Post Edited (Alan Rhoda) : 3/2/2008 2:35:38 AM (GMT-6)

I like the approach Alan. I believe Craig in the end just denies truth-grounding when he feels he needs to. So as you say, we need a way to commit him to the indissolubility of the relation between the three: reality, truth, and knowledge.

THEN we need to take this argument and lay it out propositionally on the assumption of indeterminism. And we'll need, step by step, to reveal the problems inherent in limiting one's semantic to 'will' and 'will not'. This is why I liked our illustrations (the Square and the Hex, etc.). It builds slowly and helps you visualize the relations. It's a picture of the THREE issues that comprise the main argument, because as you remember, there's a TRIANGLE (will, will not, and combined might/might not) at the heart of the Hex.

Is it generally agreed upon, Alan, that every proposition has a contradictory AND a then either a contrary or a subcontary proposition? If so, then another line of argument would be to ask folks to produce the contrary and contradictories of "will" and "will not" and then let the results be an argument in our favor. In other words, perhaps your main argument can feed off of this one and visa versa. We already know they're going to say "will" and "will not" are contradictories. What will they offer as the contraries of these? Taking "will" and "will not" as contradictories throws the entire table of truth relations out of wack IF one admits that a prop has a contradictory AND either a contrary or subcontrary. Or will they not think the Square even applies in the case of future-tense props. But that's where the indissolubility of THREE ontological states comes in again. These states have to (given your argument) ground truths that posit their distinct reality and which find expression in mutually exclusive propositions. I don't know how they run away from it!

We demonstrate that our conceptions of the future admit a contradictory function for "might" and "might not." Somebody says, "Yeah sure, Greg's definitely coming to the party tonight." Somebody replies, "Well, no. He might not come." Everybody knows the latter person just contradicted the former WITHOUT making the equal claim that "Greg will not come." See?

Here's how I think they reason. "Might" and "might not" are reduced to epistemic states. We know they think that. So where someone makes the claim "Greg will come to the party," the claim that "Greg might not come to the party" essentially says, "You're a finite knower, and you can't be SURE that it's true that 'Greg will come to the party'," so that "might not" challenges the assertibility of "Greg will come" and says, "Look, you COULD be wrong you know." Isn't this essentially what Flint was arguing with Greg? So they essentially argue that "Greg might not come" really means "It might not be true that 'Greg will come' to the party'" so that what they have are two props (will and will not) which alone posit the objective truth about the future, and two props (might and might not) which challenge the assertibility of will and will not. Likewise, if somebody says "Greg will not come," this can be falsified (they say) by saying "It might be true that 'Greg will come'."

I think this way of relating will/will not to might/might not is mistaken. This is not at all what people believe they are asserting when they respond to the claim "Greg will come tonight" with "No, he might not come." People believe themselves in this case to be saying something about probabilities in the objective world; the world is not such that the probability of Greg's coming is 100%. No, it's less than that.

At some point (probably AFTER the argument that deals with the relation between reality/truth/knowledge) we should get down in the dirt of these propositions and nail each one down. Perhaps the Hex will help. Greg and I still burn candles in front of large posters of it we love its elegance so much!

Tom

Post Edited (Alan Rhoda) : 3/2/2008 2:37:35 AM (GMT-6)

OT really is about how our categories are related to the divine attributes. And there is so much disagreement about what is categorical that I think there will always be controversy. We're just folks who, for different and multiple reasons, converge upon OT.  And there are different views of OT, and we can't even completely unify. E.g., if I thought God could exist atemporally, I'd probably be a skeptic about it all. Because, then, I wouldn't know how to extend the applicability of any of my categories beyond creation. I wouldn't know, e.g., that our causal argument had any validity. What grounds that validity, to my mind, is the propriety of extending our categories BEYOND the created order. Indeed, without that assumption, I wouldn't even know the world IS a created order.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/2/2008 9:10:51 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Alan Rhoda) : 3/2/2008 8:21:27 PM (GMT-6)

I guess my point was that orthodox Molinists would likely resist using "might" in that way because, by saying "Jesus might return", it really does sound like I'm denying that Jesus' return is certain.  My thought was, if most people who heard me say this would think I'm denying the ontological certainty of Jesus' return, that would be a semantic argument for an ontological (rather than merely epistemic) "might".   (Or is that even how semantic-type arguments are made?)

JET: I guess my point was that orthodox Molinists would likely resist using "might" in that way because, by saying "Jesus might return", it really does sound like I'm denying that Jesus' return is certain.

Tom: Molinists, those funny people! I think if Craig or Flint overheard somebody say, “Jesus might return,” they’d assume the person was expressing doubt about whether or not Jesus will return (but they’d probably prefer to express such doubt with MIGHT NOT). I guess that’s because nobody who believes that WILL is true (causally) bothers to use the less encompassing MIGHT (although MIGHT is true if WILL is true). Other than overhearing it randomly spoken though, the only other time a Molinist would hear “Jesus might return” is in a debate over the meaning of WILL and MIGHT, and in this case the Molinist will have all his armor on and his odd semantics loaded and ready for battle.

It’s my understanding that understood causally, MIGHT alone simply means “with a probability greater than 0.” Its causal contribution is indeed objective, but partial because its being true is consistent either with WILL’s being true (MIGHT is the subaltern of WILL, so that if WILL is true, MIGHT also is true) and WILL’s being false (in which case both MIGHT and MIGHT NOT are true). But MIGHT's being true alone doesn't tell you which is the case.

I guess my point is that if MIGHT is understood causally, then saying “Jesus might return” leaves open the question of whether the speaker doesn’t know the whole truth (is WILL or MIGTHT and MIGHT NOT true?) or knows the truth and is speaking trivially. I guess the unlikelihood of somebody’s knowing the whole truth about such an event but only expressing part of it is what would make me assume they’re expressing (incorrectly, because they ought to use MIGHT NOT) doubt about Jesus’ return.

Tom

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 3/3/2008 12:39:07 AM (GMT-6)

Alan: Scenario A: For every possible free agent S, circumstance C, and action A, one of these two counterfactuals - (i) "If placed in C, S would freely do A" (ii) "If placed in C, S would freely refrain from doing A" - is true independently of either God or creation and is known by God prevolitionally.

Tom: This is something I’ve never understood about the Molinist position. If S does A freely, then Molinists argue that there are possible worlds absolutely identical in every respect up to the point of S’s choice. In one world S does A freely and in another S refrains freely from doing A.

Give that the actual choice is the ONLY difference between these two possible worlds, how does God go about choosing or actualizing the world he wants, say, the one in which S does A freely? It’s bizarre, no? If the worlds are identical in terms of antecedent factors, the circumstances C remains the same in each. So guaranteeing that the requires circumstances obtain is no guarantee that S chooses C. So how’s God guarantee that the world in which S chooses A freely is the world that actualizes? Putting S in C doesn’t do it, because there’s a world in which S chooses freely NOT to do A in C. KNOWING eternally and prevolitionally that S does A freely in C doesn't do it. Because God also knows eternally and prevotionally that there's a world in which S refrains from A in C freely.

See?

Since you brought up Molinism Alan, did you see Alex Pruss’s offering over on Prosblogion?

A moderate Molinism

By Alexander Pruss on February 26, 2008 1:54 PM

Here's a moderate Molinism. It has two parts.

1. Accept that subjunctive conditionals of free will ("F-conditionals") have non-trivial truth values if their antecedents are sufficiently determinate, and God knows these truth values.

In this respect, the moderate Molinism is exactly like standard Molinism. Whatever qualifiers one wants to put on when F-conditionals have non-trivial truth values can be put in.

2. Deny that God can make use of his knowledge of an F-conditional with antecedent p as part of a reason for bringing it about that p.

Why go for (2)? In order to avoid the priority in the order of explanation argument: if God makes use of his knowledge of an F-conditional with antecedent p as part of a reason for for his bringing it about that p, then the truth of that F-conditional, as well as the truth of p, are explanatorily prior to the free action in the consequent, and hence the free action is entailed by facts explanatorily prior to it, which contradicts a plausible principle of alternate possibility.

If it's logically impossible for anyone to make use of knowledge of F-conditionals with antecedent p as part of a reason for bringing it about that p, then this is not a problematic restriction on omnipotence.

Moreover, the idea that God has to bracket some of his knowledge of F-conditionals when making decisions seems quite plausible. For instance, plausibly, he has to bracket his knowledge of F-conditionals that, together with his knowledge of their antecedents, entail that he is going to do A, when he is deciding to do A.

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Does this change things much Alan?

T