Daily Drills 16 - Section 16 - Question 4

P: X → not DP: ? P: B → DC: B → A

GlamRockKitties May 7, 2018

What is the difference between (A) and (C)?

The answers to both look to be the same. How do you determine the correct order for the premise/conclusions?

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Christopher May 7, 2018

@GlamRockKitties Let's put in words for X and A, and hopefully that'll make the difference more clear. If you replace X with The President and A with Johnny, then (A) says essentially "if a person is the President, then he is not Johnny." Reversing in it would be "if a person is Johnny, then he is not the President." The difference with (C) is that it says "if a person is NOT Johnny, then he is the President" and "if a person is NOT the President, then he is Johnny." Having the "NOT" on one side of the equation or the other makes a tremendous difference to the meaning.

Personally, I test how I've diagrammed question by putting it into a simple if-then statement like I did above. If my if-then statement says the same thing as the original statement (albeit in different words) then I've diagrammed it correctly. If it doesn't, then I've got something mixed up.