Necessary beings

Stephanou, Yannis

doi:10.1111/1467-8284.00222

Analysis

2000

DOI: 10.1111/1467-8284.00222

|View full text |Cite

Necessary beings

Yannis Stephanou¹

Help me understand this report

Search citation statements

Order By: Relevance

Paper Sections

Select...

Citation Types

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Year Published

2005

2020

Publication Types

Select...

Article2

Relationship

Self Cite0

Independent2

Authors

Journals

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…are necessary in the sense that they are conceptual, or a priori, truths (Stephanou 2000). 13 Applying the machinery introduced in above, the conceptual truth of (1) and (2) can be expressed as,…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Types of Rigid Designation

Einheuser¹

2005

Dialectica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Types of Rigid Designation

Einheuser¹

2005

Dialectica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Edwards on the Incompatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will

Bondar¹

2020

Sent

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: (a) if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily (Necessity of the past); (b) if God knows something (say A), it is not the case that ~A is possible (Infallibility of God`s knowledge). Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that (i) the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; (ii) the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; (iii) it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge (Theories of soft facts, Anti-Ockhamism, theories of temporal modal asymmetry, „Timeless solution”). Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom.

show abstract

scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

Contact Info

customersupport@researchsolutions.com

10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614

Henderson, NV 89052, USA

Blog Terms and Conditions API Terms Privacy Policy Contact Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Made with 💙 for researchers

Part of the Research Solutions Family.

Necessary beings

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Two Types of Rigid Designation

Two Types of Rigid Designation

Edwards on the Incompatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About