scholarly journals The problem of future contingents: scoping out a solution

Synthese ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 197 (11) ◽  
pp. 5051-5072
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Relative Truth ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Future Contingent ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
The Given ◽  
Assessment Sensitivity ◽  
Excluded Middle ◽  
Semantic Distinction

Abstract Various philosophers have long since been attracted to the doctrine that future contingent propositions systematically fail to be true—what is sometimes called the doctrine of the open future. However, open futurists have always struggled to articulate how their view interacts with standard principles of classical logic—most notably, with the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM). For consider the following two claims: (a) Trump will be impeached tomorrow; (b) Trump will not be impeached tomorrow. According to the kind of open futurist at issue, both of these claims may well fail to be true. According to many, however, the disjunction of these claims can be represented as p ∨ ~p—that is, as an instance of LEM. In this essay, however, I wish to defend the view that the disjunction these claims cannot be represented as an instance of p ∨ ~p. And this is for the following reason: the latter claim is not, in fact, the strict negation of the former. More particularly, there is an important semantic distinction between the strict negation of the first claim [~(Trump will be impeached tomorrow)] and the latter claim (Trump will not be impeached tomorrow). However, the viability of this approach has been denied by Thomason (Theoria 36:264–281, 1970), and more recently by MacFarlane (Assessment sensitivity: relative truth and its applications, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) and Cariani and Santorio (Mind 127:129–165. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzw004, 2017), the latter of whom call the denial of the given semantic distinction “scopelessness”. According to these authors, that is, will is “scopeless” with respect to negation; whereas there is perhaps a syntactic distinction between ‘~Will p’ and ‘Will ~p’, there is no corresponding semantic distinction. And if this is so, the approach in question fails. In this paper, then, I criticize the claim that will is “scopeless” with respect to negation. I argue that will is a so-called “neg-raising” predicate—and that, in this light, we can see that the requisite scope distinctions aren’t missing, but are simply being masked. The result: a under-appreciated solution to the problem of future contingents that sees (a) and (b) as contraries, not contradictories.

The Open Future, Classical Style

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-83
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Open Future ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Classical Style ◽  
Excluded Middle ◽  
Semantic Distinction

In this chapter, the author defends his view against the core complaint that it invalidates what has been called “Will Excluded Middle” (either it will be that p or it will be that ~p), and an associated principle that has recently been called “Scopelessness”. According to scopelessness, will is “scopeless” with respect to negation; there is no semantic distinction between ~Willp and Will~p. In this chapter, it is argued that the data that seems to support scopelessness is adequately explained by the thesis that will is “neg-raising predicate”. In normal contexts, “No one should do that” certainly pragmatically implies “Everyone shouldn’t do that”—but the former sentence does not semantically entail the latter; this is, in part, to say that should is a neg-raiser. In general, the author defends the crucial scope distinction between ~Willp and Will~p, and responds to several objections to this view.

The Assertion Problem

2021 ◽  
pp. 181-202
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The Open Future

In this chapter, the author responds to a family of related objections to the doctrine of the open future—roughly, problems stemming from the observation that what are plausibly future contingents are often nevertheless properly assertible (despite being, on the author’s view, false). He responds to this family of problems by developing several related themes: (i) even if the author’s view is true, it is properly ignored in ordinary life; (ii) an assertion may assert what is false but nevertheless communicate what is true, and this can explain the appropriateness of that assertion; (iii) there is plausibly replacement talk that we could use that would enable us, if we wished, to avoid saying what is false, but would nevertheless allow us to communicate in satisfactory ways. In the end, then, there is no compelling “assertion problem” for the view defended in this book.

The Open Future: Introduction to a Classical Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Classical Approach ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Patrick Todd

In this introductory chapter, Patrick Todd introduces the core idea defended in this book—the idea that future contingents are all false. He clarifies what the book simply presupposes but does not defend, and then provides brief chapter-by-chapter summaries of the book.

The Open Future

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Classical Logic ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Patrick Todd

In The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False, Patrick Todd launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future, one according to which all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false. Todd argues that this theory is metaphysically more parsimonious than its rivals, and that objections to its logical and practical coherence are much overblown. Todd shows how proponents of this view can maintain classical logic, and argues that the view has substantial advantages over Ockhamist, supervaluationist, and relativist alternatives. Todd draws inspiration from theories of “neg-raising” in linguistics, from debates about omniscience within the philosophy of religion, and defends a crucial comparison between his account of future contingents and certain more familiar theories of counterfactuals. Further, Todd defends his theory of the open future from the charges that it cannot make sense of our practices of betting, makes our credences regarding future contingents unintelligible, and is at odds with proper norms of assertion. In the end, in Todd’s classical open future, we have a compelling new solution to the longstanding “problem of future contingents”.

Betting on the Open Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Objective Probability ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Contingent Proposition ◽  
Future Contingent ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Open Future

A.N. Prior considered an objection to open future views, viz. that they are inconsistent with our ordinary practices of betting. Prior worried that, on open future views, if we bet on rain, and then it does rain, I could refuse to grant the payout on grounds that the proposition you bet was true was not true at the time of the bet. The author argues that this objection fails, by developing a picture of betting on which we are not betting on anything like current truth. He then considers the objection that his view is inconsistent with the idea that there are non-zero probabilities of future events; he argues that though our credence in a given future contingent proposition may be zero, the objective probability of the relevant event may nevertheless be high. The author develops a comparison between this view and parallel views about the probability of conditionals and probabilities in fictions.

Bivalence, Future Contingents and the Open Future

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Fabrice Correia ◽  
Sven Rosenkranz
Keyword(s):  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
The Open Future

scholarly journals Future Contingents and the Logic of Temporal Omniscience

2021 ◽  
pp. 148-180
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd ◽  
Brian Rabern
Keyword(s):  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Open Future

Perhaps one of the chief objections to open future views is that they must deny a principle we may call “Retro-closure”: roughly, if something is the case, then it was the case that it would be the case. Certain theorists, however—supervaluationists and relativists—have attempted to maintain both the open future view, and Retro-closure. In this chapter, the author argues (with Brian Rabern) that this combination of views is untenable: we must take our pick between the open future and Retro-closure. They argue that this combination of views results either in an unacceptable form of changing the past, or instead implausibly rules out the (former) existence of an omniscient being. In the appendix to this chapter, Todd argues that we can plausibly do without the Retro-closure principle, and that the principle, while intuitive, is not nearly so obvious as many have seemed to suppose.

scholarly journals Against the Russellian Open Future

Mind ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 126 (504) ◽  
pp. 1217-1237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders J Schoubye ◽  
Brian Rabern
Keyword(s):  
Classical Logic ◽  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
Future Contingents ◽  
Open Future ◽  
The Future ◽  
Law Of Excluded Middle ◽  
The Law ◽  
Excluded Middle

Abstract Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form ‘will()’, that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd’s analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of ‘will’ both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form ‘will()’.

scholarly journals Two Conceptions of Second Nature

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg W. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
The One ◽  
First Nature

AbstractThe concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future.

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