Post Edited (ThatDarnCat) : 6/29/2005 11:54:29 AM (GMT-5)

Tom: Really? That’s what we proposed? Actually, we don’t find “omniscience” at all problematic and never suggest that it needs a “solution.” Doug seems to think we believe the problem needing a solution is that God’s being omniscient doesn’t fit with our “view of God.” Of course we never say anything like this in the article and Doug never suggests what he understands our “desired view of God” to be.

Doug: The authors claim that “S’s obtaining is indeterminate — neither inevitable nor impossible,” and go on to propose that western philosophy’s failure to recognize this possibility is that the Aristotelian Square of Opposition “fails to make the logical possibility of genuine indeterminacy sufficiently explicit.” When the authors add these extra possible states of affairs to the square they derive a “Hexagon of Opposition”.

Tom: Actually, we don’t “add extra possible states of affairs” to the traditional Square. We “make explicit” what is already present in the traditonal Square. It’s already possible on the traditional Square that subcontraries “might” and “might not” be conjointly true, in which case both “will” and “will not” are conjointly false. That much is already there and not made up by us. And that’s all we make explicit.

Doug: I argue that in fact, even this hexagon is too restrictive, for it only allows for future indeterminacy. Why not the past? It is logically possible that I might or might not have written this article. Thus, to really cover our bases we need to add past indeterminacy statements.

Tom: Already addressed this in the previous post. No indeterminist claims the PAST is indeterminate. And the sort of “might and might not have” propositions Doug discusses don’t posit the indeterminateness OF THE PAST. They posit PAST indeterminateness, which is a different animal altogether and not at all in conflict with our claims. Past indeterminateness is in fact entailed by our view. We just didn’t discuss it.

Doug: As is obvious from reality the past affects the future.

Tom: True.

Doug: For example if five minutes ago I had made the statement S1 that: “In two minutes event (E) might or might occur” these two possibilities would exist as subcontraries that are both possibly true.

Tom: “Might AND might not” not “might OR might not.” ConJOINTLY true. They’re both true, not both “possibly true.” Perhaps Doug misunderstands one of the core claims we make, namely, that of bivalence. Statements are not possibly true or possibly not true on our view. They’re just either true or false. What is either true or false is that future indeterminate events “might and might not” HAPPEN, not that the propsition making this claim might and might not BE TRUE.

Doug: However – the same event could also be referred to from a future vantage point, viz. S2: “Two minutes ago event (E) might or might not have occurred.” These are also subcontraries that could have both been possibly true depending on the truth value of S1 which is dependant on E.

Tom: Again, “Might AND might not” not “might OR might not.” It’s not encouraging when somebody can’t restate your position accurately.

Actually if five minutes ago you made the claim about what might happen in two minutes, then S2 needs to read: “Three minutes ago event (E) might or might not have occurred.” This is a true proposition when spoken. Some points:

(1) It’s not proper to say that “might” and “might not” in S2 “could have both been possibly true.” The indeterminateness at issue is not the indeterminateness of truth value. Truth value we take to be bivalent. There’s never anything indeterminate about a proposition’s truth value. But there is indeterminateness that is a real, ontological feature of the world and there are propositions that eithe truly or falsely posit such indeterminateness.

(2) The truth value of S2: “(E) might and might not have occurred two minutes ago” does not “depend” for its truth value upon S1: “In two minutes event (E) might or might occur.” As presentists, we argue that all propositions (past, present, and future-tense props) depend for their truth value, or have their truth values grounded upon, presently obtaining states of affairs.

(3) The truth value of S1 is NOT dependent upon E. E doesn’t even obtain, isn’t actual, when S1 is posited, so E can’t be the grounds for S1’s truth value. S2 is true when it’s asserted based upon the actual state of reality when S2 is asserted. S1 is true when it’s asserted based upon what the actual world is like when S1 is asserted. One can challenge the presentist’s claim at this point, but Doug never does. So he never actually engages our view.

Doug: To use the author’s example: S = “Hilary will be president in 2008” might or might not be true in 2004.

Tom: This is no example we give. Quite to the contrary. We claim that in 2004 “Hillary will be president in 2008” is either true or false, not that it “might or might not be

true in 2004. Doug either fails to understand our view at all or, if he understands it, knowingly fails to engage it.

Doug: However, the truth value of S might or might not be true.

Tom: No, the truth value of S is in fact either true or false.

Doug: Therefore my statement about S (Ss) must be assigned values as well. When added to the possible future possibilities which are contingent on the possibly

past possibilities it looks something like Figure 1 below.

Tom: Mind boggling. Look, when one claims of some post event E that “E might and might not have obtained” all one does is say “‘E might and might not occur’ WAS true.” It’s that simple. This is just to recognize that if there really are future contingent events, then it’s true to say of such events once they actual that it was true before they were actual that they “might and might not be actual.”

Doug: Suppose that statement (Ss1) is made: “Event (E2) [such that statement S1 might or might not be true] might, or might not, occur.” In this case E2 not only has both possibly true (in the case that S1 is true in that it might be both true or false) and possibly false possible possibilities (in the case that S1 is true in that it might be both true or false), but E2’s truth value is dependant on the truth value of the possibility of S1 being true - which itself is a possibility!

Tom: It’d be nice if Doug engaged OUR view given our actual arguments and assumptions about propositions, truth values, and the ontological status of the future. As it is, there’s hardly anything at all in Doug’s descriptions of our paper that I recognize as a view I actually hope or claim in the paper.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 7/14/2005 3:36:05 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (TGB) : 7/15/2005 11:17:56 AM (GMT-5)