Future Contingents and Aristotle’s Fantasy

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of future contingents, and focuses on two classical logical principles, excluded middle and bivalence. One may think that different attitudes are to be adopted towards these two principles in order to solve the problem. According to what seems to be a widely held hypothesis, excluded middle must be accepted while bivalence must be rejected. The paper goes against that line of thought. In the first place, it shows how the rejection of bivalence leads to implausible consequences if excluded middle is accepted. In the second place, it addresses the question of why one should reject bivalence, and finds no satisfactory answer.