#feedback I understand these are lessons, however, it will be more helpful from experience using other sites and my progress in general if we can attempt the question before the lesson.
#feedback for us taking notes, it would be really helpful to have a written "review" section of each lesson like the earlier LR lessons did. Definitely helps make sure I know what to internalize and understand
Your observation is definitely correct. When I was studying logic in university for philosophy, we never made a distinction between the two in notation.
Yeah this is a terrible take. Don't follow this advice unless you're happy in the 150s or 160s.. Knowing and applying the difference between conditional and causal logic will help you avoid all the wrong answers and time traps this dude is going to fall into.
You need to know the difference to be able to effectively solve any question on the LSAT that involves either of these argument types. For example, "if A then B" means that any time you have A you WILL have B. Causal logic will say "A causes B", which means that B occurred as a result of A. The conditional argument above is a sufficient argument, it guarantees B. Causal logic is a necessary argument. Furthermore, conditional arguments are easy to be valid, whereas causal arguments have a much higher bar to make valid because of their necessary nature. Understanding the difference between both of these arguments will help you solve EVERY type of question on the LSAT.
I was also wondering about this. Can't we just classify the flaw in the stimulus as a mistaken negation of the sufficient and necessary ( A-->B , /A-->/B is invalid) and look for the same flaw in the AC instead of drawing this connection between causal and conditional? Is that what you mean by they "always map the same" ?
The harder questions, those needed to break 170, absolutely depend on discerning whether the reasoning is causal or conditional. You'll sometimes have a conditionally worded question but the argument is chronologically structured, so it's actually a correlation/causation question. Then 3/5 answers are all conditionals, two are causal, but only one of them is actually chronological. I mean, to say that the distinction between the two is useless, it's just really setting up people to fail.
To add onto my original response because of the validity part of it. A pure causal argument can never be valid, much like an argument by analogy, and that is yet another critical distinction between a conditional and causal argument.
After some consideration, I realized that B is correct bc 'must' is a positive necessary indicator so the order of things is taste good --> right amount of flour
Not me doing a little dance after getting 4 questions right so far and I thought my formal logic skills were weak maybe I will be humbled in the future but time to dance for now.
This answer choice is logicallysound. However, this means we have 2 absolute reasons why we know A is not correct now.
We are looking for a FLAWED answer choice and A is not flawed.
The logic of A --> B == /B --> /A does not match the stimulus which provided the flawed logic of
A --> B == /A --> /B
If A were to be correct it should have said "It therefore follows that bread that does not h
B on the other hand is both flawed and follows the same reasoning/conclusion
taste good --> right flour == /taste good --> /right flour
This answer choice is FLAWED
It matches the same chain of logic
Therefore B is the correct answer.
tldr: basically the stimulus provides a logic chain that is flawed. when i was doing the question I read that A had the same amount of conditions and structure but the conclusion was logically sound (not flawed) so A must be wrong. B on the other hand had the same condition and structure but the conclusion logic was flawed in the same structure as the stimulus.
I was so confused on this and it was annoying b/c it was so simple. I couldnt find the right answer and then went over again and realized I inccorectly mapped out B from the "must" indicator. The stim is A--->B /A----->/B, I had B mapped out as A----B /B---->/A and I was like wtf till I realzied the must and swapped it to /A---->/B and then made sense to why B is correct. The incorrect mapping is AC A.
If someone told you that they didn't have a hangover this morning, would you automatically conclude they didn't touch alcohol last night? Obviously not. I had a liver of steel as a college student and simply did not get hangovers.
Similarly, if I told you that I drank alcohol, you cannot conclude that I will definitively experience a hangover.
Now let's look at sufficient causes.
drinking a handle of vodka (sufficient cause) → alcohol poisoning (effect)
Makes sense, right? Now unless you're superhuman, if you did NOT go to the ER then you can logically conclude that you did NOT drink an entire handle of vodka.
@CaseySteffen I was confused about this too, but I think you can, he just uses cause effect to more quickly go through the answer choices. E.g. for C), if you look at the passage as solely conditional logic, you may try mapping out C) as if-then, but if you see the passage as cause-effect, then C) is obviously incorrect since there's no causal relationship in the first sentence. This is just a guess though since I had the same question.
@CherishWilliams Great question. It is not what the sentence actually says but that IS how it is written. That's where the trick is: the sentence isn't written in the same IF->THEN format as the stimulus (but he didn't talk about that in the video or explanation; that's a miss for me).
You could actually mentally rewrite the first sentence of B to to an IF THEN say:
In order to taste good a cake must contain the right amount of flour.
At that point you have A->B. Good.
Now we need Taste Good -> Right Amount Flour for it to work. The second sentence says just that: It therefore follows that cakes that do not taste good do not contain the right amount of flour.
I get why you missed it, and I think it would have been borderline diabolical if LSAC had included better answer choices to trick you but none of the other answer choices were alluring in a mean way, thankfully.
What if there were an answer choice that wasn't causal but nonetheless committed the same flaw of negating the sufficient condition (A→B, therefore, /A→/B)?
Committed sufficiency - necessity confusion when I was mapping out B. If you're not careful, you might have made the same error. The first sentence of B doesn't read in the same order as the stim, so you have to make that connection before you map it.
Ex. It's not (right amount of flour > taste good), it's (taste good > right amount of flour). You can help yourself out by rephrasing it like the stim does (If a cake is to taste good, it must contain the right amount of flour).
This question specifically can be broken down simply with logic. I don't think you need a thorough understanding of causal vs. conditional to work through it.
But in general, you can read this causal stim as:
"If a thing is to happen, then it requires this thing to cause it."
Whereas a conditional stim might read something like:
"If an object looks like plop, then it must be a blorp."
But for this question, just use simple arrows and you can get it right:
p: Healthy Bones -> Calcium
c: /Healthy Bones -> /Calcium
This is flawed because nec/suff confusion. The only valid inference is the contrapositive /Calcium -> /Healthy Bones.
AC B:
A cake must (nec) contain the right amount of flour in order to (suff) taste good. It therefore follows that cakes that do not taste good do not contain the right amount of flour.
Taste Good -> Right Flour
/Taste Good -> /Right Flour
Bingo, the flaw pattern matches the stim. Right answer. I didn't even once consider causal vs conditional.
@lollipoppy for myself, I consider any argument that involves change over time to be in the realm of causal reasoning. This doesn't mean you can infer a causal relationship. It means the reasoning is operating in the universe where causes happen, instead of, e.g., material conditional reasoning, which is about states and the truth value of those states.
71 comments
i love you j.y. from 7sage, thanks for encouraging me to be over-confident. #parasocialrelationship
#feedback I understand these are lessons, however, it will be more helpful from experience using other sites and my progress in general if we can attempt the question before the lesson.
100% agree
use the quick view
it was not available before
I know it's been 100+ lessons but this is probably the first time the sufficiency necessity clicked
LETS GOOOOOO
dude literally me lol. the second i read it i was like wait did i actually understand s/n perfectly for once without second guessing
B tricked me with grammer, there was a must which indicated necessary.
#feedback for us taking notes, it would be really helpful to have a written "review" section of each lesson like the earlier LR lessons did. Definitely helps make sure I know what to internalize and understand
tbh the distinction between conditional and causal logic is useless for the LSAT. You never need to know that
Your observation is definitely correct. When I was studying logic in university for philosophy, we never made a distinction between the two in notation.
agree! They always map the same
Yeah this is a terrible take. Don't follow this advice unless you're happy in the 150s or 160s.. Knowing and applying the difference between conditional and causal logic will help you avoid all the wrong answers and time traps this dude is going to fall into.
You need to know the difference to be able to effectively solve any question on the LSAT that involves either of these argument types. For example, "if A then B" means that any time you have A you WILL have B. Causal logic will say "A causes B", which means that B occurred as a result of A. The conditional argument above is a sufficient argument, it guarantees B. Causal logic is a necessary argument. Furthermore, conditional arguments are easy to be valid, whereas causal arguments have a much higher bar to make valid because of their necessary nature. Understanding the difference between both of these arguments will help you solve EVERY type of question on the LSAT.
I was also wondering about this. Can't we just classify the flaw in the stimulus as a mistaken negation of the sufficient and necessary ( A-->B , /A-->/B is invalid) and look for the same flaw in the AC instead of drawing this connection between causal and conditional? Is that what you mean by they "always map the same" ?
The harder questions, those needed to break 170, absolutely depend on discerning whether the reasoning is causal or conditional. You'll sometimes have a conditionally worded question but the argument is chronologically structured, so it's actually a correlation/causation question. Then 3/5 answers are all conditionals, two are causal, but only one of them is actually chronological. I mean, to say that the distinction between the two is useless, it's just really setting up people to fail.
To add onto my original response because of the validity part of it. A pure causal argument can never be valid, much like an argument by analogy, and that is yet another critical distinction between a conditional and causal argument.
any tips on definitively telling the difference b/t conditional and causal?
After some consideration, I realized that B is correct bc 'must' is a positive necessary indicator so the order of things is taste good --> right amount of flour
Not me doing a little dance after getting 4 questions right so far and I thought my formal logic skills were weak maybe I will be humbled in the future but time to dance for now.
Your comments make these lessons a bit more bearable lol
This made my day :)) TYY
im cooked
well well well, if it isn't our old friends sufficiency and necessary again
Saw "classic flaw" in the summary and guessed sufficiency/necessity confusion, I've grownnnn
@tessapys exactly how I felt too when I recognized it haha!
I hate this question I'm still confused b/w A and B.
@fart180
The correct logic of the stimulus SHOULD BE:
healthy bones --> sufficient calcium == sufficient calcium --> /healthy bones
or
A --> B == /B --> /A
How the stimulus concludes it to be:
healthy bones --> sufficient calcium == /healthy bones --> /sufficient calcium
A --> B == /A --> /B
We are looking to match the flawed logic of A --> B == /A --> /B within the answer choices
A's logic (how the answer choice concludes it):
firm crust --> right temp == /right temp --> /firm crust
A --> B == /B --> /A
This answer choice is logically sound. However, this means we have 2 absolute reasons why we know A is not correct now.
We are looking for a FLAWED answer choice and A is not flawed.
The logic of A --> B == /B --> /A does not match the stimulus which provided the flawed logic of
A --> B == /A --> /B
If A were to be correct it should have said "It therefore follows that bread that does not h
B on the other hand is both flawed and follows the same reasoning/conclusion
taste good --> right flour == /taste good --> /right flour
This answer choice is FLAWED
It matches the same chain of logic
Therefore B is the correct answer.
tldr: basically the stimulus provides a logic chain that is flawed. when i was doing the question I read that A had the same amount of conditions and structure but the conclusion was logically sound (not flawed) so A must be wrong. B on the other hand had the same condition and structure but the conclusion logic was flawed in the same structure as the stimulus.
is there a lesson that shows the difference between causal and conditional?
I was so confused on this and it was annoying b/c it was so simple. I couldnt find the right answer and then went over again and realized I inccorectly mapped out B from the "must" indicator. The stim is A--->B /A----->/B, I had B mapped out as A----B /B---->/A and I was like wtf till I realzied the must and swapped it to /A---->/B and then made sense to why B is correct. The incorrect mapping is AC A.
With conditional causal logic, I like to conceptualize it as drinking alcohol and hangovers.
hangover (effect) → drinking alcohol (necessary cause)
/drinking alcohol → /hangover
If someone told you that they didn't have a hangover this morning, would you automatically conclude they didn't touch alcohol last night? Obviously not. I had a liver of steel as a college student and simply did not get hangovers.
Similarly, if I told you that I drank alcohol, you cannot conclude that I will definitively experience a hangover.
Now let's look at sufficient causes.
drinking a handle of vodka (sufficient cause) → alcohol poisoning (effect)
Makes sense, right? Now unless you're superhuman, if you did NOT go to the ER then you can logically conclude that you did NOT drink an entire handle of vodka.
/alcohol poisoning → /drinking a handle of vodka
I thought causal arguments couldn’t have contropostives. Is it because its in a If Then statement that if A-> B that /B->/A?
I am confused as to why I can't just use conditional logic for this question.
@CaseySteffen I was confused about this too, but I think you can, he just uses cause effect to more quickly go through the answer choices. E.g. for C), if you look at the passage as solely conditional logic, you may try mapping out C) as if-then, but if you see the passage as cause-effect, then C) is obviously incorrect since there's no causal relationship in the first sentence. This is just a guess though since I had the same question.
I do not understand how the first sentence in B is correct is it reads cause > effect instead of effect > cause like the question
@CherishWilliams Great question. It is not what the sentence actually says but that IS how it is written. That's where the trick is: the sentence isn't written in the same IF->THEN format as the stimulus (but he didn't talk about that in the video or explanation; that's a miss for me).
You could actually mentally rewrite the first sentence of B to to an IF THEN say:
In order to taste good a cake must contain the right amount of flour.
At that point you have A->B. Good.
Now we need
Taste Good->Right Amount Flourfor it to work. The second sentence says just that: It therefore follows that cakes that do not taste good do not contain the right amount of flour.I get why you missed it, and I think it would have been borderline diabolical if LSAC had included better answer choices to trick you but none of the other answer choices were alluring in a mean way, thankfully.
What if there were an answer choice that wasn't causal but nonetheless committed the same flaw of negating the sufficient condition (A→B, therefore, /A→/B)?
I don't see the difference between A and B...I thought it was A based that it said "If->then"
A does not make the flaw that B does even though it is the same kind of argument.
"in order to"
B tricked me up on the grammar. I see it now.
When I read this the image not A- notB- came into my head lawwwgiicccc is paying off
Committed sufficiency - necessity confusion when I was mapping out B. If you're not careful, you might have made the same error. The first sentence of B doesn't read in the same order as the stim, so you have to make that connection before you map it.
Ex. It's not (right amount of flour > taste good), it's (taste good > right amount of flour). You can help yourself out by rephrasing it like the stim does (If a cake is to taste good, it must contain the right amount of flour).
@Willyc yeah it almost got me. the "must" saved me though so thank the conditional indicator gods
Anyone have helpful guides to know if a premise without key causal indicators is causal?
This question specifically can be broken down simply with logic. I don't think you need a thorough understanding of causal vs. conditional to work through it.
But in general, you can read this causal stim as:
"If a thing is to happen, then it requires this thing to cause it."
Whereas a conditional stim might read something like:
"If an object looks like plop, then it must be a blorp."
But for this question, just use simple arrows and you can get it right:
p: Healthy Bones -> Calcium
c: /Healthy Bones -> /Calcium
This is flawed because nec/suff confusion. The only valid inference is the contrapositive /Calcium -> /Healthy Bones.
AC B:
A cake must (nec) contain the right amount of flour in order to (suff) taste good. It therefore follows that cakes that do not taste good do not contain the right amount of flour.
Taste Good -> Right Flour
/Taste Good -> /Right Flour
Bingo, the flaw pattern matches the stim. Right answer. I didn't even once consider causal vs conditional.
@lollipoppy for myself, I consider any argument that involves change over time to be in the realm of causal reasoning. This doesn't mean you can infer a causal relationship. It means the reasoning is operating in the universe where causes happen, instead of, e.g., material conditional reasoning, which is about states and the truth value of those states.
@gurbytown thanks for breaking this down, I missed the "must" on first reading so I had my sufficient and necessary condition transposed.
Can someone please explain why A is wrong and B is right. This is how I mapped it out:
Question:
Healthy Bones -> Sufficient Calcium (A->B)
Not Healthy Bones -> Not Sufficient Calcium (NOT A -> NOT B)
For answer choice A:
Firm crust -> baked at right temp (A->B)
Not baked at right temp -> not firm crust (Not B->Not A)
For answer choice B:
Right amount of flour -> taste good (A->B)
Does not taste good -> not right amount of flour (Not B->Not A)
are these not the same?
you mapped answer choice B wrong.
its tastes good-> right amount of flour
because the sentence states that a cake MUST (necessary indicator) contain the right amount of flour in order to taste good.
from there you would map the conditional premise as A-> B and the conclusion is Not A-> Not B which matches the stimulus
The stim maps like this
DHB = develops health bones
DIC = Diet in calcium
If DHB → DIC
/DHB → /DIC
This is a mistaken reversal as the actual contrapositive of the premise is
/DIC → /DHB
Thus the stim has flawed conditional reasoning!!
AC A takes the contrastive properly — it is a sound argument
AC B performs the same mistaken reversal as the stim and is thus the correct answer
Your answer was incorrect because you accurately mapped the contrastive of the premise — the LSAt author did not!!
@almond77 must introduces a sufficient condition/rule. So it's tastes good --> right amount of flour
And the conclusion is /tastes good --> /right amount of flour which is the same flaw in the stimulus (mistaken reversal)
A's conclusion is a contrapositive which is not really a flaw.
@murphy.matt.j you're the GOAT for this explanation. I was having the same question and your explanation was so insightful!