#10 - Anyone who fails to answer a patient's questions

[hyperfang9000]

Hi all! I've read the previous messages in this thread, but I can't for the life of me understand how to break down this part of the sentence "That is why I feel confident about my physician's competence: she carefully answers every one of my questions, no matter how trivial" into the necessary and sufficient condition. I diagrammed this sentence as Competent --> carefully answers every one of my questions, i.e., the contrapositive. What are the tangible indicators here that signify that the diagram should be "carefully answers every one of my questions --> competent?"

[Jeff Wren]

Hi hyperfang,

I suspect that the reason that you're having trouble diagramming the second sentence of the stimulus is that it is not actually a conditional statement. Instead, it is a statement of two terms that are not actually connected conditionally. (The argument just assumes that they are connected conditionally based on a Mistaken Negation of the first sentence.)

What this sentence actually is showing is the conclusion of the argument "I feel confident about my physician's competence" and the premise that supports this conclusion "she carefully answers every one of my questions, no matter how trivial." (This would have been easier to see if the sentence had used a premise indicator such as "because" or "since" between the conclusion and the premise rather than just using a colon.)

Let's imagine that the first premise had actually said "Anyone who answers a patient's questions is a competent physician."

This could be diagrammed:

Premise: APQ -> CP

Then we get another premise: my physician answers my questions. This is not a conditional statement; it is simply a statement of fact involving the sufficient term.

It could be diagrammed using subscripts. (I'll just use parentheses.):

Premise: APQ (mp)

The (mp) stands for "my physician."

The conclusion of the argument is also not a conditional statement, it is simply a statement of fact involving the necessary term.

It could be diagrammed:

Conclusion: CP (mp)

This would be a valid argument in which the sufficient condition occurs in a specific instance (my physician) allowing us to conclude that the necessary also occurs in this specific instance (my physician). We refer to this type of conditional argument as the Repeat form.

Of course, the problem with the actual argument in the stimulus is that the first sentence doesn't say: "Anyone who answers a patient's questions is a competent physician," but actually says the Mistaken Negation of that.

If you look at Jay's earlier post (Post #5), it correctly shows the argument broken down into premises and conclusion, with the horizontal line separating the premises from the conclusion. The other posts describing the conclusion as conditional are trying to show the Mistaken Negation that is occurring in the argument, but the conclusion of the argument itself is not actually conditional; it is just based on using the Mistaken Negation of the first premise.