## 1. Logical Fatalism: Aristotle's argument and the nature of truth



The classic argument for fatalism occurs in Aristotle (384-322
B.C.E.), *De Interpretatione*, chapter 9. He addresses the
question of whether in relation to all questions it is necessary that
the affirmation or the negation is true or false.



What he says could be presented as an argument along the following
lines.



> 
> 
> Suppose that (i) *p* is true or *p* is false and (ii)
> not*-p* is true or not*-p* is false.
> 
> 
> 
> Then *p* is true or not*-p* is true.
> 
> 
> 
> Now suppose that in 1900 one person says that a sea-battle will take
> place on 1/1/2100, and another says that a sea-battle will not take
> place on 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> Then either what the first person says is true or what the second
> person says is true.
> 
> 
> 
> But, in that case, either it is necessary in 1900 that a sea-battle
> takes place on 1/1/2100, or it is necessary in 1900 that one does not
> take place.
> 
> 
> 
> But the date of the predictions is irrelevant, and it is irrelevant
> whether any prediction is actually made at all.
> 
> 
> 
> So it is necessary at all times that a sea-battle takes place on
> 1/1/2100, or that a sea-battle does not take place on 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> But the argument can evidently be generalised.
> 
> 
> 
> So, everything that happens, happens of necessity.
> 
> 
> 



First of all we need to be clear about what is meant by
"necessity" here. What is at issue here is not logical
necessity. It is rather inevitability. When the occurrence of a
sea-battle on 1/1/2100 is said to be necessary at a certain date, what
is meant is that at that date nothing can prevent a sea-battle from
taking place on 1/1/2100. In particular, no one has the power to
prevent it. Now Aristotle accepts that "What is, necessarily is,
when it is; and what is not, necessarily is not, when it is
not." So, he accepts that, if a sea-battle is actually taking
place on 1/1/2100, then on 1/1/2100 it is (in this sense) taking place
of necessity. Nothing can then stop it happening, because it is
happening. What this argument appears to establish, however, is that,
if a sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, not only is it necessary then
that a sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, but it was always
necessary. No one could ever have prevented it. And the same applies
to everything that can happen. So, in particular, no one ever has the
power to do anything other that what they actually do.



So, is there anything wrong with the argument?



Well certainly there is a move which seems to require some
explanation: the move from truth to necessity. Why should it follow
from the fact that it was true in 1900 that a sea-battle would take
place on 1/1/2100, that it was necessary that it should? This looks,
indeed, suspiciously like a fallacious move from "Of necessity,
if it is true that a sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, a sea-battle
takes place on 1/1/2100" to "If it is true that a
sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, a sea-battle takes place of
necessity on 1/1/2100". But such suspicions are probably
ill-founded. It is more likely that the move invokes a certain form of
the correspondence theory of truth: if what someone says at a certain
time is true, then the state of the world at that time must be such as
to make it true. But since what is, necessarily is when it is, the
state of the world will be necessary. So, anything that is true is
necessarily true.



However, even if this crucial move does not rest on a simple fallacy,
the idea that the truth of what someone says is determined by the
state of the world at the time is questionable. We shall return to
this point.


### 1.1 Aristotle's solution



First we should notice Aristotle's solution. Aristotle is in no
doubt that not everything that happens, happens of necessity. He
accepts indeed (19a23-5) that "What is, necessarily is,
when it is; and what is not, necessarily is not, when it is
not." But he goes on to say, "But not everything that is,
necessarily is; and not everything that is not, necessarily is
not." So what is his solution? Here it must be said that there
is more than one view (Aristotle, *Categories* and *De
Interpretatione*, 137-42). On one view he rejects the move
from truth to necessity. That may indeed be the right move to make,
but in what follows I shall take it that Aristotle actually offers a
different solution, which, rightly or wrongly, I shall refer to as
"the Aristotelian solution". On this view his solution is
to deny that it is necessary that the affirmation or the negation is
true or false when this relates to things that do not happen of
necessity. That is to say, his solution is that neither what the first
person said in 1900 ("There will be a sea-battle on
1/1/2100.") nor what the second person said ("There will
not be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100.") was true. What each person
said was in fact neither true nor false. So we may represent the
Aristotelian solution as one which rejects the law of bivalence:



> 
> The law of bivalence: every proposition is either true or false.
> 



It is to be rejected in particular in relation to such propositions
as, "there will be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100"; that is, in
relation to propositions about future contingents, about what is
neither necessary nor impossible. (For the view that Aristotle does
not reject the law of bivalence see Whitaker 1996.)



Though Aristotle does not explicitly say so, it seems that he would
also accept that if a sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, then what
the first person said would then be true, and if it does not, what the
second person said would then be true. So we may represent the
Aristotelian solution as holding the following:



> 
> Some propositions are true at some times and not at others.
> 



Are there any objections to this solution?



One objection is that the solution appears to require the rejection of
the law of the excluded middle in addition to the law of bivalence.
Now it is true that it involves the rejection of one form of the
law:



> 
> LEM1: in the case of any proposition, *p*, either *p* is
> true or not-*p* is true.
> 



But another form of the law is:



> 
> LEM2: in the case of any proposition, *p*, either *p* or
> not-*p*.
> 



Does it involve the rejection of this? One might think it does, on the
grounds that "*p*" is equivalent to
"*p* is true". So LEM1 and LEM2 stand or fall
together. Or one might think like this: "*p* or
*q*" can be true only if either *p* is true or
*q* is true (or both are). But, where *p* is a
proposition about a future contingent it is not true, whether the
contingent state of affairs comes about or not; neither is its
negation true; so the disjunction, "*p* or
not-*p*" is not true.



As a matter of fact, though, this is not what Aristotle seems to have
thought. He says (19a28-32):



> 
> Everything necessarily is or is not, and will be or will not be; but
> one cannot divide and say that one or the other is necessary. I mean,
> for example: it is necessary for there to be or not to be a sea-battle
> tomorrow; but it is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place
> tomorrow, nor for one not to take place.
> 



So, on the assumption that he would have accepted that "there
will or will not be a sea-battle tomorrow" is equivalent to
"there will be a sea-battle tomorrow or there will not be a
sea-battle tomorrow", he would, it seems, have accepted LEM2.
How could this be? Well, what stops its being true that there will be
a sea-battle tomorrow is that there is nothing yet to determine that
it is true. But there is something to determine that there will be or
will not be a sea-battle tomorrow; in the nature of things one or the
other must occur. So it is now true that there will be a sea-battle
tomorrow or there will not be a sea-battle tomorrow.



This suggests adopting the following rule for determining the
truth-value of complex propositions some of whose constituents are
neither true nor false. One considers in turn each of the possible
ways in which things may turn out, and works out what truth-value the
complex proposition would then have. If it turns out to be true in
every case, it is true; if it turns out to be false in every case, it
is false; otherwise it is neither true nor false (van Fraassen
1966).



Of course this is not a wholly cost free line to take. Apart from the
fact that it means that "*p*" and "*p*
is true" are not in general interchangeable, it also creates
problems for truth-functionality. We normally think of
"or", "and" and "not" as being
truth-functional. That is to say, we think that the truth-values of
"*p* or *q*", "*p* and
*q*" and "not-*p*" are determined by
the truth-values of "*p*" and
"*q*". But if we adopt the Aristotelian solution,
and accept the way outlined just now of determining the truth-value of
a complex proposition, "or", for instance, will not be
truth functional. In some case "*p* or *q*"
will be true when neither *p* nor *q* is true (when, for
instance, "*q*" is "not-*p*"),
and in some case it will not be (if, say, "*p*" is
"there will be a sea-battle tomorrow" and
"*q*" is "there will be a football match
tomorrow"). (If one thinks in terms of there being a third
truth-value, indeterminacy, say, in addition to truth and falsity, the
position will be that, when *p* and *q* are both
indeterminate, sometimes "*p* or *q*" is
true, and sometimes it is indeterminate.). Similarly "*p*
and *q*" will be false in the one case and indeterminate
in the other.



However, this objection might not seem very pressing compared with the
threat of fatalism. If accepting a lack of equivalence between
"*p*" and "*p* is true" and a
failure of truth-functionality for "or" and
"and" were the only alternative to accepting fatalism,
most people would find it easier to accept these theoretical oddities,
if oddities they are.



But there is another objection to the Aristotelian solution which
makes it harder to accept -- the way we treat bare predictions.
If someone had said in 1972, "Red Rum will win the Grand
National next year", surely, we would think, he was right. Not
right in 1973, but right in 1972. That is to say, surely what he said
was true, when he said it; not just later. Of course, we would not
have known in 1972 that what he said was true; nor, presumably did he.
Nor, of course would we have supposed that there was anything
inevitable about the victory; these things, we naturally suppose, are
a matter of chance. But, of course, this objection to the Aristotelian
solution is also an objection to the argument for fatalism which was
based on the assumption of bivalence. We are, effectively, rejecting
the idea that if what someone says at a time is true at that time,
then the state of the world at the time must determine that it is
true. What we seem to be quite prepared to accept instead is the idea
that for what is said to be true at a time it is sufficient if the
state of the world *will* sometime be such as to determine that
it is true.



There is another problem about the theory of truth which the
Aristotelian argument seems to be invoking. If the theory really is
that the truth of what is said depends on the state of the world at
the time of the saying, does not that raise a problem for statements
about the past? Suppose someone says that a dinosaur stood on this
spot millions of years ago. For this to be true, must the present
state of the world be such as to determine that it is? Some people
have indeed thought this; and they have thought that, just as some
propositions that were not true come to be true, so also some that
were true cease to be true (Lukasiewicz 1967). But this is even
further from what we are naturally inclined to say. A more attractive
alternative, if we wished to retain something like this theory of
truth, would be to say that what happened in the past counts as part
of the present state of the world, because the past, like the present,
is necessary. But it is not clear why that should be enough to make it
part of the present state of the world. Perhaps it would be better to
take the view simply that something is true at a time only if it is
necessary at that time. But then we would need some argument for this
position which went beyond the simple thought that what is said is
made true by the way the world is at the time it is said.



It is worth noticing some other solutions which are closely related to
the Aristotelian solution, but avoid some of the problems.


### 1.2 Related solutions



1. (Prior 1967). One could agree with Aristotle that "there will
be a sea-battle tomorrow" is not true, even if it turns out that
there is a sea battle; but instead of saying that it is neither true
nor false, one could say that it is false. What is more, one could say
that the negation, "there will not be a sea-battle
tomorrow" is true. Then we could retain the law of bivalence,
and the equivalence between "*p*" and
"*p* is true". Effectively we would be treating
"*p*" as equivalent to "it is necessary that
*p*". And we would, no doubt, distinguish between
"there will not be a sea-battle tomorrow", where this is
the negation of "there will be a sea-battle tomorrow" and
"there will be no sea-battle tomorrow" which, like
"there will be a sea-battle tomorrow", is false. One might
even say that "there will not be a sea-battle tomorrow" is
ambiguous; it could be equivalent to "it is not necessary that
there will be sea-battle tomorrow" or it could be equivalent to
"it is necessary that there will be no sea-battle
tomorrow". Certainly it is in favour of this view that one would
retain the law of bivalence and also the truth-functionality of
"or" and "and". But there would be a heavy
price to pay. Now we should have to say what the person said about Red
Rum was false.



2. (Lucas 1986) One could make use of Reichenbach's distinction
between the time of the utterance of a proposition, the time of the
reference point and the time of the event (Reichenbach 1947). One
could then say that the truth of what is said depends not on the state
of the world at the time of the utterance, but on the state of the
world at the time of the reference point. One may then say that the
reference point of the utterance in 1972 of "Red Rum will win
the Grand National next year" is 1973, not 1972. So, it was
true. (Whereas, if someone had said "Red Rum is going to win the
Grand National next year", the use of "is going to"
rather than "will" might perhaps have meant that the
reference point was the time of the utterance, rather than the time of
next year's Grand National. So what was said would not have been
true.)



3. (Tooley 1997) One could distinguish between truth at a time, which
depends on the state of the world at the time, and truth
*simpliciter*, which does not. One could then allow that the
prediction about Red Rum was true, as long as we are talking about
truth *simpliciter*. Also, where truth *simpliciter* was
at issue, we could retain the law of bivalence and the equivalence
between "*p*" and "*p* is
true".


### 1.3 Rejection of the theory of truth



But finally we should not forget that, even if we wish to retain a
correspondence theory of truth, we can reject the idea that truth
depends on the state of the world at the time of the utterance of a
proposition or even the state of the world at the time of the
reference point. We can say that it depends on the state of the world
at the time of the event spoken of; or, more generally, that it
depends on the state of the world at the times spoken of, if any
(Westphal 2006). The solution we prefer is, however, likely to be
related to the view we take about the nature of time.


### 1.4 A-theories and B-theories of time



On a B-theory of time an event's being past, present or future
is simply a relational matter; it is simply a matter of its occurring
at a time which is earlier than, or simultaneous with, or later than
some time which is taken as the reference point - the time at
which I am having this thought, say. On an A-theory, on the other
hand, that this time (or this event) is now is an absolute (if
temporary) fact about it. But, in addition, a B-theory will typically
hold that all times are equally *real*, whereas, typically, an
A-theory will hold either that only the present and the past are real
(type 1), or that only the present is real (type 2). So, on a
B-theory, there can be future facts to make propositions about the
future true; but, on an A-theory of type 1, a proposition about the
future can be made true only by present and past facts together with
timeless facts; and, on an A-theory of type 2, propositions both about
the future and about the past, can be made true only by present facts
together with timeless facts. And, evidently, on either type of
A-theory a proposition may be true at one time, but not true at
another, depending on what facts exist at the time. (For a fuller
description of the A-theory and B-theory, see the Section 5 of the
entry on
 time.)


 Suppose, then, that we hold a correspondence view of truth, and that
we espouse a version of the A-theory of time which says that there are
no future facts. In that case we will naturally be attracted by the
Aristotelian solution. If, on the other hand, we espouse a version of
the B-theory which allows that there are future facts, we will
naturally reject this solution.

### 1.5 Truth and fatalism



Aristotle's problem seemed to have arisen as a result of a
theory of truth according to which, if a statement is true at a time,
there has to be a state of the world at that time which makes it true.
However, it has been argued that, if every meaningful statement is
either true or false (once and for all), that alone implies fatalism;
the very fact that a statement is true is enough to make what it
describes unavoidable (Taylor 1983, Chapter 6). Suppose, for example,
that John shaved one morning. Then the statement, "John shaved
that morning", is true. But, it is argued, that means that John
did not have the power not to shave; because to have that power would
be to have the power to render a true statement false. But no one has
such a power; no one has ever succeeded in making a true statement
false.



Now the final claim is certainly true, on the assumption that
meaningful statements have just one truth-value. No one has ever
brought about a situation in which a statement which was true is
false; that is, a situation in which (a) there is a statement which
was true and (b) that statement is now false. However, to have the
power to render a true statement false, one does need to have the
power to bring about such a situation. It is enough that (a) there
should be a statement which is true, and that one has the power merely
to bring about a situation in which (b) that statement is (and always
was) false *instead*. So for John to have had the power to
render false the true statement, "John shaved that
morning", it is enough that he should have had the power not to
shave instead of shaving. Of course, he did not exercise that power;
but, in the absence of some other argument to the contrary, presumably
he could have done; in which case he would have made the statement,
"John shaved that morning" false instead of true. So, it
seems that there is no simple move from truth to fatalism.


## 2. Logical fatalism: Diodorus Cronus and the necessity of the past



Diodorus Cronus (late 4th - early 3rd centuries B.C.E.) had an
argument for fatalism, known as "The Master Argument". Its
conclusion was, "the possible is that which either is or will
be". We know the premisses but, unfortunately we do not know the
intermediate steps. The premisses were (1) "Everything that is
past and true is necessary", (2) "The impossible does not
follow from the possible" (Kneale and Kneale 1962, 119).



I shall not try to reconstruct the way the argument actually went, but
consider an argument to it which might have been akin, which argues
for fatalism on the basis of the necessity of the past. The argument
goes:



> 
> 
> What is true of the past is necessary.
> 
> 
> 
> Suppose that there is a sea-battle on 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> Then it was true in 1900 that there would be a sea-battle on
> 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> Then it was true of the past that there would be a sea-battle on
> 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> So it is necessary that there will be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100.
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore, if there is a sea-battle on 1/1/2100, it is necessary that
> there will be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100 (and impossible that there
> should not be).
> 
> 
> 



Is anything wrong with this argument?


### 2.1 An Aristotelian solution



We could certainly make an Aristotelian objection to the argument. We
could deny that if a sea-battle takes place on 1/1/2100, it was true
in 1900 that a sea-battle would take place.


### 2.2 An Ockhamist solution



We could also question either the first premiss or the application of
it.



Is what is true of the past necessary? Well certainly pretty well
everyone thinks that what happened in the past cannot be undone. The
past cannot now be altered. For if one were to undo the past, that
would mean that something which did happen did not happen; or, at the
very least, that it was true that something happened and then later
was not true that it happened. Most people (but not such a large
majority) also think that something else is impossible, namely
affecting what happened in the past or causing something to have
happened in the past. (This is not the same thing, of course, as
altering the past. If one caused something to have happened, one would
not thereby bring it about that something that did not happen did
happen.) But it is one thing to think that one cannot make it true
that there was a sea-battle yesterday, and quite another thing to
think that one cannot make it true yesterday that there will be a
sea-battle tomorrow.



This might be called the Ockhamist solution to the problem. What
Ockham (c1285-1347) says is:



> 
> Some propositions are about the present as regards both their wording
> and their subject matter (*secundum vocem et secundum rem*).
> Where such [propositions] are concerned, it is universally true that
> every true proposition about the present has [corresponding to it] a
> necessary one about the past... Other propositions are about the
> present as regards their wording only and are equivalently about the
> future, since their truth depends on propositions about the future.
> (Ockham, *Predestination, God's Foreknowledge and Future
> Contingents*, 46-7)
> 



In the spirit of this we may say that some propositions about the past
are really (at any rate in part) about the future. And in these cases
they are not necessary. And we may then apply this to "it was
true in 1900 that there would be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100."
This, we may say, is (in part) really about 1/1/2100.



Propositions which are in this way verbally about one time,
*t*, but are really (in part) about a later time, are often
said to express "soft facts" about *t*.
Unfortunately it is not at all clear quite how the notion of a soft
fact should be made precise. One might, for instance, say that if a
proposition about *t* logically entails a proposition about a
later time, it expresses a soft fact about *t*. But if that is
the correct account, it seems that many propositions expressing soft
facts about the past will be necessary, even when they are partly
about the future. For instance, a proposition which conjoins some
plausibly necessary proposition about the past with a law of nature to
the effect that in these circumstances something in the future will
ensue would seem to entail something about the future; but since it is
a conjunction of two plausibly necessary propositions, it seems to be
necessary itself.



However it seems there is one variety of proposition which presumably
expresses a soft fact about the past, but is very plausibly not
necessary, namely a proposition which is equivalent to a conjunction
where one of the conjuncts is plausibly wholly about the future, and
where the other conjunct does not entail it. And, if the Aristotelian
solution is wrong, our example seems to fit this bill. The
proposition, "it was true in 1900 that there would be a
sea-battle on 1/1/2100" is plausibly equivalent to "there
was such a time as 1900 and there will be a sea-battle on
1/1/2100." And this proposition will not be necessary, if it is
not necessary that there will be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100.



Notice that this does not show that the fatalist is wrong. It could
still be that the proposition that there will be a sea-battle on
1/1/2100 is necessary. But it does seem to show that *this*
argument does not show that fatalism is correct. The position seems to
be that, either the argument does not work, because the Aristotelian
solution is correct, or the argument does not work because, in the
absence of an independent reason to suppose that the proposition that
there will be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100 is necessary, we have no reason
to suppose that the proposition, "it was true in 1900 that there
would be a sea-battle on 1/1/2100" is a necessary
proposition.


## 3. Logical fatalism: Richard Taylor's argument and the conditions of power



Richard Taylor argues that certain commonly accepted presuppositions
yield a proof of fatalism (Taylor 1962). The presuppositions are:



> 
> 
> 1. Any proposition whatever is either true, or if not true, false.
> 
> 
> 
> 2. If any state of affairs is sufficient for, though logically
> unrelated to, the occurrence of some further condition at the same
> time or any other time, then the former cannot occur without the
> latter occurring also.
> 
> 
> 
> 3. If the occurrence of any condition is necessary for, though
> logically unrelated to, the occurrence of some other condition at the
> same time, or any other time, then the latter cannot occur without the
> former occurring also.
> 
> 
> 
> 4. If one condition or set of conditions is sufficient for (ensures)
> another, then the other is necessary (essential) for it, and
> conversely, if one condition or set of conditions is necessary
> (essential) for another, then that other is sufficient for (ensures)
> it.
> 
> 
> 
> 5. No agent can perform any given act if there is lacking, at the same
> time or any other time, some condition necessary for the occurrence of
> that act.
> 
> 
> 
> 6. Time is not by itself "efficacious"; that is, the mere
> passage of time does not augment or diminish the capacities of
> anything and, in particular, it does not enhance or decrease an
> agent's powers or abilities.
> 
> 
> 



He then produces an argument to show (what most of us believe) that
either it is not in my power to read a headline saying that there was
a sea-battle yesterday or it is not in my power to read a headline
saying that there was no sea-battle yesterday, at any rate if we make
some obvious assumptions about the relation between the headlines and
what took place. Letting *S* be the act of reading a headline
that there was a sea-battle, and *S*' be the act of
reading a headline that there was no sea-battle; and letting
*P* and *P*' be the propositions that there was
and was not such a battle, the argument goes:



> 
> If *P* is true, then it is not in my power to do
> *S*' (for if *P* is true, then there is, or was,
> lacking a condition essential for my doing *S*', the
> condition, namely, of there being no sea-battle yesterday).
> 
> 
> But if *P*' is true, then it is not in my power to do
> *S* (for a similar reason).
> 
> 
> 
> But either *P* is true or *P*' is true
> 
> 
> 
> So, either it is not in my power to do *S* or it is not in my
> power to do *S*'.
> 
> 
> 



The argument, he claims is sound, given the six presuppositions.



But suppose, his argument continues, we let *O* and
*O*' be the act of ordering a sea-battle and the act of
ordering no sea-battle, and *Q* and *Q*' be the
propositions that there will and will not be such a battle; and we
substitute *O* and *O*' for *S* and
*S*', and *Q* and *Q*' for *P*
and *P*', and "tomorrow" for
"yesterday" in the argument above, then (if we make some
obvious assumptions about the relation between what we order and what
happens) we have a parallel argument which goes:



> 
> If *Q* is true, then it is not in my power to do
> *O*' (for if *Q* is true, then there is, or will
> be, lacking a condition essential for my doing *O*', the
> condition, namely, of there being no sea-battle tomorrow).
> 
> 
> But if *Q*' is true, then it is not in my power to do
> *O* (for a similar reason).
> 
> 
> 
> But either *Q* is true or *Q*' is true
> 
> 
> 
> So, either it is not in my power to do *O* or it is not in my
> power to do *O*'.
> 
> 
> 



And this argument seems equally sound. And evidently it can be
generalised to yield the fatalist conclusion that it is never in our
power to do anything other than what we actually do.



Are there any objections to his argument?



Well, one might certainly object to presupposition 6, on the grounds
that it does indeed seem to be the passage of time which makes a
difference to my power to bring about or prevent a sea-battle on a
certain day. Till the day is over, I may have the power, but after the
day, I have not. However, presupposition 6 does not in fact seem to
play a significant role in the parallel arguments. So that cannot be
the whole story.


### 3.1 An Aristotelian solution



The objection that Taylor himself suggests is the Aristotelian one: we
reject presupposition 1 (and also, presupposition 6, since we embrace
the idea that a proposition may fail to be either true or false at one
time and come to be true or false later, as a result of the mere
passage of time). We would also, presumably, need to amend
presupposition 5, so that it was not the lack of a necessary condition
for an act which was problematical, but the existence of a condition
which was sufficient for the non-performance of the act.



Is that the only objection? Must we accept the Aristotelian solution
if we wish to escape the fatalistic conclusion?


### 3.2 The conditions of power



It seems that there is an alternative to the Aristotelian solution,
because Taylor's presupposition 5 seems dubious. A symptom of
this is that it seems to yield the fatalist conclusion a bit too
easily. For supposing that I do not perform act *S* (whatever
it is), then it follows immediately that there is lacking a necessary
condition for my performing *S*, namely the occurrence of
*S*. So, if presupposition 5 is right, it follows immediately
that I never have the power to perform any act which I do not actually
perform. Of course, that does not show that this conclusion is wrong;
but it enough to make one question the presupposition which entails
it. And one might suggest that not only is this presupposition false,
but that it seems true because it is easily confused with another much
more plausible proposition (equivalent to Hasker's PEP5; see
Hasker 1989, 115):



> 
> 5'. No agent can perform any given act if there is lacking, at
> the same time or any other time, some condition which is necessary for
> the occurrence of that act *and which it is not in his power to
> bring about*.
> 



And if we substitute that for Taylor's presupposition 5, the
parallel argument is no longer sound.


## 4. The necessity of the past and Aristotelian solutions



It is possible, it seems, to reply to the arguments for fatalism which
we have considered so far, without appealing to the Aristotelian
solution. We can reject the theory of truth which is crucial to
Aristotle's argument; we can reject the idea that all statements
which are about the past are necessary; we can reject Taylor's
account of the conditions of power. And we can do this without
questioning the idea that we cannot affect the past, except, at any
rate, in the rather ill-defined collection of cases to which Ockham
draws our attention. However, it is open to the fatalist to argue that
we have no good reason for making the distinction we do between
affecting the past and affecting the future. So, if we accept that we
cannot affect the past, we ought also to accept that we cannot affect
the future. Of course, this cuts both ways. We might equally come to
the conclusion, in the absence of a good reason for making the
distinction, that since we can affect the future we can also affect
the past; or, if that seems outrageous, we could affect the past if
natural laws did not prevent our doing so.



This objection by the fatalist is surely right about one thing.
*If* we cannot affect the past, it would be good to know
*why* we cannot. One possible answer would be that which an
A-theorist of time might give, namely that there is a fundamental
ontological difference between the future on the one hand and the
present and past on the other, which consists in the fact that the
present and past are real or actual, while the future is not. And it
is this fact, that the future is not real or actual, which means that
it is open, can be affected by what happens now; and it is the fact
that the present and past are real or actual which means that they
cannot be affected by what happens now (Lucas 1989a, Tooley 1997).



Such accounts, as we have noted above, seem to support the
Aristotelian solution. But they are not the only accounts. On some
accounts there is no such fundamental ontological difference between
the future and the present and past; the impossibility of affecting
the past lies not in the fact that the passage of time puts a
constraint on what can be caused, but rather in the fact that it is
the direction of causation which determines the direction of time
(Swinburne 1994, Mellor 1981 and 1998). On yet other accounts the
impossibility is simply a fundamental metaphysical fact which is not
open to further analysis or explanation.



It is, of course, possible that the fatalist challenge about the
difference between the future and the present and past cannot be
successfully met. For instance, it could be argued (a) that the only
successful answer would be one which appealed to a fundamental
ontological distinction between the future and the present and past,
but that (b) there is in fact no such distinction (Shanks 1994;
discussed in Oaklander 1998). But, as we have noted, even if this
challenge cannot be met, it does not show that the fatalist is
correct. The possibility remains that we can, in principle, affect the
past.


## 5. Theological Fatalism: Pike's argument and God's omniscience



A problem which has been much discussed by philosophers, at least
since the time of Augustine (354-430), is whether divine
omniscience is compatible with free will, and in particular with our
having the power to do other than we do.



One way of arguing for this incompatibility is due to Pike (Pike
1965).



> 
> 
> Let us suppose that being omniscient involves being infallible, and
> believing that *p* if and only if it is true that
> *p*.
> 
> 
> 
> Let us also suppose that God existed in 1900, and that omniscience is
> part of his essence.
> 
> 
> 
> Now, suppose that Jones mowed his lawn on 1/1/2000.
> 
> 
> 
> Then God believed in 1900 that Jones would mow his lawn on
> 1/1/2000.
> 
> 
> 
> Did Jones have the power to refrain from mowing his lawn?
> 
> 
> 
> No. Because that would mean either (1) that he had the power to do
> something which would have brought it about that God had a false
> belief in 1900, or (2) that he had the power to do something which
> would have brought it about that God did not believe in 1900 that
> Jones would mow his lawn on 1/1/2000, or (3) that he had the power to
> do something which would have brought it about that God did not exist
> in 1900. And each of these alternatives is impossible.
> 
> 
> 



Are there any objections to this argument?



Naturally it would be possible to object to some of the suppositions
about the existence and nature of God. I will return to them.



First we should notice that the argument depends on a certain
principle about power which is very similar to the plausible amended
version of Taylor's presupposition 5:



> 
> If it is in *S*'s power to do something which would bring
> it about that *p*, and *p* entails *q*, and
> *q* is false, then it is in *S*'s power to do
> something which would bring it about that *q* .
> 



This seems plausible. One might, though, prefer to avoid all mention
of bringing about, and to rephrase the argument in terms of
counterfactuals. So, one would say instead, "...that would
mean either (1) that he had the power so to act that God would have
had a false belief in 1900, or ..." (Fischer 1989,
8-11) However, the argument seems at least as plausible when
rephrased in this way.



Since, given Pike's assumptions about the existence and nature of
God, it would have been impossible for Jones to act in such a way
that God would have had a false belief or would not have existed, we
can confine our attention to the question of whether he had the power
so to act that God would not have believed in 1900 that he would mow
the lawn on 1/1/2000.



Plantinga (1974a, Part 1, b) claims that the argument
fails to show that Jones did not have the power to refrain from
mowing since there is a possible world in which he refrained from
mowing, and so a possible world in which he acted in such a way
that God would not have believed that he would mow. Pike
replies (Pike 1977) that the fact that there is such a
possible world is not enough to show that Jones had the power to
refrain; he cites the fact that there is a possible world in which he
jumps ten feet, but says that that does not mean that he has the power
to jump ten feet.



It seems that, if Plantinga were right, there would be a ready answer
to the claim that powerlessness to do anything other than what we
actually do follows from causal determnism; in particular to the
claim that, if Jones's mowing were causally determined by
circumstances, natural or supernatural, prior to his birth, he would
not have the power to refrain. The answer would be that there was a
possible world in which the circumstances before his birth were such
as not to prevent Jones from mowing.



However, it is beyond the scope of this entry to discuss the question
of whether the power to do anything other than what we actually do is
compatible with causal determinism. Let us, therefore, consider
whether there is any other reason for thinking that Jones might
have had the power to act in such a way that God would not have
believed that he would mow the lawn on 1/1/2000.


### 5.1 An Aristotelian solution



One might object to the conclusion that God believed in 1900 that
Jones would mow his lawn on 1/1/2000, on the grounds that propositions
about future contingents are not true. So if God is omniscient in the
way assumed, he would not hold this belief.


### 5.2 An Ockhamist solution



Ockham's answer to the problem of divine foreknowledge was to
invoke the difference between propositions which are really about the
past (those that express "hard" facts about the past) and
those which are verbally about the past but which are really in part
about the future (those that express "soft" facts about
the past). The crucial point was that, even if someone lacked the
power to do something inconsistent with a hard fact about the past,
one might have the power to do something inconsistent with a soft fact
about the past. To make such a solution work in the case of the
problem posed by Pike's argument, it would be necessary to show,
or at any rate to make it plausible, that to act in a way which was
inconsistent with God's belief that Jones would mow the lawn in
1/1/2000 was in fact open to Jones, because what he would be
bringing about would be inconsistent with a soft fact about the past,
not a hard fact. The difficulty for this strategy, though, is to give
an account of soft facts about the past, or at least a species of soft
facts about the past, which meets two conditions: (1) it makes it true
that what Jones would be bringing about would be inconsistent with a
soft fact of the right sort, and also (2) it is such that it is
plausible (at any rate in advance of any fatalist proofs to the
contrary) that in the case of soft facts of that sort it is in
principle possible at a later date to bring things about which are
inconsistent with them. (The Introduction to Fischer 1989, and many of
the articles in it are relevant to these issues.)



It is easy enough to give an account of soft facts which fails,
apparently, to meet the second condition. For instance we might say
that the following makes it a soft fact that God believes that
Jones will mow the lawn: given the nature of God, the fact that God
believes that Jones will mow the lawn entails and is entailed
by the fact that Jones will mow the ;awn. But that would not help
us to see how it would be possible to act in a way which is
inconsistent with a soft fact of this sort, if we did not already have
an answer to Pike's argument. 



It is also, as we have seen in connexion with logical fatalism, easy
enough to delineate a species of soft facts about the past
which meet the second condition. We have already met an example
of one such species: "it was true in 1900 that there would be a
sea-battle on 1/1/2100." Another example is: "it was true in 1900
that Jones would mow the lawn in 1/1/2000." These are cases where the
truth of the propositons is constituted, in part, by a fact about
the future. But it is difficult to see how the truth that God
believes that Jones will mow the lawn is constituted, in part, by the
fact that Jones mows the lawn. Another species of soft fact that would
meet the second condition is exemplified by, "the construction of
Stonehenge predated Jones's mowing of the lawn." The truth of this is
constitued by a relation the first element of which does not
necessitate the second element, and the second element of which
is a future event (the relation of temporal prioriy, of course).
But it is difficult to see how the truth that God believes that Jones
will mow the lawn is constituted by a relation which something bears
to Jones's mowing without necessitating it.



This is not to say that there could not be a solution in terns of soft
facts, but it is not at all obvious what such a solution would look
like.



Of course, the prospects of providing a solution would be satisfying
if it could be made plausible that in some cases it is in
people's powers to do things which are inconsistent with
*hard* facts about the past, not just soft facts. But to take
that approach is, in effect, to abandon the idea of an Ockhamist
solution, and to move on to the next solution.


### 5.3 Affecting the past



One possible solution is to suggest that Pike's second
alternative is possible, without any appeal to softness of facts.
According to this solution, in some cases people have the power do
things which are inconsistent with the actual facts about the past,
even though they are hard facts. That is to say, in some cases people
have the power to affect the past. In particular the suggestion is
that Jones had the power to do something which would have brought it
about that God did not believe in 1900 that he would mow the lawn
(Anglin 1990). The plausibility of such a solution will depend largely
on the strength of the arguments for the impossibility of affecting
the past.



Now some such arguments seek merely to demonstrate this impossibility
without offering any further explanation for it. And it may be
contended that most of the arguments of this sort which are at all
compelling involve appealing to the obvious impossibility that an
event might prevent its own occurrence, and to the slightly less
obvious impossibility that an event might bring about its own
occurrence. But, in reply to such arguments, it may be claimed that
these impossibilities are not sufficient to rule out the possibility
that one event might bring about an earlier event, as long as the
world is so organised as to avoid these impossible outcomes. If so, it
is not clear why God should not have so organised it. And in
particular it is not clear why God should not have so organised things
that it is possible for us to do things which affect what beliefs he
holds.



However, as we have seen, other arguments for the impossibility of
affecting the past go further, and incorporate an explanation for the
impossibility. A successful defence against theological fatalism which
appealed to the possibility of affecting the past would have to deal
with these further issues.


### 5.4 A Boethian solution



Boethius (c480-524) offered a solution to the problem which in
effect denied the supposition that God existed in 1900 or believed
anything in 1900 (Boethius, *The Consolation of Philosophy*,
Book V). God is, on this view, outside time; he is timelessly eternal.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) also offered this solution (Aquinas,
*Summa Theologica*, Article 13). The idea behind the solution
is, of course, that if God's knowledge is not temporal there is
no reason why Jones should not have the power to bring it about that
God knows that he refrains from mowing the lawn on 1/1/2000 instead of
knowing that he mows the lawn then, since possessing that power would
not require having the power to affect the past.



There may be a number of problems about whether a personal God could
be timeless, and how, if at all, he could relate to a temporal world,
but it is worth noting one particular problem. The problem is that,
although this solution does not appeal to the possibility of affecting
the past, it may be vulnerable to some of the considerations which
would tell against that possibility. For suppose that we are unable to
affect the past, and that the explanation for this inability is that,
whereas the future is not real, not actual, the past and present are
real and actual. Then it would seem that we would not be able to
affect a timeless God's beliefs because, not being future, they
would be as real as any past beliefs (Adams 1987, 1135; Zagzebski
1991, 61). Or suppose instead that the explanation for our inability
to affect the past is that, if our action brings anything about, that
in itself would constitute our action's being earlier than the
thing brought about. Then it might seem that the idea that we could
bring about a timeless belief would have to be dismissed; the very
fact that a belief was brought about would make it later than whatever
brought it about, and so not timeless. (Though there would be some
logical space, perhaps, for a view that, whereas it was true of
*temporal* events that, if they were brought about, they must
be later than what brought them about, this was not true of events in
general.)



Of course, such considerations need not be fatal to the Boethian
solution, because the view that the future is unreal, and the view
that the temporal order is determined by the causal order are both
controversial. What it does seem to mean, though, is that there is
less room than one might have supposed for the success of the solution
if it is impossible to affect the past.(Rice 2006)



It is worth noticing a further potential awkwardness for the Boethian
solution. If it is really impossible to affect the past, then, even if
the Boethian solution would mean that God could know that Jones would
mow the lawn on 1/1/2000 without compromising Jones's power to
refrain, he could not, on the basis of this knowledge, bring about
events in the world before 1/1/2000, which he would not have brought
about if Jones had refrained; for if he did, this would mean that
Jones had the power so to act that things would have been different
before 1/1/2000; that is, he would have had the power to affect the
past.


### 5.5 The nature of God's knowledge



Pike's argument rests on the supposition that God's
omniscience involves having beliefs. But this may be questioned
(Alston 1986). Instead his knowledge, in particular of our actions,
may be thought of as Russellian acquaintance knowledge; that is, as
consisting of a simple cognitive relation between the knower and what
is known (Russell 1912, Chapter 5). The idea would be that, although
in humans acquaintance knowledge gives rise to beliefs, God has just
the cognitive relation to what he knows, without any consequent
beliefs. This seems to have been the way Boethius and Aquinas thought
of it (Boethius, *The Consolation of Philosophy*, Book V, Prose
6; Aquinas, *Summa Theologica*, Article 13).



How would this view about God's knowledge affect the question of
whether divine omniscience entails fatalism?



Both Boethius and Aquinas thought of God as outside time, but this
view about God's knowledge could also be combined with the view
that he is inside time. In that case it seems that it would be be
possible to adopt an Ockhamist account of how his knowledge in 1900
might be dependent on what Jones does on 1/1/2000. Certainly it looks
as if "God was aware in 1900 of Jones's mowing the lawn on
1/1/2000" is partly about 1/1/2000. And "was aware of" like
"predated" expresses a relation the first element of which does not
necessitate the second. We should notice, however, that the same
awkwardness could arise in connection with God's *use* of
his knowledge as arose for the Boethian solution. *If* it is
impossible to affect the past, then God could not make use of his
knowledge that Jones would mow the lawn on 1/1/2000 to bring something
about before that date, if Jones had the power to refrain from
mowing.



There is no reason, of course, why this account of the nature of
God's knowledge should not be combined with the view that the
future is unreal. In that case God would not come to know of
Jones's mowing of the lawn before 1/1/2000, because there would
as yet be no fact for him to be aware of. But this would not
compromise his omniscience, since, presumably, on this account of
knowledge, omniscience would be a matter of knowing all the facts.



For that matter, the account could also be combined with both the view
that God is outside time and the view that the future is unreal
-- as long as these two views themselves are indeed compatible.
In that case it would not be true before 1/1/2000 that God timelessly
knows the Jones mows the lawn, but would be true on 1/1/2000 and
thereafter. Of course, a timeless being cannot change, but this would
not involve a change in God, but merely a change in what he is related
to. (The number 10 does not change when I refer to it.)


### 5.6 Must God be omniscient?



Of course the threat of fatalism, when it arises from God's
existence, could be averted by denying that God exists. But it could
also be averted by denying that God needs to be thought of as
omniscient -- at any rate if omniscience involves infallible
knowledge of all facts. It could be argued that God's perfection
does not require the infallible knowledge of all facts, but at most
such knowledge of all facts that could possibly be known infallibly.
So, if it is logically impossible for someone to have infallible
knowledge that Jones will mow the lawn and for Jones to have the power
to refrain, it is no imperfection in God if he lacks such knowledge
(Swinburne 1977, 172-8). It could also be argued that there is
no need to attribute infallible knowledge to God at all (Lucas 1986
and 1989b).


## 6. Theological Fatalism: Molina, Plantinga and middle knowledge



Some philosophers, notably Luis de Molina (1535-1600) and Alvin
Plantinga, have held that God knows not only what actual people will
freely do in the future, but what each possible free creature would
have freely done in each set of possible circumstances, if fully
specific; and that he had this knowledge at the creation. (An action
is free in the required sense if not causally determined and not
predetermined by God.) Propositions about what a creature would do in
a set of circumstances (possible as well as actual) are commonly
called "counterfactuals of freedom", and God's
knowledge of them is called "middle knowledge" (Molina,
*On Divine Foreknowledge (Part IV of the Concordia)*; Plantinga
1974, IX).



If God's knowledge of actual future actions would constitute a
fatalistic threat, his middle knowledge could not be less threatening,
since, given middle knowledge, he would have knowledge of actual
actions on the basis of his knowledge of the circumstances. In fact it
seems that it is more threatening.



Of course, one way of avoiding the threat would be to deny that there
are in general any facts about what people would have freely done in
circumstances that have not actually arisen; there may be facts about
what they might have done, or what they would very probably have done;
but not what they *would* have done (Adams 1977; Hasker 1989,
20-9). Indeed this seems to be quite plausible if we really
think of people's actions as undetermined. It may help us to see
this if we consider the tossing of a coin. Let us suppose that a coin
is tossed on some occasion, and it comes down heads; and suppose we
then ask if it would have come down heads again if we had tossed it
again in exactly the same circumstances. It seems plausible, if we
think that how it landed was undetermined, that the right answer is
that it might have come down heads and it might have come down tails,
but that it is not the case that it would have come down heads, nor
the case that it would have come down tails.



So one solution to the fatalistic threat posed by middle knowledge is
akin to the Aristotelian solution. Since there are no facts of the
relevant sort, God cannot have knowledge of them. But, because there
are no such facts, God's lack of knowledge of how free creatures
would freely act is no bar to his omniscience.



Are there any other solutions?



It is difficult to see how there could be. In the case of actual
actions, the solutions depended on suggesting ways in which it might
have been possible for Jones to do something which would bring it
about that some fact about God was different; that is to say that they
depended on showing how some fact about God might be dependent on what
Jones did. Now in the case of middle knowledge we know how such a
dependence would have to operate; it would have to operate by way of
God's knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom. So, could the
truth of counterfactuals of freedom related to Jones be dependent on
Jones's actions? It seems that they could not be, because the
facts that make them true were available to God at the creation,
before he had decided to create anything, let alone Jones. So the
facts, like God's decision, must have been ontologically prior,
it seems, to any act of Jones's. So it seems that it could not
be in Jones's power so to act that any actually true
counterfactual of freedom relating to him would not have been true
(Hasker 1989, 39-52; see Hasker et al. 2000 for a collection of
writings on middle knowledge).


## 7. The Idle Argument



Aristotle mentions, as a corollary of the conclusion that everything
that happens, happens of necessity, that "there would be no need
to deliberate or to take trouble (thinking that if we do this, this
will happen, but if we do not, it will not)." (Aristotle, *De
Interpretatione*, 18b31-3)



This thought was spelt out in what was known as "the Idle
Argument" (Bobzien 1998, Section 5). It went like this:



> 
> 
> If it is fated that you will recover from this illness, then,
> regardless of whether you consult a doctor or you do not consult a
> doctor you will recover.
> 
> 
> 
> But also, if it is fated that you will not recover from this illness,
> then, regardless of whether you consult a doctor or you do not consult
> a doctor you will not recover.
> 
> 
> 
> But either it is fated that you will recover from this illness or it
> is fated that you will not recover.
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore it is futile to consult a doctor.
> 
> 
> 



The thought, presumably, is that it is futile, because what you do
will have no effect. If so, the reply given by Chrysippus
(c280-c206 B.C.E.) to this argument seems exactly right (Bobzien
1998, 5.2). The conclusion does not follow, because it may have been
fated that you will recover as a result of seeing the doctor. The
corresponding reply would be equally apt if we substituted
"necessary" for "fated".



Some versions of the argument omit "it is fated that"
(Bobzien 1998, 189). It goes without saying that the corresponding
version of Chrysippus's reply would deal with those versions of
the argument.



This is not to say that fatalism does not pose any problem at all for
the rationality of deliberation. It is just to say that the Idle
Argument does not show that it poses a problem.



The idle argument as originally presented was designed to show, not
that fatalism was correct or incorrect, but that it would have a
certain consequence. However, a generalised form of the version that
omitted "it is fated that" would, if sound, seem to
threaten to establish something akin to fatalism: not, indeed, that we
are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do, but that
acting is futile. Although it seems that Chrysippus's reply
would show that such an argument would not in fact be sound, it is not
at all clear where exactly it would go wrong. A detailed discussion of
this question can be found in Bledin 2020.


## 8. Conclusion



There are a number of arguments for fatalism, and it seems that one
way of countering all of them would be to adopt the Aristotelian
solution, or something akin to it. It would be neat if it could be
made out that this was the only solution, so that the fate of fatalism
was inextricably linked to the fate of the Aristotelian solution. But
it does not seem that this is so, except possibly, on the assumption
that an omniscient God exists, in relation to middle knowledge. But
even then, the solution is only a poor relation to the Aristotelian
solution.



So it is possible that both fatalism and the Aristotelian solution are
wrong. And it is, of course, always possible, for all that has been
said, that fatalism is correct.