"as a result of" Forum

appind · Post by **appind** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 2:42 am

60.3.22 uses "as a result of" to introduce causality in a premise ("and as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily.").

this premise seems to state a general and causal relationship between increasing demand causing gasoline price raise. this is same as saying gasoline demand can't increase without gasoline price increase, which is the choice C. i see why A is a required assumption but don't see why C is not.
the only way i could see C not being necessary is if "as a result of" specifies a non-general causal relationship. but that doesn't seem true as the premise is stated very distinctly in an independent clause ("and as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily."), which seems to make it a general premise.
why is C not a necessary assumption?

somethingElse · Post by **somethingElse** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 3:27 am

Post removed...

appind · Post by **appind** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 3:51 am

not sure about your definition of necessary assumption as anything that's required for argument to hold true is a necessary assumption and that includes premises. iirc there are arguments where premises are necessary assumptions.

Manhattan Prep Matt · Post by **Manhattan Prep Matt** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:59 am

appind wrote:not sure about your definition of necessary assumption as anything that's required for argument to hold true is a necessary assumption and that includes premises. iirc there are arguments where premises are necessary assumptions.

Anything that is necessary for an argument to hold true is necessary; an assumption is something that is unstated. So a necessary assumption is something that is required for an argument to hold true AND is unstated.

Premises are not necessary assumptions, as they're not assumptions. There are no arguments where a premise is a necessary assumption, as a premise can never be an assumption (on the LSAT - in the real world, you might question a premise by saying that you're assuming it to be true, which is not what the LSAT is about).

appind · Post by **appind** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 12:50 pm

Manhattan Prep Matt wrote: Anything that is necessary for an argument to hold true is necessary; an assumption is something that is unstated. So a necessary assumption is something that is required for an argument to hold true AND is unstated.

Premises are not necessary assumptions, as they're not assumptions. There are no arguments where a premise is a necessary assumption, as a premise can never be an assumption (on the LSAT - in the real world, you might question a premise by saying that you're assuming it to be true, which is not what the LSAT is about).

some texts i think see premises as explicit assumptions and unstated assumptions as implicit assumptions.
in the cited question you think (C) is same as the premise in the stim or is the premise about increasing demand causing gasoline cost raise is not general enough to always true? the manner in which the premise is stated as an independent clause ("and as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily") makes it seem as if the premise should simply be read as "premise: increasing demand always causes increased gasoline prices" without being limited to the government policies context. this premise is introduced in a bit vague manner regarding its generality and i am not sure if it's due to "as a result of." if C is the fully equivalent to the premise then this seems like a atypical lsat question.

somethingElse · Post by **somethingElse** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:07 pm

Post removed...