Every political philosopher of the early twentieth century who was either a socialist or a communist was influenced b...
draysalcidoJanuary 27, 2019
How is the answer A?
I'm confused on how this answer is A. I've gone through all of them, and it ended up that none of the answer choices were correct. She explains them too fast in the video, so I'm confused. I thought A was not necessarily true, because it's socialists OR communists. So answer A is saying that if it's socialists then they weren't totalitarian, and I thought that's not necessarily true. Communists could be a part of that too. Please explain.
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Happy to help. The stimulus tells us that every political philosopher of the early twentieth century who was either a socialist or a communist was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg.
Political Philosopher early twentieth century and communist OR socialist - ->influenced by Rosa
We're then told that no one who was influenced by Rosa Luxemburg advocated a totalitarian state.
Influenced by Rosa - >did not advocate a totalitarian state
The question is asking us to pick an answer that must be true based on the stimulus.
(A) says no early twentieth century socialist political philosopher advocated a totalitarian state
Political philosopher early twentieth century and socialist - >did not advocate a totalitarian state
Based on the stimulus, this statement must be true. Here's why:
The first sentence's conditional statement links up with the second sentence's conditional statement to form
Political Philosopher early twentieth century and communist OR socialist - ->influenced by Rosa - >did not advocate a totalitarian state
the sufficient condition for (A) is a twentieth century socialist political philosopher. This is a subset of the sufficient condition of the first sentence of the stimulus (every political philosopher of the early twentieth century who was either a socialist or a communist) since we're talking about a socialist political philosopher.
It appears that you did not recognize that a socialist early twentieth century political philosopher is a subset of an early twentieth century political philosopher who is a communist or socialist. As long as the philosopher is communist OR socialist, then the sufficient condition is met.
It doesn't matter if the philosopher is just a socialist or just a communist; all we care about is that he is one of the two AND he's also one from the early twentieth century. Because of this, he satisfies the sufficient condition of the first sentence, so then the necessary condition that he was influenced by Rosa must follow. Consequently, since the first and second sentences are linked and having been influenced by Rosa is the sufficient condition for the second sentence, we also know that our philosopher in question necessarily didn't advocate a totalitarian state. Thus, (A) must be true.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!
