Mind 125 (499):775-798 (2016)
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Abstract |
There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence.
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Keywords | future contingents bivalence fatalism thin red line law of excluded middle presupposition failure |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1093/mind/fzv170 |
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References found in this work BETA
Future Contingents and Relative Truth.John MacFarlane - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212):321–336.
View all 40 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Will Done Better: Selection Semantics, Future Credence, and Indeterminacy.Fabrizio Cariani & Paolo Santorio - 2018 - Mind 127 (505):129-165.
The Problem of Future Contingents: Scoping Out a Solution.Patrick Todd - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):5051-5072.
Are There Indeterminate States of Affairs? Yes.Jessica M. Wilson - 2017 - In Elizabeth Barnes (ed.), Current Controversies in Metaphysics. Taylor & Francis. pp. 105-125.
Against the Russellian Open Future.Anders J. Schoubye & Brian Rabern - 2017 - Mind 126 (504): 1217–1237.
View all 13 citations / Add more citations
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