Lawgic translation

Mikey O.

"It's always sunny in Philadelphia"

Someone please explain to me how Sunny is the Necessary Condition and Philadelphia is the Sufficient Condition when both come immediately following the logical indicator of 'always' (Group 2).

TimLSAT180

I'm going through the Introduction to Logic Lesson right now and I can help you out with that. Even though both "sunny" and "Philadelphia" come after the logical indicator "always", what you want to look out for is which word comes immediately after the logical indicator. In this case, it's the word "sunny", which is why "sunny" is the necessary condition and "Philadelphia" is the sufficient condition. Hope this helps.

BenjaminSF

@doohocho is right on the money with this one.

When I was learning the lawgic form, I followed the rules like gospel, but I also found that it was helpful for me to understand the why behind the lawgic structure. For some conditional relationships, it can be clarified by turning the sentence into an if/then statement.

In this example there is only one way that this would make sense: "If in Philadelphia, then it must be sunny". That is totally feasible and it maintains the original intent of the sentence. Alternatively, "If sunny, it must be in Philadelphia". Here we can see how to logical structure does not follow the intent of the original sentence. It's just silly; it's going to be sunny in Cabo, and that's definitely not Philly. I'm not going to Philadelphia to get my base tan, because plenty of other places get lots of sun and have better margaritas.

While this is not a foolproof technique, especially when you are dealing with conditional relationships that may not be as cut and dry, I used it as a learning tool to improve understanding.

TimLSAT180

@BenjaminSF You're totally right about understanding the "why" of Lawgic. Another good example is the infamous statement: I only work on Tuesdays. If I were to translate this statement into Lawgic based on my comment, it would be T -> W. But, this is actually wrong because this is NOT what the statement is saying. Make it into an If/Then statement to help you out like @BenjaminSF suggested. The statement is saying that if I work, then it must be a Tuesday. So, the Lawgic would actually be W -> T! So, yes please take my above comment with a grain of salt for it will be true in MOST cases, but you really have to understand the statement that you're reading instead of mechanically translating it. It will save you a lot of trouble in the future. Hope this helps!

BenjaminSF

@TimLSAT180 Makes a really good point in his example. The thing to keep in mind in this example is that referential phrasing can lead to very misleading relationships between English and Lawgic.

The phrase "I only work on Tuesdays" is really saying "The only day I can work is Tuesdays", not "If it is Tuesday, then I must be working". Expanding referential phrasing can help to clarify the relationship: DW->T

The relationships between sufficient and necessary conditions can be tricky at first. Speaking from experience, I found this infuriating for longer than I care to admit. English is just so fricking ambiguous sometimes, and the LSAT capitalizes on this. But the more instances of ambiguous arguments that you expose yourself to, the more intuitive translation will become.

Practice makes perfect!