conditional

A conditional is a compound statement of the form ‘if \(A\) then \(B\).’ In symbolic logic this is represented as \(A \rightarrow B\) (or sometimes, especially in philosophical logic, as \(A \supset B\)). We call \(A\) the antecedent and \(B\) the consequent. Equivalent verbal forms include ‘\(A\) implies \(B\),’ ‘\(A\) only if \(B\),’ and ‘not \(A\) or \(B\).’