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material conditional

The truth-functional "if … then": false only when the antecedent is true and the consequent false.

The material conditional P → Q is true on every row except the one where P is true and Q is false. It captures the part of "if … then" that depends only on truth values, which is why some true material conditionals sound odd in English.

Examples

  • "If 2 + 2 = 5, then the moon is cheese" is a true material conditional, because its antecedent is false.

See also

conditional vacuous truth
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