Claim
Logical determinism
Overview
Logical determinism is the view that a proposition about the future is either necessarily true, or its negation is necessarily true. The argument for this is as follows. By excluded middle, the future tense proposition (‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’) is either true now, or its negation is true. But what makes it (or its negation) true is the present existence of a state of affairs – a truthmaker. If so, then the future is determined in the sense that the way things are now – namely the state of affairs that makes ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’ or its negation true – determines the way that things will be. Furthermore, if the past is necessary, in the sense that a state of affairs that existed yesterday cannot be altered, then the state of affairs that made the proposition ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’ true cannot be changed, and so the proposition or its negation is necessarily true, and it is either necessarily the case that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow, or necessarily not the case.
The term ‘logical determinism’ (Logischer Determinismus) was introduced by Moritz Schlick.
Logical determinism seems to present a problem for the conception of free will which requires that different courses of action are possible, for the sea-battle argument suggests that only one course is possible, because necessary. In trying to resolve the problem, the 13th century philosopher Duns Scotus argued in an early work that a future proposition can be understood in two ways: either as signifying something in reality that makes something be true in the future, or simply as signifying that something will be the case. The second sense is weaker in that it does not commit us to any present state of affairs that makes the future proposition true, only a future state of affairs.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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37. This determination comes from the very nature of truth, and cannot injure freedom: but there are other determinations taken from elsewhere, and in the first place from the foreknowledge of God, which many have held to be contrary to freedom. They say that what is foreseen cannot fail to exist, and they say so truly; but it follows not that what is foreseen is necessary, for _necessary truth_ is that whereof the…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
States what Logical determinism is.
XIV. This kind of disputing is very closely connected with the mode of discussion adopted by you lawyers in reply, and still more closely with that adopted by philosophers, as they share with the orators in the employment of that general conclusion which is drawn from inconsistent sentences, which is called by dialecticians the third mood, and by rhetoricians an enthymeme. There are many other moods used by the…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
States what Logical determinism is.
This is less to be regretted because this account is completely a corollary from the nature of thinking and ideas. If the view held as to the latter is understood, the conception of truth follows as a matter of course. If it be not understood, any attempt to present the theory of truth is bound to be confusing, and the theory itself to seem arbitrary and absurd.
John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy
States what Logical determinism is.
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Compatibilism.