more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Ordinarily the conditional is not thought of as true or false at all, but rather the consequent is thought of as conditionally true or false given the antecedent.
Gist of Idea
Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value
Source
Willard Quine (Mr Strawson on Logical Theory [1953], III)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.143
A Reaction
At first this seems obvious, but a conditional asserts a relationship between two propositions, and so presumably it is true if that relationship exists. 'Is it actually true that if it is Monday then everyone in the office is depressed?'.
| 13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
| 22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
| 22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
| 22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
| 22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
| 22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
| 22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
| 22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
| 22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
| 22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |