Future Contingents in Late Medieval Philosophy
While Arché's regular schedule is still on break until late March, we've started up our Medieval Logic reading group (MLG) again. So far we've worked mostly with theories of insolubilia and views about logical consequence (e.g. Bradwardine and Buridan), but now we're moving a bit further out in the terrain (at least for me). This semester we're taking on Ockham on future contingents, in particular his Predestination, God's Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents. I haven't really done any work on future contingents since I took a graduate class with Patrick Greenough some years back, so I might try to refresh my knowledge of the contemporary debate as well. Meanwhile, I enjoy reading some historical background material in Calvin Normore's article on future contingents in the Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. Here is an interesting paragraph from the text (371):
I wonder if there is a connection to truth-is-only-an-expressive-device deflationism here. Any thoughts? I hope to return with more on Ockham as we start working our way through the text.
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5 comments:
There's certainly at least a superficial connection. It'd be interesting to explore this a bit.
Meanwhile, it's notable that the best argument for a transparency view of truth (an expressive-device disquotationalism a la Field or Beall or the like) adverts to Ockham -- or at least his razor.
I wish I could attend the MLG! The medievals were way ahead of my time, at least wrt logical explorations! Enjoy!
Hi JC, Make sure to come along when you visit in the summer! I was hoping we'll read Ockham on paradoxes later on, but Stephen isn't all that impressed with him (being a Bradwardine man and all).
JC, here is a quote from Ockham you may like:
“Thus, for the truth of ‘This is an angel’ it is not required that the common term ‘angel’ be really identical with what is posited as the subject, or that it be really in that subject, or anything of this sort. Rather, it is sufficient and necessary that the subject and predicate supposit for the same thing.” (Ockham, 1998; 86).
It is indeed a bit in the spirit of Ockham's razor. Ockham has no trouble dealing with metaphysics and positing metaphysical entities, but he will try not to for as long as he can!
And Ockham on paradoxes is indeed not that interesting, it's not only Stephen's love for Bradwardine guiding his judgment here...
Ole: yes, good idea. I'll be there.
Catarina: what does he mean by "the subject and predicate supposit for the same thing"?
On Ockham on paradox: what's the allegedly uninteresting view? [From Catarina's quote, I thought for a second that he might be in the Nick (J.J.) Smith ballpark -- where we're forced to say that sometimes either the subject or predicate terms misfire (picking out something other than what they superficially appear to pick out), but I doubt that this is what's going on.]
Hope you're both well!
Jc
Hi JC
"the subject and predicate supposit for the same thing" means roughly that the subject and predicate *stand* for the same thing. Supposition is the key semantic concept in later Latin medieval logic, and a lot has been written on it (including by me!). The main point is that Ockham has something that we could describe as a 'semantic' approach to truth, as opposed to 'metaphysical'. What makes a proposition true is a semantic fact (the fact that its subject and predicate stand for the same thing, in the case of affirmatives), not a metaphysical fact (e.g. the existence of a truth-maker, things being as it describes them to be etc.). If you are up to it, I wrote a fairly short (about 5.000 words) survey on medieval theories of truth, you can find it in my webpage, under 'papers and talks'.
Why is Ockham's solution to the Liar bad? Well, he was one of the so-called 'restringentes', people who thought we should restrict self-reference. Ockham did not want to ban self-reference altogether ('This sentence is in English' would be ok); the trouble with his 'solution' is that it is essentially very ad hoc: self-reference is ok except when it's not! And these are precisely the paradoxical cases. Not much of a solution, really...
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