Editing Indicative conditional

{{Short description|"If A then B" sentence where A may be true}}
In [[natural language]]s, an '''indicative conditional''' is a [[conditional sentence]] such as "If Leona is at home, she isn't in Paris", whose grammatical form restricts it to discussing what could be true. Indicatives are typically defined in opposition to [[counterfactual conditional]]s, which have extra grammatical marking which allows them to discuss eventualities which are no longer possible.

Indicatives are a major topic of research in [[philosophy of language]], [[philosophical logic]], and [[linguistics]]. Open questions include which [[logical connective|logical operation]] indicatives denote, how such denotations could be [[compositionality|composed]] from their grammatical form, and the implications of those denotations for areas including [[metaphysics]], [[psychology of reasoning]], and [[philosophy of mathematics]].

==Formal analyses==

Early analyses identified indicative conditionals with the [[logical connective|logical operation]] known as the [[material conditional]]. According to the material conditional analysis, an indicative "If A then B" is true unless A is true and B is not. Although this analysis covers many observed cases, it misses some crucial properties of actual conditional speech and reasoning.

One problem for the material conditional analysis is that it allows indicatives to be true even when their antecedent and [[consequent]] are unrelated. For instance, the indicative "If Paris is in France then trout are fish" is intuitively strange since the location of Paris has nothing to do with the classification of trout. However, since its antecedent and the consequent are both true, the material conditional analysis treats it as a true statement. Similarly, the material conditional analysis treats conditionals with false antecedents as [[vacuous truth|vacuously true]]. For instance, since Paris is not in Australia, the conditional "If Paris is in Australia, then trout are fish" would be treated as true on a material conditional analysis. These arguments have been taken to show that no [[truth-functional]] operator will suffice as a semantics for indicative conditionals. In the mid-20th century, work by [[H.P. Grice]], [[Frank Cameron Jackson]], and others attempted to maintain the material conditional as an analysis of indicatives' literal semantic denotation, while appealing to [[pragmatics]] in order to explain the apparent discrepancies.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last= Edgington |first= Dorothy |author-link=Dorothy Edgington |editor-last1=Zalta |editor-first1=Edward|encyclopedia= |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/conditionals/ |access-date=2021-01-03 |year=2020}}</ref>

Contemporary work in [[philosophical logic]] and [[formal semantics (natural language)|formal semantics]] generally proposes alternative denotations for indicative conditionals. Proposed alternatives include analyses based on [[relevance logic]], [[modal logic]], [[probability theory]], [[Angelika Kratzer|Kratzer]]ian modal semantics, and [[dynamic semantics]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last= Edgington |first= Dorothy |author-link=Dorothy Edgington |editor-last1=Zalta |editor-first1=Edward|encyclopedia= |title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/conditionals/ |access-date=2021-01-03 |year=2020}}</ref>

==Psychology==
Most behavioral experiments on conditionals in the psychology of reasoning have been carried out with indicative conditionals, causal conditionals,  and [[counterfactual conditionals]]. People readily make the [[modus ponens]] inference, that is,  given ''if A then B'', and given ''A'', they conclude ''B'', but only about half of participants in experiments make the [[modus tollens]] inference, that is,  given ''if A then B'', and given ''not-B'', only about half of participants conclude ''not-A'', the remainder say that nothing follows ([[Jonathan St B. T. Evans|Evans]] ''et al.'', 1993). When participants are given counterfactual conditionals, they make both the modus ponens and the modus tollens inferences ([[Ruth M. J. Byrne|Byrne]], 2005).

==See also==
{{Portal|Philosophy}}
* [[Counterfactual conditional]]
* [[Logical consequence]]
* [[Material conditional]]
* [[Strict conditional]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Byrne, R.M.J. (2005). ''The Rational Imagination: How People Create Counterfactual Alternatives to Reality.'' Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
* Edgington, Dorothy. (2006). "Conditionals". ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Edward Zalta (ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conditionals/.
* Evans, J. St. B. T.,  Newstead, S. and Byrne, R. M. J. (1993). ''Human Reasoning: The Psychology of Deduction.''  Hove, Psychology Press.

[[Category:Conditionals in linguistics]]
[[Category:Logical connectives]]
[[Category:Reasoning]]