Quantifiers Questions - - Question 12

Some people think that in every barrel of politicians there are only a few rotten ones. But if deceit is a quality o...

May-Salah December 27, 2020

where is the quantifier?

in the video, the quantifier was not mentioned when drawing out the diagram? how do we know when the quantifier is relevant and when is it not? also, in the video, the statement that starts with "all" was shown as the necessary condition while the rule for "all" is that wat follows it is always the sufficient, so my question is why was this the case this time?

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shunhe January 6, 2021

Hi @May-Salah,

Thanks for the question! I’m assuming by “the quantifier” you’re referring to the first word “some” in the passage. Notice that is talking about “some people,” which is a concept that isn’t used again in the passage. That’s not part of the reasoning, it’s just a way to introduce information by saying “this is what some people think.” And so in this case, it’s not relevant, since we wouldn’t do anything with it anyway. Generally speaking, look for terms being repeated. In those cases, quantifiers might be important.

The “all” is in the necessary this time because it’s nested in a larger “if” statement. Remember, the full statement is “if deceit is a quality of rottenness, all effective politicians are rotten.” So that’s if X, then Y, where X = deceit is a quality of rottenness, and Y = all effective politicians are rotten.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

May-Salah January 25, 2021

very much so, thank you