Problem of future contingents
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Future contingent propositions (or simply, future contingents) are statements about states of affairs in the future that are neither necessarily true nor necessarily false.
The problem of future contingents is a logical paradox first posed by Diodorus Cronus from the Megarian school of philosophy and then reactualized by Aristotle in chapter 9 of On Interpretation (De Interpretatione). It was later discussed by Leibniz. Deleuze used it to oppose a "logic of the event" to a "logic of signification".
Suppose that a sea-battle will not be fought tomorrow. Then it was also true yesterday (and the week before, and last year) that it will not be fought, since any true statement about what will be the case was also true in the past. But all past truths are necessary truths, therefore it was necessarily true in the past that the battle will not be fought, and thus that the statement that it will be fought is necessarily false. Therefore it is not possible that the battle will be fought. In general, if something will not be the case, it is not possible for it to be the case. This conflicts with the idea of our own free will: that we have the power to determine the course of events in the future, which seems impossible if what happens, or does not happen, was necessarily going to happen, or not happen.
See also
- In Borges' The Garden of Forking Paths, both alternatives happen, thus leading to what Deleuze calls "incompossible worlds"
- Principle of distributivity
- Principle of plenitude
- Truth-value link
