PT17.S3.Q01 - If a country's manufacturing capacity is fully utilized...

hotranchsauce

Here's the problem and JY's explanation: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-17-section-3-question-01/

My question: is the necessary condition ALWAYS a precondition to the sufficient condition? If yes, does that mean the precondition exists before the sufficient condition?

This question messed my world up. This is the first I've ever come across "precondition" and I'm super confused. What I gather from JY's explanation, and possibly my interpretation is wrong, but I gather than in any Sufficient --> Necessary relationship, the Necessary condition is always a precondition to the Sufficient condition. Which makes sense for me in certain situations like... well now that I'm thinking about it I don't even know if that much is true for me.

Anyways, how can the necessary condition in the following example be considered a precondition?

If X now then Y future.

How is Y a precondition to X if Y happens after x?

Well, maybe I just answered my own question. I'm getting hung up on "truthfulness" of a given argument when truthfulness is something that we must just assume for every question. Right? So I guess I just submit to the fact that each necessary condition is a precondition to the sufficient even if the truthfulness factor of that being so is laughable?

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of question"

Bagelinthemorning-2-1-1

Hey!

So when looking at the question, I took precondition to mean necessary assumption.

Here is my conditional relationship below:

Manufacture utilized -> Industrial Growth-> New Capital

Reduction in Interest rate->New Capital

Therefore, if there is a reduction in interest rate, it leads to New Capital which is a necessary condition for Industrial Growth.

In this case, the precondition (NA) is the "New Capital".

Jordan Johnson

@businesskarafa said:
Here's the problem and JY's explanation: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-17-section-3-question-01/

My question: is the necessary condition ALWAYS a precondition to the sufficient condition? If yes, does that mean the precondition exists before the sufficient condition?

This question messed my world up. This is the first I've ever come across "precondition" and I'm super confused. What I gather from JY's explanation, and possibly my interpretation is wrong, but I gather than in any Sufficient --> Necessary relationship, the Necessary condition is always a precondition to the Sufficient condition. Which makes sense for me in certain situations like... well now that I'm thinking about it I don't even know if that much is true for me.

Anyways, how can the necessary condition in the following example be considered a precondition?

If X now then Y future.

How is Y a precondition to X if Y happens after x?

Well, maybe I just answered my own question. I'm getting hung up on "truthfulness" of a given argument when truthfulness is something that we must just assume for every question. Right? So I guess I just submit to the fact that each necessary condition is a precondition to the sufficient even if the truthfulness factor of that being so is laughable?

I interpret the word "precondition" in this particular question to be referring to causality, not formal logic. I use ⤻ to denote causality (or in certain cases, chronology). [I have seen "precondition" (and even "precludes") as indications of necessary conditions in formal logic in other stimuli, so please take this with a grain of salt.]

I would diagram the stimulus like this:
MCFU:
Industrial growth --> new capital investment
Reduce interest rates ⤻ new capital investment

The way I read it, the term 'precondition' in the correct answer is referring to the causal relationship between "reduce interest rates" and "new capital investment". Reducing interest rates may lead to the necessary condition "new capital investment", but we can't then read the formal logic arrow backwards to conclude that "Industrial growth" occurs.

A necessary assumption does not always have to be something that happens, chronologically, before the sufficient. There is no timeline in formal logic.

For instance, "Study --> good grades" and "Good grades --> study" are two completely different conditionals where there's no indication which thing happens first in either case without additional information.

Hope that helps!

Jordan Johnson

@Bagelinthemorning said:
Hey!

So when looking at the question, I took precondition to mean necessary assumption.

Here is my conditional relationship below:

Manufacture utilized -> Industrial Growth-> New Capital

Reduction in Interest rate->New Capital

Therefore, if there is a reduction in interest rate, it leads to New Capital which is a necessary condition for Industrial Growth.

In this case, the precondition (NA) is the "New Capital".

If you want to avoid mixing causality with formal logic, this is the same way I would diagram it.

hotranchsauce

@"Jordan Johnson" said:

@businesskarafa said:
Here's the problem and JY's explanation: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-17-section-3-question-01/

My question: is the necessary condition ALWAYS a precondition to the sufficient condition? If yes, does that mean the precondition exists before the sufficient condition?

This question messed my world up. This is the first I've ever come across "precondition" and I'm super confused. What I gather from JY's explanation, and possibly my interpretation is wrong, but I gather than in any Sufficient --> Necessary relationship, the Necessary condition is always a precondition to the Sufficient condition. Which makes sense for me in certain situations like... well now that I'm thinking about it I don't even know if that much is true for me.

Anyways, how can the necessary condition in the following example be considered a precondition?

If X now then Y future.

How is Y a precondition to X if Y happens after x?

Well, maybe I just answered my own question. I'm getting hung up on "truthfulness" of a given argument when truthfulness is something that we must just assume for every question. Right? So I guess I just submit to the fact that each necessary condition is a precondition to the sufficient even if the truthfulness factor of that being so is laughable?

The word "precondition" in this particular question is referring to causality, not formal logic. I use ⤻ to denote causality (or in certain cases, chronology).

I would diagram the stimulus like this:
MCFU:
Industrial growth --> new capital investment
Reduce interest rates ⤻ new capital investment

The way I read it, the term 'precondition' in the correct answer is referring to the causal relationship between "reduce interest rates" and "new capital investment". Reducing interest rates may lead to the necessary condition "new capital investment", but we can't then read the formal logic arrow backwards to conclude that "Industrial growth" occurs.

A necessary assumption does not always have to be something that happens, chronologically, before the sufficient. There is no timeline in formal logic.

For instance, "Study --> good grades" and "Good grades --> study" are two completely different conditionals where there's no indication which thing happens first in either case without additional information.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the response. Your explanation speaks to me. I guess my intuition to this point has allowed me to sometimes skate through a question with only half heartedly discerning causality/chronology and conditionality. Even in this question you can kind of eek by on forcing everything into a conditionality diagram. For example, I initially guessed the correct answer, but when I reviewed it I could not prove to myself why I was correct after all.

But yea, I can see how the word "production" shows causation/chronology. A produces B.