Conditional Tips

To classify a work of art as truly great, it is necessary that the work have both originality and far-reaching influence upon the artistic community….The principle above, if valid, most strongly supports which one of the following arguments?

What kind of conclusions can you draw from this kind of conditional?

The correct AC is one that fulfills the contrapositive

Conditional is:

• Truly Great → Originality AND Influence

• /Originality OR /Influence → /Truly Great

In a case like this, we’re told what’s NECESSARY for an artwork to be truly great. So we can conclude that an artwork is NOT truly great. But we can’t use the principle to conclude that an artwork IS truly great

Attacks on an opponent's character should be avoided in political debates. Such attacks do not confront the opponent's argument; instead they attempt to cast doubt on the opponent's moral right to be in the debate at all….Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning above?

What form are you looking for in correct AC?

The correct AC is a conditional in which the conclusion is B—the NECESSARY condition

Question Stem:

• The one we have is… Attack Opponents Character → /Confront Argument

• The conclusion is “attacks on opponents character should be avoided”

So the conditional we’re need is… /Confront Argument → Should be Avoided

One answer choice was “Questions of character should be raised in political debate if they are relevant to the opponent's argument” This is wrong because Avoid would show up as the SUFFICIENT (in the contrapositive) and we need to be the NECESSARY condition to prove the argument

If understanding a word always involves knowing its dictionary definition, then understanding a word requires understanding the words that occur in that definition. But clearly there are people—for example, all babies—who do not know the dictionary definitions of some of the words they utter.

What conclusion can you draw from this?

xxx

Whenever she considers voting in an election to select one candidate for a position and there is at least one issue important to her, Kay uses the following principle in choosing which course of action to take: it is acceptable for me to vote for a candidate whose opinions differ from mine on at least one issue important to me whenever I disagree with each of the other candidates on even more such issues; it is otherwise unacceptable to vote for that candidate.

xxx - list of conditions approach