How do you like Geach's move of denying 4 or 10? The idea being that it can be true at some time that P will occur, and yet P does not occur. From the other direction, it does not follow from it being the case that P that it has always been the case, that it would be the case that P. I'm very sympathetic to his move with respect to temporal beings, but I have some worries as applied to God.
Great post, agree with much of what you have to say.
Thank you! I haven't thought too much about that move, but on the face of it I think I would want to resist it. I'm very sympathetic to the analysis of "will" as a universal quantifier over possible futures, in which case that just entails that the view you propose is false.
And I guess many of the motivations for that view are motivations against what you describe. If it is true that it will rain tomorrow, and it then ends up not raining, that was just not true to begin with--in which case the supposition was false. In other words I can't make sense of the idea that it's true that P will occur and then P doesn't occur--that's not what will means.
I'm not sure that's much of an argument--more of a report of my intuitions.
Definitely agree if you formalize 'will' in that way Geach's view turns out false. I think one of the criticisms that can be legitimately levied against the view is that (to my knowledge) there aren't any good formalizations of it in the literature, as opposed to say Actualism or Antactualism.
I can't give a strong defense of his view I don't think, but the main motivation is cases of prevention. He gives a case of a pilot preventing a crash. The idea being that, prior to the pilots actions, the plane crash was going to be the worst air disaster of the 20th century. When the pilot takes evasive action, he prevents it being the case that the worst air disaster of the 20th century occurs. He thinks the pilots action changes the future.
It's been a year or so since I read the paper for a class but I think it's quite good, Todd also has a piece he wrote about the view which I quite liked. Regardless, just wanted your thoughts. Again, excellent piece.
I gave the paper a view, and I don't think I'm quite convinced. With regards to cases of prevention, I think that can be accounted for perfectly fine with counterfactuals. The plane was never going to crash, but if the pilot had not intervened, then it would have crashed. That is, in the actual world, there was no possible continuation of the future where the plane crashed, since the pilot was going to intervene. But in the closest possible world where the pilot didn't intervene, the plane crashed.
Alternatively the pilot could really make a difference as to what future came about, but then I just don't think it makes sense to say that one thing would happen rather than the other before he made his decision.
Again, this is not much of an argument, but I just really can't make sense of the idea that at t-2 it is true that X will happen at t, and at t-1 it is now false that X will happen at t. Like, then it was just never true that X would happen at t to begin with--if it was not yet settled what would happen, then it was not true of any particular outcome that it would happen.
I'm sure there are more principled arguments to be made, but for now I just think that future contingents changing truth values over time doesn't make any sense to me, so as long as denying this doesn't come with some huge cost (as I don't think it does), then it's better to say that future contingents are false, or that there is only one possible continuation of the future.
Great article as usual, Silas. I wonder if you should say in the rain case that you now-necessarily that yesterday you had a *true* belief it will rain. In your first response you seem to argue that the belief yesterday it will rain is actually false, even though it's raining now, because there were possible worlds it wasn't false. That seems unintuitive (eg. imagine if you said it will rain, it does indeed rain, and I look at you and say "wow, Silas, looks like you were wrong"). It also has some weird implications (eg. I'm no longer allowed to say "X will Y" at all unless it is a logical necessity).
Why attribute truth or falsity to a belief at all, as though it's some inherent property. Today, it's now-necessary that yesterday I believed it will rain. Is that belief true? We'll have to look at the sky today to find out. If so, then I now-necessarily had a belief it will rain yesterday, and it happens contingently to be true. Good for me, but because it's contingent it wasn't set in stone. It would only be set in stone if I was a perfect knower like God - so this continues to be a problem for theists but not regular old rain forecasters.
To your first point a future contingent is not just false if there is some possible world where it doesn't hold, but some possible continuation of the future from *this* actual moment.
I agree that there is some unintuitiveness with it being false when I said yesterday "it will rain" and then it actually rains. But I think that probably stems more from the fact now being fixed, making it seem strange that believing the fact in the past was false.
But consider an analogy: You are about to flip a truly random coin--right now it is genuinely possible that it will land heads and that it will land tails. In that case it really seems like you'd be making a mistake in saying "it will land heads." I mean, that is false if it lands tails, and as of now it is not settled whether it will land heads or tails, and so the world is not yet in a state to make it true--so it must not be true. It may land heads, but it's not true that it will land heads. Perhaps it will end up true if the coin actually lands heads, but it's certainly not true as of now (I think).
On your second point it sounds like you're just suggesting that all future contingents are not true. I agree with this, but because I want to preserve bivalence I say that they're false.
How do you like Geach's move of denying 4 or 10? The idea being that it can be true at some time that P will occur, and yet P does not occur. From the other direction, it does not follow from it being the case that P that it has always been the case, that it would be the case that P. I'm very sympathetic to his move with respect to temporal beings, but I have some worries as applied to God.
Great post, agree with much of what you have to say.
Thank you! I haven't thought too much about that move, but on the face of it I think I would want to resist it. I'm very sympathetic to the analysis of "will" as a universal quantifier over possible futures, in which case that just entails that the view you propose is false.
And I guess many of the motivations for that view are motivations against what you describe. If it is true that it will rain tomorrow, and it then ends up not raining, that was just not true to begin with--in which case the supposition was false. In other words I can't make sense of the idea that it's true that P will occur and then P doesn't occur--that's not what will means.
I'm not sure that's much of an argument--more of a report of my intuitions.
Definitely agree if you formalize 'will' in that way Geach's view turns out false. I think one of the criticisms that can be legitimately levied against the view is that (to my knowledge) there aren't any good formalizations of it in the literature, as opposed to say Actualism or Antactualism.
I can't give a strong defense of his view I don't think, but the main motivation is cases of prevention. He gives a case of a pilot preventing a crash. The idea being that, prior to the pilots actions, the plane crash was going to be the worst air disaster of the 20th century. When the pilot takes evasive action, he prevents it being the case that the worst air disaster of the 20th century occurs. He thinks the pilots action changes the future.
It's been a year or so since I read the paper for a class but I think it's quite good, Todd also has a piece he wrote about the view which I quite liked. Regardless, just wanted your thoughts. Again, excellent piece.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43245934 << The Geach paper in question by the by, in case you're curious. I can scrounge up the Todd thing as well.
I gave the paper a view, and I don't think I'm quite convinced. With regards to cases of prevention, I think that can be accounted for perfectly fine with counterfactuals. The plane was never going to crash, but if the pilot had not intervened, then it would have crashed. That is, in the actual world, there was no possible continuation of the future where the plane crashed, since the pilot was going to intervene. But in the closest possible world where the pilot didn't intervene, the plane crashed.
Alternatively the pilot could really make a difference as to what future came about, but then I just don't think it makes sense to say that one thing would happen rather than the other before he made his decision.
Again, this is not much of an argument, but I just really can't make sense of the idea that at t-2 it is true that X will happen at t, and at t-1 it is now false that X will happen at t. Like, then it was just never true that X would happen at t to begin with--if it was not yet settled what would happen, then it was not true of any particular outcome that it would happen.
I'm sure there are more principled arguments to be made, but for now I just think that future contingents changing truth values over time doesn't make any sense to me, so as long as denying this doesn't come with some huge cost (as I don't think it does), then it's better to say that future contingents are false, or that there is only one possible continuation of the future.
Fair! Always appreciate your thoughts. Thanks!
Great article as usual, Silas. I wonder if you should say in the rain case that you now-necessarily that yesterday you had a *true* belief it will rain. In your first response you seem to argue that the belief yesterday it will rain is actually false, even though it's raining now, because there were possible worlds it wasn't false. That seems unintuitive (eg. imagine if you said it will rain, it does indeed rain, and I look at you and say "wow, Silas, looks like you were wrong"). It also has some weird implications (eg. I'm no longer allowed to say "X will Y" at all unless it is a logical necessity).
Why attribute truth or falsity to a belief at all, as though it's some inherent property. Today, it's now-necessary that yesterday I believed it will rain. Is that belief true? We'll have to look at the sky today to find out. If so, then I now-necessarily had a belief it will rain yesterday, and it happens contingently to be true. Good for me, but because it's contingent it wasn't set in stone. It would only be set in stone if I was a perfect knower like God - so this continues to be a problem for theists but not regular old rain forecasters.
Thank you!
To your first point a future contingent is not just false if there is some possible world where it doesn't hold, but some possible continuation of the future from *this* actual moment.
I agree that there is some unintuitiveness with it being false when I said yesterday "it will rain" and then it actually rains. But I think that probably stems more from the fact now being fixed, making it seem strange that believing the fact in the past was false.
But consider an analogy: You are about to flip a truly random coin--right now it is genuinely possible that it will land heads and that it will land tails. In that case it really seems like you'd be making a mistake in saying "it will land heads." I mean, that is false if it lands tails, and as of now it is not settled whether it will land heads or tails, and so the world is not yet in a state to make it true--so it must not be true. It may land heads, but it's not true that it will land heads. Perhaps it will end up true if the coin actually lands heads, but it's certainly not true as of now (I think).
On your second point it sounds like you're just suggesting that all future contingents are not true. I agree with this, but because I want to preserve bivalence I say that they're false.