Description
Book SynopsisIn Walter Chatton on Future Contingents, Jon Bornholdt presents the first full-length translation, commentary, and analysis of the various attempts by Chatton (14th century C.E.) to solve the ancient problem of the status and significance of statements about the future. At issue is the danger of so-called logical determinism: if it is true now that a human will perform a given action tomorrow, is that human truly free to perform or refrain from performing that action? Bornholdt shows that Chatton constructed an original (though problematic) formal analysis that enabled him to canvass various approaches to the problem at different stages of his career, at all times showing an unusual sensitivity to the tension between formalist and metaphysical types of solution.
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements ix Explanation of Symbols x Citation Style xii List of Figures xiii 1 Introduction: History and Logical Analysis of the Problem 1 1 The Heart of the Problem: A Question of Truth-Makers and Truth-Bearers 1 2 Models of the World and Theories of Truth 6 2.1 Two Models of the World 8 2.2 Fitting Truth Operators to Ontology: The Correspondence Assumption 12 3 Either the Fallibility of God as Foreknower, or the Necessitation of Creaturely Action: Sophismata or Genuine Puzzles? 15 3.1 A “First Try”: The Appeal to Scope Disambiguation 16 3.2 The Inadequacy of the Sophismatic Solution 21 4 The Boethian Analysis and Its Influence 28 4.1 Boethius’ Slippery T2 Theory: “Broad Bivalence” and the Operators Definite and Indefinite 29 4.2 The Assertability Conditions of the Boethian Future Tense(s) 34 4.3 A Fruitful Ambiguity: Simple vs. Conditional Necessity 37 4.4 From the Commentary Theory to the Consolation Theory 43 4.5 The Boethian or Logical-Compatibilist Model 49 4.6 Historical Developments: Further Applications of the System 61 5 Overcoming the Limitations of Logical Compatibilism: The Need for Alternative Real Futures 81 5.1 Making Room for Divine (and More Room for Human) Freedom: God’s “Power over the Past” and the Divine Modal Pleroma 83 5.2 The System of Duns Scotus 97 6 The (Re)Turn to the Formal: Thomas Wylton, Peter Auriol, and the Rejection of the Correspondence Assumption 116 6.1 The Wylton Scope Analysis 116 6.2 The Position of Peter Auriol: A Closed-Future Model in Open-Future Guise 124 7 The System(s) of William Ockham 144 7.1 Determinate Truth and the Mystery of God’s Mysterious Foreknowledge 145 7.2 Ockham’s Open Future 148 7.3 Ockham’s Later Influence: The Communis Opinio 163 8 Ponere [in Esse]: Drifting between the Derivational, the Temporal, and the Ludic 165 8.1 Ponere [in Esse]: Initial Approaches 165 8.2 Arnold of Strelley and Obligational Theology 167 8.3 Ponere [in Esse] in Sense i: Assumptions and/or Actions 173 8.4 Ponere [in Esse] in Sense ii: The Real Occurrence of a Given Res / Proposition 174 8.5 Ponere [in Esse]: A Unifying Interpretation? 176 9 Recapitulation 177 10 Walter Chatton on Future Contingents 178 10.1 Chatton’s Reportatio super Sententias 179 10.2 Chatton’s Quodlibet 233 11 Concluding Remarks: Chatton in Historical Context 259 2 Translations of Chatton’s Reportatio super Sententias i, dd. 38–41 and Quodlibet, qq. 27–29 265 Reportatio super Sententias i 265 Distinction 38. Unique Question. Whether the Contingency of Futures is Consistent with God’s Knowledge of Future Contingents 265 Distinction 39. Unique Question. Whether God Could Know More Than He Knows 279 Distinctions 40–41. Question 1. Whether the Mystery of the Divine Incarnation was the Meriting Cause of Human Predestination 286 Distinctions 40–41. Question 2. Whether It Can be Consistently Maintained Both That God Wills That a Shall be Necessarily, and That a Will Nevertheless Happen Contingently 311 Quodlibet 318 Question 27. Whether Any Creature Could be Apprised of a Future Contingent 318 Question 28. Whether the Certainty of Revelation of Future Contingents is Compatible with Their Contingency 331 Question 29. Whether All Forms of the Arguments Which Normally Occur in This Matter Can be Resolved 342 3 Commentary 344 Reportatio super Sententias i 344 Distinction 38. Unique Question: Whether the Contingency of Futures is Consistent with God’s Knowledge of Future Contingents 344 Distinction 39. Unique Question: Whether God Could Know More Than He Knows 368 Distinctions 40–41 380 Question 1. Whether the Mystery of the Divine Incarnation was the Meriting Cause of Human Predestination. 381 Question 2. Whether It Can be Consistently Maintained Both That God Wills That a Shall be Necessarily, and That a Will Nevertheless Happen Contingently 411 Quodlibet 424 Question 27. Whether Any Creature Could be Apprised of a Future Contingent 425 Question 28. Whether the Certainty of Revelation of Future Contingents is Compatible with Their Contingency 445 Question 29. Whether All Forms of the Arguments Which Normally Occur in this Matter Can be Resolved 467 Appendix: Natural-Deduction Derivations of the Pattern Arguments 469 Bibliography 509 Index of Names 528 Subject Index 531
