About conditional statements

[Emmeline Ndongue]

Regarding PT54 section#2 18:
The first sentence: "Taking a strong position on an usernames one likely.....with one's stand."

This is a principle example question with an implied principle. The first sentence, however, wasn't part of the argument, according the original thread.

What I'm concerned about is whether the first sentence could be written into a conditional statement. Lsat seems to have many situation like this, without a clear if...then concept but still provide some correlation.

[ohthatpatrick]

If you have a follow up related to a specific question, please just go ahead an add it to that question's thread, in the future.

I would call the first sentence part of the argument. The conclusion is trying to resolve the tension between the first sentence and the second sentence, so you kinda need them both.

You could represent the first sentence conditionally, but most people wouldn't because it expresses "likelihood", not certainty.

You can always turn "likely" into a condition, if you want by just saying:
"If you take a strong position, you'll probably misinterpret conflicting evidence".

But there's almost never a need (and usually no advantage) to trying to force something into conditional language if it didn't actually provide the 100% certainly of a RULE, UNIVERSAL, GUARANTEE, or REQUIREMENT.

Hope this helps.

[Emmeline Ndongue]

I appreciated your help, Patrick. I'll keep in mind to post them in the original thread sex time