, I wouldn't use formal logic for this one myself.

Hope that helps!