Part to whole flaw question Forum

[sdwarrior403]

This flawed type of argumentation is when parts have a characteristic, and you then place that characteristic onto the whole this part helps to make up.

I have a question as to whether my reasoning is correct.....

Greek Column -> Beautiful

Japanese Column -> Aesthetic

Does this mean that if i have greek and japanese columns, then i will have beautiful and aesthetic columns?

I suppose it does due to the conditional relationships set forth, correct?

It seems as if it does suffer from the part to whole flaw of argumentation.

[LionelHutzJD]

This is not part to whole.

[sdwarrior403]

Ok then. Would you please address whether my reasoning is correct regarding the conditional statements. Is it true that i will then have beautiful and aesthetic columns?

[cahwc12]

That's poorly written, but if it's intended as I think you intended it to be, that's part/whole.

If by "I will then have beautiful and aesthetic columns" you mean that all columns in the set have the qualities "beautiful" and "aesthetic" then that would be a part/whole fallacy.


Really though it's best not to worry in the abstract because you end up with threads like this: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 6&t=184809

If you have any actual LSAT question you want board members to look at, then post that.

If you have the cambridgeLSAT parallel flaw packet, here is a list of questions that exhibit part-whole fallacy that you can look at:

part-whole:
10
23
53
62

whole-part:
8
18
24
49
52
54
73

[sdwarrior403]

Thanks for that. I suppose I should drop the question about part to whole and simply change this topic to conditional problems I am having. A specific question I have is from PT 34-2-23 with monsters.

The specific question I have regarding the credited answer is as follows...

Is it just because the sufficient condition contains revulsion that we can have the necessary condition of threatening. I diagrammed the statements as..

R->H->T
Physical Dangerous -> T

The question I have is that if an answer choice brought in new a idea, like a monster sleeps constantly, along with revulsion would you still be able to have the necessary condition of T?

Sleeps Constantly and Revulsion ---> ???

I would imagine that simply having Revulsion in the sufficient condition area would give us the ability to necessarily have T. I apologize in advance if you do not understand my question. I will reword it if necessary.

[cahwc12]

By definition, something that is a sufficient condition needs nothing else to occur.

Rule: If you are late, you will be fired.

Scenario: You are late and also have a red tie with a mustard stain on it.

Deduction: What will happen?


Now, allow me to reword this example in a way that makes answer choice (E) more apparent:

All employees that are not sick, but that are late and mustard stains on their shirts, will be fired.

All employees that are not sick, but that are late and mustard stains on their shirts, will be fired.

Once you get by the extraneous information, look for the statement in answer choice (E): "All monsters that inspire revulsion are threatening."

See what happened there?



Now, if you want to get into the more advanced side, here's a tip: When you see conditional reasoning for a must be true question that can be linked together, the correct answer is almost always the sum of that link.

Sentence 1) H --> T
Sentence 2) PhyD --> T
Sentence 3) R --> H

How can we combine these? R ---> H ---> T

"If it inspires Revulsion, then it is threatening."

Now, take a look at (E) one more time.


Lastly, when you qualify a conditional statement by adding extra restrictions (such as a mustard-stained red tie or psychological danger), this creates a subset of the original category (work tardiness and monster revulsion).

But what is true of every individual member of the set must necessarily be true of each individual member of any given subset.

If all the trees in the forest are green, it follows that each individual tree is green.

The part-whole fallacy would say that if the forest is beautiful, it follows that each individual tree is beautiful.

Notice how these are qualitatively different statements. The former is an assertion about each individual member of the set, while the latter makes an assertion about the state of the group as a whole.

[sdwarrior403]

Thanks again.