What 'if'? A Modal Analysis of Indicative Conditionals

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Almost all philosophers use the material interpretation of 'if' such that indicative conditionals are true given any combination of subsentential truth-values except a true antecedent and false consequent. Most, however, do so with a heavy heart - many indicative conditionals that are seemingly false (such as 'If there is liquid water on the moon's surface, the moon will explode') are true on this interpretation (given that their antecedents are false).Does the indicative conditional, therefore, imply a modal relationship between antecedent and consequent? This is my main research question, and I will be defending an affirmative answer. To do so, I will be aiming to give an account of what it would take for such a modal relationship to obtain, and how it would govern the behaviour of the phenomena in question. I will also draw comparisons to the subjunctive conditional to determine whether its modal analysis can help us understand the modality of indicative conditionals. Furthermore, I will ask whether this view coheres with our understanding of the scientific method. Plausibly, the paradigm case of the indicative conditional is the statement of empirical law; hence, theory of one can perhaps inform theory of the other.