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1 Like
Only....if
akistotle
Member ⭐ 🍌🍌
Is it ok to translate "Writing can only succeed if it meets the expectations." as:
"Meet Expectation --> Succeed"
or
Is it "Succeed --> Meet Expectation"?
I don't know if we see a sentence like this on LSAT, but I just saw this sentence in real life and got confused by its placement of the word "only."
Comments
I could totally be wrong but I would translate that as
Writing Meets Expectation--> Succeed
ContraP: /S-->/WME
Because "only" is a necessary indicator while "if" is a sufficient indicator
Right. Group 1 & 2 translation. That's what I thought too at first.
But that would mean that if it met the expectations, a piece of writing would succeed, right?
I saw this sentence in a writing workshop....it would mean that my writing will succeed if it meets my professor's expectations...oh but it says "writing can succeed" so that's only a possibility...hmm
I think you are right; I guess I was overthinking about what the author means by the word "succeed."
Ok, I have another example:
(Page 110 of http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/NYU_Law_Magazine_2007.pdf)
Is "monopoly on legitimate physical force within its borders" the sufficient condition of a successful state? I felt like this is a necessary condition....
I would read that as
MLPH--> S
The next sentence I would read as
MLPH is Broken--> SD (State Dubious) + FS (Failed state)
@akistotle Thanks for sharing the magazine.quite interesting.
I would say succeed is the sufficient condition and monopoly is the necessary condition. The second sentence is the contrapositive statement of the first one. "monopoly on boarders" is a indicator(one among others) of the successful state.
That's how I read too...! But what does this mean for the placement of indicators "only" and "if"?
(Page 110 of http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/NYU_Law_Magazine_2007.pdf)
Do you think he was saying "A state can succeed only if it has a monopoly on legitimate physical force within its borders"?
Or should we mechanically apply Group 1 and 2 translation?
Can Sages (like @"Cant Get Right", @danielznelson ) confirm this?
In "Politics as a Vocation," Max Weber has defined a state as "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."(http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf), and I think this sentence is referring to that definition.
So I naturally read it as:
Successful state --> Monopoly on legitimate physical force
/Monopoly on legitimate physical force --> /Successful state
But I'm not completely sure.
This is such a great discussion. It gets into the weeds of how ambiguous English is.
Regarding the two formulations below, I think the context says they mean the same thing.
(1) Writing can only succeed if it meets the expectations.
(2) Writing can succeed only if it meets the expectations.
(2) is the less ambiguous expression. writing succeed -> meets expectations
It would be odd to think that statement meant that as soon as you have writing that meets expectations, it's then successful.
It's the same with the following:
(3) A state can only succeed if it has a monopoly on legitimate physical force within its borders.
(4) A state can succeed only if it has a monopoly on legitimate physical force within its borders.
Again, (4) is the less ambiguous expression. state succeed -> monopoly. The sentence immediately following "When this is broken...the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and it becomes a failed state" supports that interpretation. Again, it's odd to think that a monopoly on legitimate physical force with in its borders is sufficient for a successful state. Other factors are at play as well.
That we interprete these statements the same, I think, owes to their meaning, to how they track the real world, and not so much their grammatical structure.
We can see that if we simple change the subject or context, without changing the grammatical structure, the logic changes as well.
Consider:
(5) We can only vacation in Colorado if Alan joins us.
(6) We can vacation in Colorado only if Alan joins us.
(5) says that if Alan joins us, our options are strictly limited to Colorado. Alan -> Colorado
But (6) says that Alan's joining us is a precondition for vacationing in Colorado. Colorado -> Alan
Whenever I see this "only if" wordings and their variants, I've made it a habit to immediately just negate it.
I feel like we hardly speak in these weird structures so writing them is equally weird.....like if I told my friend "I'm going to law school if and only if I do extremely well on my LSAT" im a million percent sure he'll look at me and say "oh dude, if you mess up you can't go?" ?
Thank you so much for the great explanation, @"J.Y. Ping" !
I see. Do these ambiguous conditional statements ever appear on LSAT? I think I may just apply Group 1 & 2 translations without interpreting the meaning under timed conditions....
This is interesting. (1), (3), (5) all have the same structure "We can only A if B" but (5) differs from (1) and (3) logically.
I'm not completely sure what you mean by "im a million percent sure...." here but I think your friend's hypothetical comment is correct because
Law School <-------> Extremely well on LSAT
/Law School <-------> Mess up on LSAT (/Extremely well on LSAT)
@akistotle Thanks for bring the Weber's article. I did read it in my senior sociology class.I'm a big fan of Weber. Since it's the translation(I believed the original text is written in German) , the meaning and/or logical relations may not convey exactly.
I mean to say that we're used to using only if statements in their negates forms.
Haha ok. Sorry. It's true that sometimes contrapositives are easier to understand.
I like him too! Yes, it is originally in German. Also I believe it was a transcription of a lecture at a university in Germany, so meanings are not exactly clear.
They do not stand out in my memory so either they don't appear or it's not common (or I have a bad memory). It's certainly possible that they could appear. But, the LSAC seems to hew to a reasonable interpretation principle: a statement shouldn't be so ambiguous that we could reasonably interprete it in opposing ways.
Yes, very good.
Ok so I don't have to worry too much about these appearing on LSAT then. But it's a good reminder to read for meaning.
I may be wrong but it seems like
"only A (one adjective or verb) if B" = "A only if B"
I did some Google search and found many examples of "only A (one adjective or verb) if B"
Note: these are random examples and I haven't actually read any of the books.
legitimate --> supported by citizens
successful ---> lived without compromise and maintained your moral worth
achieve plans ---> the co-operation of men and women
Yeah, I definitely read this as "Writing can succeed only if it meets the expectations." Language is messy and it helps to be flexible rather approach it with strict rules. The fact that you guys recognized the issue here is really great. It tells me that your heads are in the right places and your thinking is not strictly mechanical.
I agree with @"J.Y. Ping" that LSAT tries to avoid these types of statements, and I too can not think of any examples of this happening off the top of my head. If there are any, they'll almost certainly be from the earliest tests.
Well the mechanical rules do indeed work: that is you should never be able to get the wrong answer strictly following the rules. All cases you get it wrong is a case you broke at least on or more of the rules. Test this for yourself.
The rule is any words after IF is the subject term in philosophy. Mathematics calls this same thing the hypothesis.
If s then p. Where the s is placed is called the subject or antecedent term. The p is called the consequent. Mathematics uses the term conclusion instead of consequent for the same thing.
For example "you can have dessert if you eat your vegetables" is translated by the rule what follows IF goes first : eat your vegetables then you can have dessert -- not the other way around.
There is a distinction between ONLY IF. "You will make it to heaven only if you believe Jesus Christ is your savior" does not follow the IF rule above. In the case where the words are adjacent the rule is do nothing and put the symbolization in the middle. So let H= you will make it to heaven' let J = you believe Jesus Christ is your savior. The symbolization is H--> S. notice the symbols basically ignore the ONLY IF. Suppose you disagree then what? Well what we want is rules that always work not only tuesdays. Notice what I did there? I used a statement with ONLY. Here I convert my last statement using the RULE: if the rule works then it is Tuesday. So the rule is what follows ONLY is a consequent aka the conclusion of the conditional in mathematics.
So in summary IF indicates the antecedent. The clause ONLY IF means the word order is correct and ignore ONLY IF. Here is another case for you.
"You will be hired only if you meet our requirements" means if I am hired then I must be a person who meets the requirements. H-->R. I have an inkling some of you will say this is not true in that case:nepotism would not exist if that were the case.
Well you could question the truth of the claim then. But the truth value of any conditional with a false first part will be valid.
Thank you, @roychess, for explaining logic. I think 7Sagers do understand what "only if" means logically since we learn it in the Core Curriculum. As you can see from J.Y.'s comment, we were having a discussion on how ambiguous English can be.
Well yes I can agree, but the issue is logical rules are supposed to eliminate that ambiguity. I think what is expressed in this thread is also some students still struggle with ONLY IF and IF claims because they are either not given a universal rule or they were given the rule and they don't understand it. I would think the point of logic is to make life go a bit easier regardless the subject matter and not spots here and there. Most people unfamiliar with logical concepts think everything is already subjective. Subjective techniques which work only tuesdays and thursdays is not as valuable as universal techniques.
Are you studying for the LSAT? Everything in the LSAT is unfortunately written in English, not in logic. The LSAT does not give us "logical rules." So we sometimes have to parse out grammatically convoluted sentences.
I think you are missing the point I am making. I am saying that studying logic should include rules that allow the students to convert those English sentences to arrive at the correct solutions. What you seem to be expressing is the whatever works under the circumstances is what we will use. This is called pragmatism. This is not the same as saying you study logic or you teach logic.
This is not what 7Sage teaches, haha. This forum is just an extension of a really in-depth curriculum with over 400 lessons, each addressing a unique logical concept. You won't have access to this unless you sign up for the course, so please don't think that this forum represents the full extent of 7Sage teachings! This thread is discussing a statement which is ambiguous in its meaning, and the applications of this discussion are limited to the context of ambiguous statements. If you want to get a better idea of what 7Sage teaches, you can sign up for a course here: https://7sage.com/enroll/ The starter course includes the entire curriculum, so it's a good place to start. There's also a 2 week money back guarantee, so if it turns out it's not for you, no worries!
@"J.Y. Ping" & @"Cant Get Right"
Hi guys, I don't know if this is an example of ambiguity, but the second sentence of PT46.S2.Q2 (https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-46-section-2-question-02/) says:
(* This is not the exact sentence appeared in the question.)
I mapped it out (in my mind) like this:
Drama written ---> Someone who spent a lot of time with rulers.
But if I mechanically translated this sentence using the Group 2 rule, I think it would be:
Drama ---> Written someone who spent a lot of time with rulers.
For this sentence to be more clear, I think it should say:
Does this question show a rare example of the ambiguous placement of the word "only"?
I think I might call this flexibility rather than ambiguity. I don't think our understanding of the relationship is in question; only our logical expression of it. I don't think the placement of "written" changes much. It certainly doesn't lend to a legitimate reading that would allow us to argue that the logical relationship is the other way around: "If a drama was written by someone who spend a lot of time with rulers, then it is this particular drama." To be ambiguous, this reading would have to be arguable, and I do not see how it is.
I see. You are right; there seems to be only one way to read this sentence.
Thank you!
Sorry for bringing up an old discussion, but I think I found one example in RC answer choice.
PR35.S2.Passage 3
Q19 (https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-35-section-2-passage-3-questions/)
Biology can only be.... if....
= Biology can be....only if...