The future is ‘alethically’ open at time T with respect to possible state of affairs X and future time T* > T if and only if neither “X will obtain at T*” nor “X will not obtain at T*” is true at T.<\/p>\n
I believe that the future is alethically open with respect to future contingent states of affairs. Thus, if the present state of the world is indeterministic with respect to whether a sea battle occurs tomorrow (i.e., if that’s a future contingent), then on my view neither “A sea battle will occur tomorrow” nor “A sea battle will not occur tomorrow” is now true. Indeed, I submit that both propositions are now false<\/span>.<\/p>\n There’s an interesting challenge to my view that has recently been proposed<\/a> by Alex Pruss of Baylor Univ. His argument is encumbered with the technical trappings of probability theory, but the basic objection can be stated quite simply as follows:<\/p>\n This is a potentially devastating argument against my position. The logic is clearly valid, I’m already committed to (1), and premise (2) looks very plausible. Clearly, I have to deny (2). The challenge is to make it clear why that’s a reasonable thing to do.<\/p>\n In the first place, it is essential to get as clear as we can on exactly what proposition is expressed by the sentence “S will not win the lottery”. This is important because linguistic expressions do not wear their meaning on the sleeve, so to speak. We have to interpret them as best we can in light of whatever contextual clues are available. Due to factors like vagueness, ambiguity, lack of information about the context, and so forth, interpretation is often difficult and frequently inconclusive.<\/p>\n In the second place, there is an important distinction that we have to make between modally inflected<\/span> uses of “will” and “will not” and amodal<\/span> uses. Interpreted in the former sense, “S will not win the lottery” may be read as saying something like “S will probably<\/span> not win the lottery”. Here the word “probably” attributes an objective probability to the event S’s not winning the lottery<\/span>. Different objective probabilities can be captured with different qualifiers (e.g., “will definitely<\/span>“, “will possibly<\/span>“, or, more generally, “will, with probability p”). Interpreted in the amodal sense, “S will not win the lottery” should be read as saying something like “Subsequently, S does not<\/span> win the lottery”. This says nothing about what it’s objective probability is, other than implying that it is non-zero. Probabilities applied to this proposition have be read as epistemic probabilities, which qualify the attitude <\/span>that a subject has toward a proposition without entering in the meaning<\/span> of the proposition. The contrast, then, is between a modal, objective probability reading “S will probably not win the lottery” and an amodal reading “Subsequently, S does not win the lottery”.<\/p>\n In the third place, there is a potential ambiguity in the scope of the word “not” in “S will not win the lottery”. Does it apply just to the predicate alone or to the rest of the proposition in its entirety? On the first reading, “S will not win the lottery” means “S will not-(win the lottery)”. On the second reading, “S will not win the lottery” means “Not-(S will win the lottery)”. These readings are distinct since the former entails the latter, but not vice-versa. It is possible, after all, for “Not-(S will win the lottery)” to be true without “S will not-(win the lottery)” being true – for example, when S does not exist.<\/p>\n Crossing the above distinctions gives us four basic readings of “S will not win the lottery”:<\/p>\n Now, presumably, we have good (inductive) reasons to believe all of these to be true. (a) and (b), however, pose no difficulty for my position, since I am not committed to saying that “will probably” propositions are false when it comes to future contingents. It comes down, then, to the amodal propositions (c) and (d). To refute me the objector has to show that we have good reason for believing that either (c) or (d) concerns a future contingent and is true now<\/span>. It is here that I make my stand. I deny that these conditions are satisfied by (c) or (d).<\/p>\n For a proposition to be true, what it represents as being the case must correspond to reality, to what is the case. Likewise, for a proposition to be true now<\/span>, what it represents as being the case must correspond to present <\/span>reality, to what is the case now. <\/span>Now, (c) clearly represents what is, from our present perspective, a future contingent state of affairs. It represents S’s not winning the lottery subsequent to <\/span>a contextually specified index date<\/span><\/span>. I deny, however, that (c) is true now<\/span> or that we have good reason for believing it to be true now<\/span> on the grounds that there is no present reality that it corresponds to. We have good reason for believing that it will probably come to be true<\/span>, but not for believing that it is true<\/span>. Thus, after the drawing of the lottery, either S will have won subsequently to the index date or not. At that point, assuming S does not win, (c) will be true. But not until then.<\/p>\n With respect to (d), I grant that it is true now<\/span> and that we have good reason for believing it to be true now<\/span>, but I deny that it directly concerns the future. It concerns, rather, a present<\/span> fact, for it says it that it is<\/span> not (now) the case that subsequently S does not win the lottery. This is provably correct. Future events do not obtain now<\/span>.<\/p>\n In summary, I reject premise (2) of the objector’s argument on the grounds that (i) the sorts of “will not” propositions about future contingents that we have good reasons for believing to be true now<\/span> are not the sorts of propositions to which the doctrine of alethic openness applies, and (ii) the sorts of “will not” propositions about future contingents to which alethic openness applies are not the sorts of propositions that we have good reason for believing to be true now<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The future is ‘alethically’ open at time T with respect to possible state of affairs X and future time T* > T if and only if neither “X will obtain at T*” nor “X will not obtain at T*” is true at T. I believe that the future is alethically open with respect to future\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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