Causal and Functional Determination vs. Foreknowledge about the Future

Abstract

The author of the paper critically analyzes a quasi-theory of future contingents (PFC) given by Marcin Tkaczyk and proposes his own explication of its theses and terms. The author makes it by introducing operational definitions of temporal and modal concepts, distinguishing between the causal and functional determination, discussing the status of the principle of bivalence, and replacing Tkaczyk’s theses by their new formulations. As a result, the author states, among other things, that (contrary to Tkaczyk) there is no contradiction between the thesis about the opened future and the thesis about divine omniscience, because it requires the causal (but not functional as it is a case) determination between a true proposition and its determined fact. The author also shows that Tkaczyk’s examples of the retroactive causes are not an accurate solution of the antinomy because they are, at most, the examples of the factors which change the picture of the past but not the past itself.