Please help me work out the following formal logic problem....
Given the premise that whoever smelt it dealt it, does it necessarily follow that whoever dealt it must also have smelt it?
No. For it is possible that nobody could have smelt it, yet the dealing was done.
To solve this formal logic problem, we need to examine the premise and determine if the conclusion necessarily follows.
The premise states that "whoever smelt it, dealt it." This can be interpreted to mean that the person who perceives or detects a smell is the one responsible for causing it.
The conclusion, on the other hand, suggests that if someone dealt with a smell, they must also have detected it.
To evaluate whether the conclusion follows necessarily from the premise, we need to consider a counterexample.
A counterexample is a specific scenario that contradicts the conclusion, thereby disproving its universality.
In this case, the counterexample is when nobody detected the smell (i.e., nobody "smelt it"), yet someone still caused the smell ("dealt it"). This counterexample disproves the conclusion that whoever dealt with the smell must have also detected it.
Therefore, based on the given premise and the counterexample, it does not necessarily follow that whoever dealt with the smell must have also detected it.