Varieties of future‐contingency

Abstract

I here examine some of the main contentions of Todd's “The Open Future”. I argue first that a future contingent need not contain locutions such as “will” or cognates and that once this is recognized a trilemma emerges for Todd, putting pressure on him to relinquish one of the book's main aims. Then after noting (Section II) Todd's response to a puzzle A.N. prior had raised for betting on an open‐future style view, I turn (Sections IIIa and IIIb) to his discussion of whether his approach is committed to demanding that ordinary speakers reform their talk about the future. I conclude (Section IV) that the objective of the replacement strategy that Todd recommends could be achieved with less violence to ordinary linguistic practices with the help of a view on which “will” and cognates are polysemous.