 On these grounds, it might be better to speak instead of subjunctive conditionals, and reserve the term counterfactual for subjunctive conditionals whose antecedent is assumed to be false in the  discourse.[1]  While slightly more enlightened, this use of the term does not match the use of counterfactuals in the sprawling philosophical and interdisciplinary literature surveyed here, and has its own drawbacks that will be discussed shortly. This entry will use counterfactual conditional and subjunctive conditional interchangeably, hoping to now have dispelled the suggestion that all counterfactuals, in that sense, have contrary-to-fact antecedents.