material implication

American  

noun

Logic.

1. equivalence.

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material implication British  

noun

1. the truth-functional connective that forms a compound sentence from two given sentences and assigns the value false to it only when its antecedent is true and its consequent false, without consideration of relevance; loosely corresponds to the English if … then

2. a compound sentence formed with this connective

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Etymology

Origin of material implication

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

But Reichardt is never obvious, and in her previous films about human-animal relationships, most recently the marvelous “First Cow,” she has always seemed more captivated by material realities than metaphorical implications.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 6, 2023

But I thought it was a good introduction to these parallel worlds of how Kauai was being represented in Hollywood, and the material realities of living on the island.

From New York Times • May 23, 2022

For me this is a declaration of my first allegiances, description of my material realities, and mission statement for how I make my way through the world.

From Salon • Jan. 11, 2021

And it ignores that these material realities affect how they vote, too.

From The Guardian • Sep. 25, 2020

But it is not likely that they conceived such relative entities as essentially thought-dependent, any more than the absolute material realities related to one another by means of these relative entities.

From Ontology or the Theory of Being by Coffey, Peter