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I am not understanding JY’s (or any other online) explanation as to why the answer is A. I’m not understanding how he gets from “If important AND well written then published therefore If important then published.”
Is the idea that importance implies that it also well written?? Or is it that the “and” there is really functioning as an “or”? If it’s functioning as an “or”, why? Thanks in advance!
Admin note: edited title; please use the format of "PT#.S#.Q# - [first set of words]"
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It sounds like that you have already determined that the premises give you the logical chain:
Book published -> Prof N recommends Skiff to dean -> Skiff will be promoted
In the conclusion we are given a new logical chain:
Skiff's book is as important and as well written as Skiff claims -> Skiff will be promoted
My immediate answer choice prediction was to link the conditional chain to the beginning of the premises logical chain:
Skiff's book is as important and as well written as Skiff claims -> book published
So, why is that prediction not the verbatim answer? Why does it miss the "and well written" part?
Because the answer takes one of the conditions for Skiff to be promoted as a sufficient condition on its own for Skiff's book to be published and subsequently for him to be promoted...
if the book is as important as he claims -> book published (-> Prof N recommends Skiff to the dean -> Skiff will be promoted)
So what happens when Skiff's book is important AND well written? Will the book be published? Heck yeah!
if the book is as important as he claims AND well written -> book published (-> Prof N recommends Skiff to the dean -> Skiff will be promoted)
Hello! I had the same confusion as OP. If the AC had said “Skiff’s book will be published this year if it is as well-written as he claims it is" would that also count as a Sufficient Assumption? #help
I’m still honestly not following even a little bit (although I appreciate you taking the time to try).
I don’t understand how we get from:
If Important AND Well-written -> Nguyen Recommends -> Promoted
TO
If JUST IMPORTANT - > Nguyen Recommends - > Promoted
In my mind its like A+B=C therefore A=C which is just not making sense to me.
I can absolutely imagine a world where the book is important but not well-written and therefore the condition that the book be both important and well-written is not satisfied. If your claim is that the condition actually doesn’t require both then my question is how the heck do we know to ignore the “and” in this context?
I'll take a stab at this one!
Prem 1: Book Published-->Nguyen Recommend
Prem 2: Nguyen Recommend-->Dean Promote
CONC: Important + WW-->Dean Promote
So, there's a big gap in the Conclusion: the introduction of "importance" and quality of writing ("WW"). If we make an abstracted form of the arg, it's a little easier to see:
Prem 1: A-->B
Prem 2: B-->C
At this point, I'd be expecting the Conclusion to chain these up and say A-->C, but instead, it introduces some brand new info:
CONC: D+E-->C.
The easiest way to justify the conclusion then, would be to find something that chains D or E to one of our premises. A gets that perfectly: Important-->Book Published. Or, abstracted: D-->A-->B-->C, which shortens to D-->C.
The way I see it, there's no connection we need to make between importance and quality of writing in terms of justifying the coclusion. I think we could similarly justify the conclusion if we said "If high Quality of Writing, then Book will be Published." I think one of the terms is just intentionally extra to throw us of while we're working through the problem. If there were only one new term in the conclusion, then this problem wouldn't deserve to be 5*. If we can complete a conditional logic chain from one of the points in the conclusion to the premises, then the argument is completely justified and there's no need to address the other weird point in the conclusion.
To your question, I don't think the "and" at the end is functioning as an "or".
Hopefully this helps! :D
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