235:(1754), reviewed the relationships between action, determinism, and personal culpability. Edwards begins his argument by establishing the ways in which necessary statements are made in logic. He identifies three ways necessary statements can be made for which only the third kind can legitimately be used to make necessary claims about the future. This third way of making necessary statements involves conditional or consequential necessity, such that if a contingent outcome could be caused by something that was necessary, then this contingent outcome could be considered necessary itself "by a necessity of consequence". Prior interprets Edwards by supposing that any necessary consequence of any already necessary truth would "also 'always have existed,' so that it is only by a necessary connexion (sic) with 'what has already come to pass' that what is still merely future can be necessary." Further, in
88:
62:, so a contingent statement is false in at least one possible world. While contingent statements are false in at least one possible world, possible statements are not also defined this way. Since necessary statements are a kind of possible statement (e.g. 2=2 is possible and necessary), then to define possible statements as 'false in some possible world' is to affect the definition of necessary statements. Since necessary statements are never false in any possible world, then some possible statements are never false in any possible world. So the idea that a statement might ever be false and yet remain an unrealized
156:
198:. The opposing view, with an early version from Cicero, is that Aristotle was not attempting to disqualify assertoric statements about future contingents from being either true or false, but that their truth value was indeterminant. This latter reading takes future contingents to possess a truth value, one which is necessary but which is unknown. This view understands Aristotle to be saying that while some event's occurrence at a specified time was necessary, a fact of necessity which could not have been known to us, its occurrence at simply any time was not necessary.
42:, in which statements are true. Contingency is one of three basic modes alongside necessity and possibility. In modal logic, a contingent statement stands in the modal realm between what is necessary and what is impossible, never crossing into the territory of either status. Contingent and necessary statements form the complete set of possible statements. While this definition is widely accepted, the precise distinction (or lack thereof) between what is contingent and what is necessary has been challenged since antiquity.
194:, a fact which seems to contradict their contingency. Aristotle's intention with these claims breaks down into two primary readings of his work. The first view, considered notably by Boethius, supposes that Aristotle's intentions were to argue against this logical determinism only by claiming future contingent statements are neither true nor false. This reading of Aristotle regards future contingents as simply disqualified from possessing any truth value at all until they are
143:
outlines rudimentary notes about a "Logic for
Contingent Beings." Deutsch believes that the solution to Prior's concern begins by removing the assumption that logical statements are necessary. He believes the statement format, "If all objects are physical, and ϕ exists, then ϕ is physical," is logically true by form but is not necessarily true if ϕ
75:
false in a world in which it is also always logically achievable. In such a world, the contingent idea is never necessarily false since this would make it impossible in that world. But if it's false and yet still possible, this means the truths or facts in that world would have to change in order for the contingent truth to become
54:. This means there is a way to imagine a world in which a statement is true and in which its truth does not contradict any other truth in that world. If it were impossible, there would be no way to conceive such a world: the truth of any impossible statement must contradict some other fact in that world. Contingency is
227:
states that a thing is called contingent when "we do not know whether the essence does or does not involve a contradiction, or of which, knowing that it does not involve a contradiction, we are still in doubt concerning the existence, because the order of causes escape us." Further, he states, "It is
74:
is always possible and always true, which makes it necessary and therefore not contingent. This mathematical truth does not depend on any other truth, it is true by definition. On the other hand, since a contingent statement is always possible but not necessarily true, we can always conceive it to be
66:
is entirely reserved to contingent statements alone. While all contingent statements are possible, not all possible statements are contingent. The truth of a contingent statement is consistent with all other truths in a given world, but not necessarily so. They are always possible in every imaginable
142:
seems to require that "whatever exists exists necessarily." He says this threatens the definition of contingent statements as non-necessary things when one generically intuits that some of what exists does so contingently, rather than necessarily. Harry
Deutsch acknowledged Prior's concern and
716:
When a statement is false in at least one possible world, this does not mean there is always some world in which it is literally false, only that there is some imaginable world in which a statement is literally false and that this would not contradict some other truth in that imaginable
727:"Always true" means "tautologically true" or "necessarily true" since if a contingent truth is possible in every world it may happen to be true in every possible world but not as a matter of tautological necessity, only as a matter of coincidence.
228:
in the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain form of eternity as necessary and it is only through our imagination that we consider things, whether in respect to the future or the past, as contingent.
222:
idea of synchronic contingency, which attempted to remove perceived contradictions between necessity, human freedom and the free will of God to create the world. In the 17th
Century, Baruch Spinoza in his
190:
to represent their truth or falsity, this may not be the case of contingent future-tense statements. Aristotle asserts that if this were the case for future contingent statements as well, some of them
70:
This distinction begins to reveal the ordinary
English meaning of the word "contingency," in which the truth of one thing depends on the truth of another. On the one hand, the mathematical idea that
819:
A Careful and Strict
Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame
233:
A Careful and Strict
Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame
111:
and Arthur Pap consider the concept of analytic truths, for example (as distinct from synthetic ones) to be ambiguous since in practice they are defined or used in different ways. And while
107:
distinctions as well as the modal distinctions already noted. But there is not always agreement about exactly what these distinctions mean or how they are used. Philosophers such as
186:
observes an apparent paradox in the nature of contingency. He considers that while the truth values of contingent past- and present-tense statements can be expressed in pairs of
79:. When a statement's truth depends on this kind of change, it is contingent: possible but dependent on whatever facts are actually taking place in a given world.
538:
Cicero, De fato, with an
English translation by H. Rackham, (Loeb Classical Library 349), London: Heinemann, and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
206:
Medieval thinkers studied logical contingency as a way to analyze the relationship between Early Modern conceptions of God and the modal status of the world
123:
claims that there are examples in which analytic statements are not necessary. Kripke uses the example of a meter stick to support the idea that some
239:, Prior attributes an argument against the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge or foreordaining with future contingency to Edward's
17:
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Some philosophical distinctions are used to examine the line between contingent and necessary statements. These include
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58:, so a contingent statement is therefore one which is true in at least one possible world. But contingency is also
34:
is the feature of a statement making it neither necessary nor impossible. Contingency is a fundamental concept of
195:
490:
Boethius, Commentarii in librum
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1079:
87:
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104:
277:
187:
95:
exists, then A. N. Prior is physical" may be logically true by form, but not necessarily true.
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not to create the universe or set in order a series of natural events. In the 16th century,
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252:
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Aristotle's example of a sea battle as a future contingent demonstrates the paradox of the
8:
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argues that a cross-examination between the basic principles of modal logic and those of
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923:"Secundum Quid and Contingentia: Scholastic Reminiscences in Early Modern Mechanics"
930:
796:
776:
The
Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez
762:
375:
374:, The Philosophical Review, vol. 74, Duke University Press, pp. 178–203,
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342:, The Philosophical Review, vol. 58, Duke University Press, pp. 299–320,
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His creation. Early Modern writers studied contingency against the freedom of the
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Anscombe, G. E. M. (1956). "Aristotle and the Sea Battle: De Interpretatione 9".
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In logic, a thing is considered to be possible when it is true in at least one
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160:
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120:
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211:
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The eighteenth-century philosopher Jonathan Edwards in his work
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Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory
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Time and Necessity: Studies in Aristotle's Theory of Modality
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stipulates that analytic statements are always necessary and
778:, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, Leiden: Brill
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Contingency and Natural Order in Early Modern Science
67:
world but not always true in every imaginable world.
45:
925:. In Omodeo, Pietro Daniel; Garau, Rodolfo (eds.).
147:, for example, a specific person who is not alive.
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91:The statement "If all objects are physical, and
921:Omodeo, Pietro Daniel (September 19, 2019).
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634:, Princeton University Press, p. 71,
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1041:, 85, vol. 2, Journal of Philosophy
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339:Are All Necessary Propositions Analytic?
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38:. Modal logic concerns the manner, or
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46:Contingency and modal possibility
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822:(5th ed.). J. Murgatroyd.
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1049:Basic Concepts in Modal Logic
785:"Contingency and Modal Logic"
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283:
202:Determinism and foreknowledge
174:Problem of future contingents
168:Problem of future contingency
1017:. Cornell University Press.
774:Craig, William Lane (1988),
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72:a sum of two and two is four
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935:10.1007/978-3-319-67378-3_8
849:(3rd ed.). Routledge.
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10:
1101:
904:On the Plurality of Worlds
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171:
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864:Hintikka, Jaakko (1973).
368:Hintikka, Jaakko (1965),
237:Past, Present, and Future
192:would be necessarily true
996:Past, Present and Future
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551:, p. 65(257): 1–15)
845:Gensler, Harry (2017).
783:Deutsch, Harry (1990).
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278:Subjunctive possibility
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847:Introduction to Logic
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258:Logical possibility
18:Contingent question
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516:, p. 3:31-87)
180:De Interpretatione
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151:Future contingency
145:rigidly designates
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1080:Sentences by type
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113:Saul Kripke
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1064:Categories
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284:References
196:actualized
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961:203491340
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184:Aristotle
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