Medieval Approaches to Future Contingents

  • Simo Knuuttila Profesor Emeritus of the University of Helsinki
Keywords: future contingents; scientia media; Boethius; Abelard; Aquinas; Scotus; Ockham

Abstract

This paper discusses the main lines of medieval Latin approaches to future contingents with some remarks on Marcin Tkaczyk’s paper “The antinomy of future contingent events.” Tkaczyk’s theory shows some similarity with the general frame of the views of Ockham and Scotus, the difference being that while medieval authors argued for the temporal necessity of the past, Tkaczyk is sceptical of the general validity of this necessity. Ockham’s theological view was that God eternally has an intuitive and immutable knowledge of all possibilities as well as whether they are ever actualized or not (Panaccio & Piché 2010). The content of God’s past knowledge attitude remains contingent before the free choice takes place because God’s knowledge could be different similarly as the truth-value of the proposition. While Ockham held that no past or present thing follows from future things as an effect follows from its cause, this causal link is defended by Tkaczyk. Later thinkers thought that the doctrine of the scientia media sheds light on this question; perhaps it is easier to understand than the retroactive model which is not contradictory but difficult to imagine, as Tkaczyk concludes his paper.

References

Adams, McCord Marilyn, and Norman Kretzmann. 1983. William of Ockham: Predestination, God’s Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents. 2nd ed. Indinapolis: Hackett.

Bobzien, Susanne. 1998. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bornholdt, Jon. 2017. Walter Chatton on Future Contingents: Between Formalism and Ontology. Leiden: Brill.

Craig, William Lane. 1988. The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez. Leiden: Brill.

Crivelli, Paolo. 2004. Aristotle on Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dekker, Eef. 2000. Middle Knowledge. Leuven: Peeters.

Ebbesen, Sten. 1992. “What Must One Have an Opinion About.” Vivarium 30: 62–79.

Fine, Gail. 1984. “Truth and Necessity in De interpretatione 9.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 1: 23–47.

Freddoso, Alfred J. 1988. Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, Part IV of the Concordia, trans. with introduction and notes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Frede, Dorothea. 1970. Aristoteles und die ‘Seeschlacht’. Das Problem der Contingentia Futura in De Interpretatione 9. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Gaskin, Richard. 1995. The Sea Battle and the Master Argument. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Gelber, Hester. 2004. It Could Have Been Otherwise: Contingency and Necessity in Dominican Theology at Oxford 1300-1350. Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters. Leiden: Brill.

Goris, Harm J.M.J. 1996. Free Creatures of an Eternal God. Thomas Aquinas on God’s Infallible Foreknowledge and Irresistible Will. Leuven: Peeters.

Hintikka, Jaakko. 1973. Time and Necessity: Studies in Aristotle’s Theory of Modality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Honnefelder, Ludger. 2005. Duns Scotus. Munich: Beck.

Iwakuma, Yukio, & Sten Ebbesen. 1992. “Logico-Theological Schools from the Second Half of the 12th Century: A List of Sources.” Vivarium 30: 173–210.

Judson, Lindsay. 1988. “La bataille navale d’aujourd’hui: De interpretatione 9.” Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 6: 5–37.

Knuuttila, Simo. 1993. Modalities in Medieval Philosophy. London, New York: Routledge.

Knuuttila, Simo. 1996. “Duns Scotus and the Foundations of Logical Modalities.” In John Duns Scotus: Metaphysics and Ethics, edited by Lodger Honnefelder, Rega Wood, and Mechthild Dreyer, 127–143. Leiden: Brill.

Knuuttila, Simo. 2015, “Medieval Theories of Future Contingents.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed 23.10.2018. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-futcont/.

Kretzmann, Norman. 1998. “Boethius and the Truth about Tomorrow’s Sea Battle.” In Ammonius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9. Translated by David L. Blank, with Boethius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9, first and second Commentaries, trans. N. Kretzmann, with Essays by Richard Sorabji, Norman Kretzmann, and Mario Mignucci, 24–52. London: Duckworth.

Marenbon, John. 1992. “Vocalism, Nominalism and the Commentaries on the Categories from the Earlier Twelfth Century.” Vivarium 30: 51–61.

Marenbon, John. 2005. Le temps, l’éternité et la prescience de Boète à Thomas d’Aquin. Paris: Vrin.

Martin, Christopher J. 2003. “An Amputee is Bipedal. The Role of the Categories in the Development of Abelard’s Theory of Possibility.” In La Tradition médiévale des Categories (XIIe-XIVe siècles, edited by Joël Biard and Irène Rosier-Catach, 225–242. Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, Louvain, Paris: Peeters.

Mignucci, Mario. 1988. “Truth and Modality in Late Antiquity: Boethius on Future Contingent Propositions.” In Atti del convegno Internazionale di Storia della Logica. Le Teorie delle Modalità, edited by Giovanna Corsi, Corrado Mangione, and Massimo Mugnai, 47-78. Bologna: CLUEB.

Mignucci, Mario. 1998. “Ammonius’ Sea Battle.” In Ammonius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9. Translated by David L. Blank, with Boethius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9, first and second Commentaries, trans. N. Kretzmann, with Essays by Richard Sorabji, Norman Kretzmann, and Mario Mignucci, 53–86. London: Duckworth.

Normore, Calvin G. 2003. “Scotus’s Modal Theory.” In The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, edited by Thomas Williams, 129-160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Panaccio, Claude, & David Piché. 2010. “Ockham’s Reliabilism and the Intuition of Non-Existents.” In Rethinking the History of Skepticism: The Missing Medieval Background, edited by Henrik Lagerlund, 97–118. Leiden: Brill.

Schabel, Chris. 2000. Theology at Paris, 1316-1345: Peter Aureol and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingents. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Sorabji, Richard. 1998. “The Tree Deterministic Arguments Opposed by Ammonius.” In Ammonius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9. Translated by David L. Blank, with Boethius, On Aristotle: On Interpretation 9, first and second Commentaries, trans. N. Kretzmann, with Essays by Richard Sorabji, Norman Kretzmann, and Mario Mignucci, 3-15. London: Duckworth.

Vos, Antonie, H. Veldhuis, A.H. Looman-Graanskamp, Eef Dekker, N.W. den Bok (1994), John Duns Scotus, Contingency and Freedom. Lectura I.39, trans. with introduction and commentary. The New Synthese Historical Library, 42. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).

Weidemann, Hermann. 1994 (translation and commentaries). Aristoteles, Peri hermeneias. Werke in deutscher Uebersetzung I, 2. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

Wippel, John F. 1985). “Divine Knowledge, Divine Power and Human Freedom in Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent.” In Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy, edited by Tamar Rudavsky, 213-241. Dordrecht: Reidel.

Zagzebski, Linda. 1991. The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Published
2018-11-28