Material Consequence

Interest in material consequence was revived in modern times by Wilfrid Sellars, and it became a fundamental tool for Brandom. Not to be confused with material implication, material inference is semantic rather than syntactic. That is to say, it is based on meaning. It covers constructions such as “Blood is red, so it is colored” and “It is raining, so the street will be wet”. In conjunction with material incompatibility (“The sky is gray, so it is not blue” or “The sky is gray, so the sun is not shining”), it forms the basis of Hegelian mediation, which is therefore also based on semantics not syntax.