Intuitive understanding of "unless" Forum

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SorJuana

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Intuitive understanding of "unless"

Post by SorJuana » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:20 pm

HI everyone, I apologize in advance if this is not the right place to ask this question!

I've just recently started studying for the LSAT and I'm trying to pay special attention to conditional reasoning to make sure I have a rock-solid understanding of it since it is so central to many aspects of the LSAT. One thing that I am trying to do is not just have a mechanistic understanding of conditional reasoning, but to truly, intuitively, fundamentally understand it. One particular concept which has been tripping me up quite a bit is the word "unless" when used in conditional reasoning. Now, I understand that when I see the word unless, I can mechanistically use the "Unless Equation" that the PowerScore Bibles teach and I would correctly diagram whatever sentence I'm looking.

However, recently I was trying to independently arrive at the correct diagram for an "unless" sentence without simply resorting to blindly applying the equation. I used the following sentence:

"I will go to the park unless it is raining"

I was thinking about this phrase and what I thought the correct diagram should be, I got a little stuck. To me, when I hear that phrase, intuitively, what it means is that if it is not raining, then I will go to the park. Which, according to the "Unless Equation", is the correct diagram for the phrase: (¬R-->P). However, this would mean that the diagram (P-->¬R) is incorrect. Which means that, if I said the above phrase, I could still go to the park even if it is raining. However, to me, intuitively, that is exactly the one thing the phrase "I will go to the park unless it is raining" is saying will NOT happen.

Strangely enough, when I try to just reason my way through the diagram of another conditional statement with the word unless (e.g. "I will fail unless I get an A"), I don't really run into any sort of trouble and can correctly create the appropriate diagrams in the sort of story-telling fashion I used above. "I will fail unless I get an A" means that if I don't get an A, I will fail, but that if I fail, it doesn't necessarily mean I didn't get an A because there could be other ways to fail, etc. Therefore the correct diagram is (¬A-->F) and not (F-->¬A)

I guess I'm just confused what I am missing when thinking through the rain/par example. Is there another, more illuminating way I should think of the phrase "I will go to the park unless it rains" in my head? Where exactly is my intuition leading me astray?

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