“Premise”: Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet. “Conclusion”: Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people.
This argument is missing a premise that supports the conclusion. If there was a premise stating “tigers are mammals that have been kept as pets, but it’s ended in disaster every time because the tigers kept violently killing their owners” —> well then that does segue into a main point conclusion where we can see that tigers are aggressive and cause harm to people. Without that connecting premise though, the argument is flawed when presented in that direction.
Does that make sense to yall? It’s how I interpreted this example and hopefully it helped someone else
A small clarification: defining support only as ‘increasing the likelihood’ doesn’t rule out simple probabilistic increases. Under that broad definition, the reverse order isn’t a perfect counterexample to "providing support" as defined as "increasing the liklihood of truth"), because it does increase the likelihood that tigers are dangerous. In a world where all mammals are suitable pets, tigers being dangerous has zero probability; in a world where some mammals aren’t suitable pets, that probability is non-zero. So as stated, the definition of support doesn’t fully exclude this case since liklihood does increase in the reverse direction too.
Might be helpful to address this because I think the way i positioned it above would get you in to trouble on the LSAT and it's not unreasonable someone might wonder that, "hey isn't it more likely tigers are dangerous in a world that not all mammals are suitable pets than in a one where all mammals are suitable pets."
TO figure out whether there is support between a set of claims
Claim 1 Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people.
Claim 2 Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet.
In this case I feel claim one increases the likelihood of the truth of claim 2 more than the other way around because claim is true but could just be true in the sense of a a koala probably wouldn't be a suitable pet.
Not sure if this will help people, but how I think of it is that one (the conclusion) is a statement, it's blunt and makes a clear point. the support (premise) is the evidence that supports it. In the Ex. about the tiger, the most blunt point is that some mammals aren't a good pet. The evidence to back this up (the knitty gritty) is like...well, look at a fricken tiger! They can't be a pet.
hope this is helpful to some extent.
there are also indicator words for conclusion + premise (use sparingly) but I assume we'll get to it
I understand the idea that the claims must support one another to increase the likelihood of it being true, however, in the next lesson it states that order doesn't matter. I guess where I am confused is if order doesn't matter, then how do we determine that the conclusion + premise relationship is:
Conclusion: Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet. Premise: Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people.
and not the other way around?
Am I thinking too deeply into this part and in the real test I should just assume what the conclusion is and what the premise is regardless of order?
Is this a good example, without defining "suitable pet"? No. Fish are pets, they are in a bowl, and we never touch them. If someone's perception of a pet is something you cage and look at - a Tiger is a suitable pet. Is this a possible inconsistency with test writers? The world imagined by test writers may themselves come with assumptions and in some cases lack of assumptions. On another question the word "suitable" may be interrogated instead of assumed. Interesting and annoying.
A trick I learned from an LSAT tutor is the "why, because" test. The why is the conclusion, the because is your premise. For example: "Blue and red make purple. Purple is on the spectrum of red and blue is used to deepen and shift red to a dark lilac hue." So, why do blue and red make purple? Because blue changes how red functions. While I am not an LSAT tutor, I do have a Discord study group if anyone would like to join (or to play MC lol): https://discord.gg/b8XaYkZHxk
So, from what I gathered in this topic, we have to concentrate on the argument itself and to not think about the real reality, but rather to think about the concept of the argument itself reality.
I'm confused about our application of the definition of "support".
We said A supports B iff A increases the likelihood of B. But in probability theory, this relation is always symmetric: if A supports B, then B supports A (by the same ratio, according to Bayes' theorem).
In the tiger example, the conclusion does actually support the premise: to see this, note that if all mammals were suitable pets, it would be pretty unlikely for tigers to be maiming humans.
So I'm wondering how to reconcile this with the directional arrows between premise and conclusion, the different words used, etc.
Ok so do all the premises essentially consists of the support or do I need to identify support and premise separately? Thinking of the visual in the first lesson where support is the bridge between the two relata, so then wouldn't it be separate then relata 1 AKA the premise?
Wait so in this scenario if you swap the premise and the conclusion the support goes from supports the conclusion, to the opposite. Now the question becomes how do we accurately get the premise and conclusion the right way?
Basically it seems like we have to just forget about truth and focus on the argument itself
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135 comments
So.... If the claim gives no support it has to be the conclusion?
So basically ONLY use the information given and don’t add your own truth to it
This argument is missing a premise that supports the conclusion. If there was a premise stating “tigers are mammals that have been kept as pets, but it’s ended in disaster every time because the tigers kept violently killing their owners” —> well then that does segue into a main point conclusion where we can see that tigers are aggressive and cause harm to people. Without that connecting premise though, the argument is flawed when presented in that direction.
Does that make sense to yall? It’s how I interpreted this example and hopefully it helped someone else
A small clarification: defining support only as ‘increasing the likelihood’ doesn’t rule out simple probabilistic increases. Under that broad definition, the reverse order isn’t a perfect counterexample to "providing support" as defined as "increasing the liklihood of truth"), because it does increase the likelihood that tigers are dangerous. In a world where all mammals are suitable pets, tigers being dangerous has zero probability; in a world where some mammals aren’t suitable pets, that probability is non-zero. So as stated, the definition of support doesn’t fully exclude this case since liklihood does increase in the reverse direction too.
Might be helpful to address this because I think the way i positioned it above would get you in to trouble on the LSAT and it's not unreasonable someone might wonder that, "hey isn't it more likely tigers are dangerous in a world that not all mammals are suitable pets than in a one where all mammals are suitable pets."
statement = conclusion
support = premise
I like to think of support with the word "therefore"
Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people THEREFORE not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet
This trick doesn't work with every situation, but it can be helpful for starting off to recognize the patterns.
TO figure out whether there is support between a set of claims
Claim 1 Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people.
Claim 2 Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet.
In this case I feel claim one increases the likelihood of the truth of claim 2 more than the other way around because claim is true but could just be true in the sense of a a koala probably wouldn't be a suitable pet.
Whether a claim is supported is a different question from whether a claim is true.
Not sure if this will help people, but how I think of it is that one (the conclusion) is a statement, it's blunt and makes a clear point. the support (premise) is the evidence that supports it. In the Ex. about the tiger, the most blunt point is that some mammals aren't a good pet. The evidence to back this up (the knitty gritty) is like...well, look at a fricken tiger! They can't be a pet.
hope this is helpful to some extent.
there are also indicator words for conclusion + premise (use sparingly) but I assume we'll get to it
I see how a lot of people are confused with the issue that I also have, but reading the comments are somehow not hitting the spot for me.
My question (also) is, how do we tell the difference between a premise and a conclusion? How should I train myself to pick the right one?
I understand the idea that the claims must support one another to increase the likelihood of it being true, however, in the next lesson it states that order doesn't matter. I guess where I am confused is if order doesn't matter, then how do we determine that the conclusion + premise relationship is:
Conclusion: Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet. Premise: Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people.
and not the other way around?
Am I thinking too deeply into this part and in the real test I should just assume what the conclusion is and what the premise is regardless of order?
Is this a good example, without defining "suitable pet"? No. Fish are pets, they are in a bowl, and we never touch them. If someone's perception of a pet is something you cage and look at - a Tiger is a suitable pet. Is this a possible inconsistency with test writers? The world imagined by test writers may themselves come with assumptions and in some cases lack of assumptions. On another question the word "suitable" may be interrogated instead of assumed. Interesting and annoying.
So basically you have to ignore what you know about the world and take what the writers have said face value on the lsat?
So that's what it feels like to have something click in your mind.
A trick I learned from an LSAT tutor is the "why, because" test. The why is the conclusion, the because is your premise. For example: "Blue and red make purple. Purple is on the spectrum of red and blue is used to deepen and shift red to a dark lilac hue." So, why do blue and red make purple? Because blue changes how red functions. While I am not an LSAT tutor, I do have a Discord study group if anyone would like to join (or to play MC lol): https://discord.gg/b8XaYkZHxk
So, from what I gathered in this topic, we have to concentrate on the argument itself and to not think about the real reality, but rather to think about the concept of the argument itself reality.
congratulations you have just made two basic statements beyond comprehension
I'm confused about our application of the definition of "support".
We said A supports B iff A increases the likelihood of B. But in probability theory, this relation is always symmetric: if A supports B, then B supports A (by the same ratio, according to Bayes' theorem).
In the tiger example, the conclusion does actually support the premise: to see this, note that if all mammals were suitable pets, it would be pretty unlikely for tigers to be maiming humans.
So I'm wondering how to reconcile this with the directional arrows between premise and conclusion, the different words used, etc.
So, the premise (if true) increases the likelihood of the conclusion being true?
What would a suitable premise be for the alternative example then? Does it have to say something about tigers?:
“Premise”: Not every mammal is suitable to keep as a pet.“Conclusion”: Tigers are very aggressive and can cause serious injuries to people
Ok so do all the premises essentially consists of the support or do I need to identify support and premise separately? Thinking of the visual in the first lesson where support is the bridge between the two relata, so then wouldn't it be separate then relata 1 AKA the premise?
No, because this was eye opening. Being able to expand my thought process with little limit is so freeing.
Wait so in this scenario if you swap the premise and the conclusion the support goes from supports the conclusion, to the opposite. Now the question becomes how do we accurately get the premise and conclusion the right way?
So essentially focus on what is stated in the argument and not outside conceptions?
Basically it seems like we have to just forget about truth and focus on the argument itself