If and only if

Logical connective

In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" is paraphrased by the biconditional, a logical connective between statements. The biconditional is true in two cases, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is biconditional, and can be likened to the standard material conditional combined with its reverse ("if"); hence the name. The result is that the truth of either one of the connected statements requires the truth of the other, though it is controversial whether the connective thus defined is properly rendered by the English "if and only if"—with its pre-existing meaning. For example, P if and only if Q means that P is true whenever Q is true, and the only case in which P is true is if Q is also true, whereas in the case of P if Q, there could be other scenarios where P is true and Q is false.

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