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D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
Comment about 4E designers loving D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3771075" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I don't object to pedantic reading of statements to derive unexpected implications. I am, after all, an academic lawyer and philosopher by trade.</p><p></p><p>So let's consider the actual quote the OP cited. It was "4th edition will be the best yet because the people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons". This is not an explanation of why 4th edition will be better than 3rd edition. It is an explanation of why 4th edition will be the best yet. Indeed, it is likely that the person who made this claim believes the same thing to be true of 3rd edition, namely, that when released it was the best yet, and that part of the cause for that was its designers' love for the game.</p><p></p><p>An explanation of why something will be the best yet is not necessarily an explanation of what makes it better than its competitors or predecessors. Presumably, the quoted person thinks that the explanation for 4e's superiority to 3E is it's better mechanics, which are themselves the product of design informed by many years of playing 3E.</p><p></p><p></p><p>"Because" is not synonymous with "necessitated by".</p><p></p><p>Consider the following statement: I have malaria because I was bitten by a mosquito.</p><p></p><p>If I have malaria, than that statment is true. But that statement is not equivalent to the false claim: If I am bitten by a mosquito then I will catch malaria.</p><p></p><p>This is because "because", in statements of causation and explanation, is often used to identify <em>necessary</em> rather than <em>sufficient</em> conditions.</p><p></p><p>Indeed, in many cases it is actually used to identify what the Australian and Oxford philosopher John Mackie called INUS (= Insufficient but Necessary components of Unnecessary but Sufficient) conditions. For example: The match lit because it was struck on the box. It does not follow from this claim that striking a match is a sufficient condition of its lighting - only that striking a match is a necessary component of one of several sufficient conditions for a match becoming lit.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 3771075, member: 42582"] I don't object to pedantic reading of statements to derive unexpected implications. I am, after all, an academic lawyer and philosopher by trade. So let's consider the actual quote the OP cited. It was "4th edition will be the best yet because the people working on the game, like the fans, love Dungeons and Dragons". This is not an explanation of why 4th edition will be better than 3rd edition. It is an explanation of why 4th edition will be the best yet. Indeed, it is likely that the person who made this claim believes the same thing to be true of 3rd edition, namely, that when released it was the best yet, and that part of the cause for that was its designers' love for the game. An explanation of why something will be the best yet is not necessarily an explanation of what makes it better than its competitors or predecessors. Presumably, the quoted person thinks that the explanation for 4e's superiority to 3E is it's better mechanics, which are themselves the product of design informed by many years of playing 3E. "Because" is not synonymous with "necessitated by". Consider the following statement: I have malaria because I was bitten by a mosquito. If I have malaria, than that statment is true. But that statement is not equivalent to the false claim: If I am bitten by a mosquito then I will catch malaria. This is because "because", in statements of causation and explanation, is often used to identify [i]necessary[/i] rather than [i]sufficient[/i] conditions. Indeed, in many cases it is actually used to identify what the Australian and Oxford philosopher John Mackie called INUS (= Insufficient but Necessary components of Unnecessary but Sufficient) conditions. For example: The match lit because it was struck on the box. It does not follow from this claim that striking a match is a sufficient condition of its lighting - only that striking a match is a necessary component of one of several sufficient conditions for a match becoming lit. [/QUOTE]
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