consequent

Consequent is a term used in logic and philosophy to denote the second part of a conditional statement. In the standard form if P, then Q, P is called the antecedent and Q is the consequent. The truth of the consequent depends on the truth of the antecedent within the given conditional; in classical material implication the entire statement is considered true whenever the antecedent is false or both are true, but the intuitive dependency is that Q follows from P.

The word can refer to the actual proposition following the 'if' part; as an adjective, consequent describes something that follows as a result. For example, in the sentence "If it is raining, the game will be canceled," "the game will be canceled" is the consequent. The phrase "consequent upon" is used to mean "resulting from" or "as a consequence of."

Origin: from Latin consequens, the present participle of consequī meaning "to follow"; the term has been used in English since at least the 17th century.

Related terms include antecedent (the condition or prerequisite) and entailment in logic, inference, and conditional reasoning. In probabilistic and mathematical logics, the term is used to distinguish the consequent from the antecedent in implications and in rules of inference.