Future Contingents and Aristotle’s Fantasy

Critica 39 (117):45-60 (2007)
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Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of future contingents, and focuses on two classical logical principles, excluded middle and bivalence. One may think that different attitudes are to be adopted towards these two principles in order to solve the problem. According to what seems to be a widely held hypothesis, excluded middle must be accepted while bivalence must be rejected. The paper goes against that line of thought. In the first place, it shows how the rejection of bivalence leads to implausible consequences if excluded middle is accepted. In the second place, it addresses the question of why one should reject bivalence, and finds no satisfactory answer. /// Este artículo trata el problema de los futuros contingentes, y se enfoca en dos principios lógicos clásicos: el tercero excluido y la bivalencia. Se podría pensar que una solución del problema requiere actitudes diferentes hacia estos dos principios. Según una hipótesis que parece ampliamente compartida, el tercero excluido debe ser aceptado, mientras que la bivalencia debe ser rechazada. Este artículo argumenta en contra de esta línea de pensamiento. En primer lugar, se aborda cómo el rechazo de la bivalencia lleva a consecuencias poco plausibles si el tercero excluido es aceptado. En segundo lugar, se enfrenta la cuestión de por qué se debería rechazar la bivalencia, sin encontrar una respuesta satisfactoria.

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Andrea Iacona
Università di Torino

Citations of this work

Fatalism and Future Contingents.Giacomo Andreoletti - 2019 - Analytic Philosophy 60 (3):1-14.
O fatalismo relativístico.Elton Martins Marques - 2019 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 23 (2):231-247.

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References found in this work

The semantic conception of truth and the foundations of semantics.Alfred Tarski - 1943 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (3):341-376.
Future contingents and relative truth.John MacFarlane - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212):321–336.
Distinctions Without a Difference.Vann McGee & Brian McLaughlin - 1995 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (S1):203-251.
Truth in the Garden of Forking Paths.John MacFarlane - 2008 - In Manuel García-Carpintero & Max Kölbel (eds.), Relative Truth. Oxford University Press. pp. 81--102.

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