Future Contingents and the Logic of Temporal Omniscience

At least since Aristotle’s famous 'sea-battle' passages in On Interpretation 9, some substantial minority of philosophers has been attracted to the doctrine of the open future--the doctrine that future contingent statements are not true. But, prima facie, such views seem inconsistent with the following intuition: if something has happened, then (looking back) it was the case that it would happen. How can it be that, looking forwards, it isn’t true that there will be a sea battle, while also being true that, looking backwards, it was the case that there would be a sea battle? This tension forms, in large part, what might be called the problem of future contingents. A dominant trend in temporal logic and semantic theorizing about future contingents seeks to validate both intuitions. Theorists in this tradition--including some interpretations of Aristotle, but paradigmatically, Thomason (1970), as well as more recent developments in Belnap, et. al (2001) and MacFarlane (2003, 2014)--have argued that the apparent tension between the intuitions is in fact merely apparent. In short, such theorists seek to maintain both of the following two theses: (i) the open future: Future contingents are not true, and (ii) retro-closure: From the fact that something is true, it follows that it was the case that it would be true. It is well-known that reflection on the problem of future contingents has in many ways been inspired by importantly parallel issues regarding divine foreknowledge and indeterminism. In this paper, we take up this perspective, and ask what accepting both the open future and retro-closure predicts about omniscience. When we theorize about a perfect knower, we are theorizing about what an ideal agent ought to believe. Our contention is that there isn’t an acceptable view of ideally rational belief given the assumptions of the open future and retro-closure, and thus this casts doubt on the conjunction of those assumptions

OCKHAM, THE PRINCIPIA OF HOLCOT AND WODEHAM, AND THE MYTH OF THE TWO-YEAR SENTENCES LECTURE AT OXFORD ERC-DEBATE-PROJECT-771589

International audienceRecently William Duba and I showed that lectures on the Sentences at the University of Paris in the early fourteenth century took only one academic year, not two as previously thought, and we questioned whether they had ever taken two years. Here I argue that there is no positive evidence for two-year lectures at the University of Oxford before the mid-1330s, when statutes make clear that they were lasting just one year. Moreover, supposing a one-year lecture better accounts for the known data of the alleged instances of biennial readings by Robert Holcot, Adam Wodeham, and William of Ockham. Indeed, the evidence that Holcot and Wodeham provide for the early Oxford adoption of principial debates, an exercise that appeared at Paris in the 1310s, reinforce

Andrew of Langenstein (ca 1362-1399 †) and His Question on Human Freedom from a Disputatio Aularis

International audienceAs far as we know, the question Utrum esse liberum contradictorie sit essentiale rationali creature, attributed to Magister Andreas, is the only surviving writing or oral report from Andrew of Langenstein, nephew of the famous Henry of Langenstein. 1 This text also offers a succinct overview of the distinctions between various types of freedom that had developed over the course of the previous two centuries at the universities, just the kind of summary an eager note-taking student would want to have for future use. A Short Biography The first record of Andrew's life is dated 1382, when, perhaps during Lent as normal, as a member of the English-German Nation at the University of Paris, dominus Andreas de Langensteyn de Hassia determined, along with two others, as bachelor of arts under Master Stanislas of Poland. 2 Andrew was among a group of 28 who determined under the proctorship of Petrus de Catwiic, who was elected on 10 February. The dominus need not detain us, since everyone else who determined at that time was also given that title. The fact that Andrew claimed to be poor and paid nothing, on the other hand, is unusual, since of the group of 28 who determined at the time only Andrew and Johannes Inghemari de Swecia pled poverty, although on 25 February several of the candidates asked to be able to leave something in security and pay their fee within three months, an option that ten candidates eventually chose. 3 Determination was a stage on the way to becoming a master of arts, but it is not always clear how long it took between determination and inception as master. In the volume in which the above information is contained, Denifle and Chatelain later state in a footnote that a few years afterward the English-German Nation was devoid of masters, since many left in 1382 because of problems connected to the papal Schism, when France aligned with Clement VII in Avignon and most German princes remained with Urban VI in Rome. In their list of ten examples of departing masters, Denifle and Chatelain mention in third place Andreas de Langenstein, in the company of Gerardus de Kalkar and Paulus de Gelria. 4 There does not appear to be any documentary evidence that Andrew became master at Paris before leaving, probably with his uncle Henry in October 1382

Francesco d’Appignano, Lector in Naples in 1321

Il contributo presenta una testimonianza secondo la quale Francesco d’Appignano era lector presso il convento francescano di Napoli nel giugno 1321, senza che questo influisca necessariamente sulla datazione delle lezioni parigine di Francesco sulle Sentenze negli anni 1319 1320.This brief paper presents evidence that Francesco d’Appignano was lector at the Franciscan convent in Naples in June 1321, but it determines that this new datum does not necessarily affect our dating of Francesco’s Parisian lectures on the Sentenze to 1319 1320

Like God from Heaven, but they don’t call him King. The Rebellion against James I of Cyprus

En Chypre, durant les fréquentes révoltes de la noblesse franque contre la couronne, les paysans, grecs pour l’essentiel, se comportèrent de manière plus loyale envers la dynastie des Lusignan que l’aristocratie. L’édition complète des cahiers de Giovanni Bardi, chancelier du capitaine de la flotte génoise qui, pour la première fois, rendit possible le retour de Jacques Ier en Chypre en 1383, à la suite de la mort de Pierre II en 1382, offre une perspective contemporaine et plutôt neutre sur la rébellion contre la succession de Jacques. Contrairement à la «version officielle » des chroniques chypriotes, la rébellion n’était pas limitée aux seuls frères Montolif, mais impliquait probablement une majorité de chevaliers.Schabel Chris. Like God from Heaven, but they don’t call him King. The Rebellion against James I of Cyprus. In: Cahiers du Centre d'Etudes Chypriotes. Volume 43, 2013. pp. 379-392

ERC-projet n° 771589 Redating Pierre d'Ailly's Early Writings and Revisiting His Position on the Necessity of the Past and the Future

International audiencePierre d'Ailly concludes his questions on Boethius' De consolatione Philosophiae with a brief doubt on whether the past is able not to have been. Following the Augustinian Gregory of Rimini, Pierre lists names associated with the positive and negative responses, rightly remarks that Gregory left the issue undetermined, adds that the "Catholic doctors" appear to deny this possibility, and then posits two conclusions: "The first," Pierre says, "is that no past thing is able not to have been, and this I posit because it is commonly granted. The second conclusion, which I posit, is this: that it would be just as easy to maintain that some past thing is able not to have been as it would be to maintain that some future thing is able not to come about" 1. These conclusions succinctly encapsulate the difficulty of the conundrum for Pierre and its fascination for us. Pierre d'Ailly's position on the modal status of the past and future deserves our renewed attention. Although Pierre's main discussion, in his questions on the Sentences, survives in only four manuscripts, many fewer than listed in Stegmüller's Repertorium 2