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”.

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.

Grounding the Open Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 8-20
Author(s):  
Patrick Todd
Keyword(s):  
Open Future ◽  
General Thesis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Patrick Todd

In this chapter, Patrick Todd considers how presentists can argue that the future is open, holding fixed that they maintain that the past is not. He argues that any such presentist argument is doomed to failure, if it proceeds by appeal to a general thesis about truth (such as that “truth supervenes on being”). Thus, he contends, presentist open futurists should not argue for the open future from an intuition about truth in general, but from an intuition about the future in particular. The result, however, is that presentist open futurists cannot make their case by appeal to anything like a metaphysically neutral starting point. Nevertheless, due to certain asymmetries between facts about the past and facts about the future, a presentist open future view remains substantially theoretically motivated.

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()’.

Time and Truth: The Presentism-Eternalism Debate

Philosophy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Stoneham
Keyword(s):  
Open Future ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Growing Block ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Block Universe ◽  
The Way

AbstractThere are many questions we can ask about time, but perhaps the most fundamental is whether there are metaphysically interesting differences between past, present and future events. An eternalist believes in a block universe: past, present and future events are all on an equal footing. A gradualist believes in a growing block: he agrees with the eternalist about the past and the present but not about the future. A presentist believes that what is present has a special status. My first claim is that the familiar ways of articulating these views result in there being no substantive disagreement at all between the three parties. I then show that if we accept the controversial truthmaking principle, we can articulate a substantive disagreement. Finally, I apply this way of formulating the debate to related questions such as the open future and determinism, showing that these do not always line up in quite the way one would expect.

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.

scholarly journals Positioning the Writing Centre

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-77
Author(s):  
David A. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Open Future ◽  
University Library ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Open Future ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
University Of Oslo ◽  
The University ◽  
Support Students ◽  
Successes And Challenges

Implicit in the discussion about the “open” future of the library are questions about the library’s identity in an increasingly digital context and anticipations of change (Anderson et al., 2017). But the “open” future of the library does not need to be a passive future. Much like the traditional library, whose books and reading rooms were positioned between students and faculties, the future library can still occupy a similar liminal space, even as digital access supplants books and librarians do less shushing. But the future library must actively seek to occupy that space. As a future library service, a writing centre can be positioned to help do so. This paper draws on the experience of the Academic Writing Centre at the University of Oslo (UiO). As part of the University Library, the Writing Centre is already actively helping to mediate the space between students and instructors. Empowered by its liminal position, the Writing Centre offers tailored, non-hegemonic writing support based on student and faculty needs. As a best practices presentation, this paper identifies key aspects of the Writing Centre’s operational model to demonstrate how the Writing Centre at UiO has already begun to actively (re)position the University Library in the space between students and faculties. Drawing from Academic Literacy theory (Lillis, 2001; Lea & Street, 1998), this paper characterizes the space between students and instructors in the context of academic writing, emphasizing the aspects of identity formulation germane to the writing process (Ivanič, 1998; Lillis, 2010), as well as the faculties’ mandates to develop discourse literacy. From its liminal position between the faculties and the students, and with an awareness of the nature of the gap between the two, the Writing Centre (as part of the University Library) aims to actively support students and instructors toward each other and spark broader collaboration with the University Library, now and in the future. On a practical level, this paper discusses successes and challenges for the Academic Writing Centre so far and offers insight into the Writing Centre’s important role in the future library.

Assertion and the Future

2019 ◽  
pp. 479-504
Author(s):  
Corine Besson ◽  
Anandi Hattiangadi
Keyword(s):  
Future Contingents ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
The Future ◽  
Truth Norm

It is disputed what norm, if any, governs assertion. We address this question by looking at assertions of future contingents: statements about the future that are neither metaphysically necessary nor metaphysically impossible. Many philosophers think that future contingents are not truth apt, which together with a Truth Norm or a Knowledge Norm of assertion implies that assertions of these future contingents are systematically infelicitous.In this article, we argue that our practice of asserting future contingents is incompatible with the view that they are not truth apt. We consider a range of norms of assertion and argue that the best explanation of the data is provided by the view that assertion is governed by the Knowledge Norm.

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 The Open Future, Free Will and Divine Assurance: Responding to Three Common Objections to the Open View

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-222
Author(s):  
Gregory Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Open Future

In this essay I respond to three of the most forceful objections to the open view of the future. It is argued that a) open view advocates must deny bivalence; b) the open view offers no theodicy advantages over classical theism; and c) the open view can’t assure believers that God can work all things to the better (Rom. 8:28). I argue that the first objection is premised on an inadequate assessment of future tensed propositions, the second is rooted in an inadequate assessment of free will, and the third is grounded in an inadequate assessment of God’s intelligence.

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