{"id":40,"date":"2008-09-10T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-10T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=40"},"modified":"2008-09-10T19:59:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T23:59:00","slug":"versions-of-incompatibilism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/versions-of-incompatibilism\/","title":{"rendered":"Versions of Incompatibilism"},"content":{"rendered":"

In philosophical discussions, and especially in philosophy of religion, the term “incompatibilism” comes up in wide variety of contexts. I’ve discerned five different types of incompatibilism.<\/p>\n

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  1. Moral incompatibilism:<\/span> The thesis that human moral responsibility is incompatible with thoroughgoing causal determinism.<\/li>\n
  2. Ontic incompatibilism:<\/span> The thesis that foreexistence<\/span> is incompatible with future contingency. More precisely, the thesis that if a unique and complete sequence of future world states were to (tenselessly) exist, then the future would be causally determined.<\/li>\n
  3. Alethic incompatibilism:<\/span> The thesis that foretruth<\/span> is incompatible with future contingency. More precisely, the thesis that if the future could be fully and accurately described in terms of what either ‘will’ or ‘will not’ happen, then the future would be causally determined.<\/li>\n
  4. Epistemic incompatibilism:<\/span><\/span> The thesis that infallible foreknowledge<\/span> is incompatible with future contingency. More precisely, the thesis that if a perfect knower (like God) could exhaustively and infallibly know the future in terms of what either ‘will’ or ‘will not’ happen, then the future would be causally determined.<\/li>\n
  5. Providential incompatibilism:<\/span> The thesis that foreordination<\/span> is incompatible with future contingency. More precisely, the thesis that if a perfectly provident being (like God) were to efficaciously foreordain all <\/span>of the details of the future, then the future would be causally determined.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There are, of course, complex debates surrounding each of these. I happen to be an incompatibilist in all five <\/span>senses, but regardless of how these debates turn out, it is important to keep these issues distinct. Many thinkers are incompatibilists in some of these senses but compatibilists in others.<\/p>\n

    Incidentally, if moral incompatibilism (1) is true, then, given how I’ve defined (2)-(5), it follows that moral responsibility is incompatible with foreexistence, foretruth, foreknowledge, and foreordination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In philosophical discussions, and especially in philosophy of religion, the term “incompatibilism” comes up in wide variety of contexts. I’ve discerned five different types of incompatibilism. Moral incompatibilism: The thesis that human moral responsibility is incompatible with thoroughgoing causal determinism. Ontic incompatibilism: The thesis that foreexistence is incompatible with future contingency. More precisely, the thesis\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-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","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=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}