Table Of ContentSynthese Library 452
Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology,
and Philosophy of Science
Alessio Santelli Editor
Ockhamism
and Philosophy
of Time
Semantic and Metaphysical Issues
Concerning Future Contingents
Synthese Library
Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology, and
Philosophy of Science
Volume 452
Editor-in-Chief
OtávioBueno,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofMiami,CoralGables,USA
EditorialBoardMembers
BeritBrogaard,UniversityofMiami,CoralGables,USA
AnjanChakravartty,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofMiami,CoralGables,
USA
StevenFrench,UniversityofLeeds,Leeds,UK
CatarinaDutilhNovaes,VUAmsterdam,Amsterdam,TheNetherlands
DarrellP.Rowbottom,DepartmentofPhilosophy,LingnanUniversity,TuenMun,
HongKong
EmmaRuttkamp,DepartmentofPhilosophy,UniversityofSouthAfrica,Pretoria,
SouthAfrica
KristieMiller,DepartmentofPhilosophy,Centrefortime,UniversityofSydney,
Sydney,Australia
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Alessio Santelli
Editor
Ockhamism and Philosophy
of Time
Semantic and Metaphysical Issues
Concerning Future Contingents
Editor
AlessioSantelli
UniversityofL’Aquila
L’Aquila,Italy
ISSN0166-6991 ISSN2542-8292 (electronic)
SyntheseLibrary
ISBN978-3-030-90358-9 ISBN978-3-030-90359-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90359-6
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Preface
The present volume aims to critically assess Ockhamism, a theory according to
whichfuturecontingentsaretrueorfalse,withoutbeingneitherdeterminatelytrue
nordeterminatelyfalse.OckhamismsounderstoodisopposedtoAristotelianism–
atheorythatgoesbackatleasttoAristotle–accordingtowhich,inordertosecure
the contingencyof the future,future contingentsmust be deemed neither true nor
false.Overthepastfewyears,Ockhamismhasreceivedsignificantattentionamong
scholars. This has generated an intensive debate whose primary interest was to
exploreOckhamism’ssemanticandmetaphysicalimplications.Thisvolumeintends
to introduce the reader to such a debate, and also to investigate several important
issuesthatarestillinneedoffurtherarticulationandclarification.
Almost all the chapters it contains were presented at “Ockhamism and Philos-
ophy of Time,” an international workshop funded by the project “Dipartimento
di Eccellenza 2018/2022 – Arti, Linguaggi e Media: tradurre e transcodificare,”
and held in the Department of Human Studies at the University of L’Aquila in
September2018.Myhopeis thattheywillcontributeto pushforwardand further
clarifythecomplexandlivelydebateaboutOckhamism,especiallyinrelationtothe
semanticandmetaphysicalissuesconcerningoneofthecentraltopicsofphilosophy,
namely that of future contingency. For this, I would like to thank the authors for
their insightful and invaluable papers, the reviewers for their precious work, and
the editors of Springer for their patience. Many thanks to Simone Gozzano for
supporting this project from the beginning, and to Giorgio Mazzullo who read
a previous version of my article and contributed to amending many mistakes.
A special thank you goes to Andrea Iacona for his generous advice and helpful
conversationsduringthislastyearofwork.Lastbutnotleast,Iwouldliketothank
GiorgioLandowhohelpedmetoorganizetheworkshop.Hisprecioussuggestions,
withoutadoubt,sparedmealotofunnecessarywork.
L’Aquila,Italy AlessioSantelli
v
Contents
1 FromWilliamofOckhamtoContemporaryOckhamism
andBackAgain:AnOverview ............................................. 1
AlessioSantelli
2 OckhamonTime............................................................. 11
CeciliaTrifogli
3 OckhamisticInspirationinModernTense-Logic ........................ 33
PeterØhrstrømandDavidJakobsen
4 OckhamismWithoutMolinism............................................. 55
JacekWawer
5 FutureContingentsinaBranchingUniverse............................. 73
MitchellS.Green
6 ATooThinTrueFuture:TheProblemofGroundingWithin
PresentistTRLSemantics................................................... 93
CiroDe FlorioandAldoFrigerio
7 Presentism,Ockhamism,andTruth-Grounding ......................... 117
FabriceCorreiaandSvenRosenkranz
8 TheMetaphysicsofOckhamism ........................................... 131
AndreaIacona
9 TheMetaphysicsofPassageinDynamicalReductionModels
ofQuantumMechanics...................................................... 147
CristianMarianiandGiulianoTorrengo
vii
About the Editor
Alessio Santelli Completed his PhD at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice. He
carriedoutresearchactivitiesatLOGOS,UniversityofBarcelona(UB),andatthe
UniversityofL’Aquila.Hismaininterestsareinsemantics,temporallogic,andin
philosophyoftime,withaparticularfocusontheproblemoffuturecontingents.
ix
Chapter 1
From Williamof Ockham toContemporary
Ockhamismand Back Again: An Overview
AlessioSantelli
Abstract Ockhamism’smaintenetisthatfuturecontingentsareeithertrueorfalse,
eveniftheyareneitherdeterminatelytruenordeterminatelyfalse.Itisinspiredby
someideasofWilliamofOckham,andinparticularbyhissolutiontotheproblemof
futurecontingents.Inthemodernbranchingtimesetting,Ockhamismisfrequently
associatedwiththeso-calledThinRedLine,aviewaccordingtowhichamongthe
many possible futures only one is the actual future – namely, the one that will
be realized. Despite its apparent simplicity, however, there is still no unanimous
consent between scholars on just how to make sense of Ockhamism. This paper
illustratessomefundamentalfeaturesofOckhamismanddescribesitssemanticand
metaphysicalimplicationswithinthedebateonfuturecontingents.
AccordingtoalineofthoughtthatgoesbacktoArthurPrior(1967)–who,inturn,
developed a suggestion received from Saul Kripke in a letter dated September 3,
1958(seePloug&Øhrstrøm,2011)–thebestwaytomakesenseofindeterminism
consistsinrepresentingtemporalrealityashavingatree-likestructureinwhichthe
“trunk”representsthepast,understoodasunchangeableorfixed,whilethemultiple
“branches” are meant to account for the alternative ways in which the universe
may evolve from a given moment (i.e., the present). The universe, following this
metaphor, will be indeterministic if there exists more than one branch in the tree
ofpossibilities. Notsurprisingly,thisway ofmodelingindeterminismhasbecome
knownas“branchingtime”–wherethecoreconjectureisthatindeterminismentails
branching.
The tree model, among other things, has been extensively adopted in order to
captureourpre-theoreticthoughtthatthefuture,unlikethepast,isopen.Theleading
ideawasthatthefutureisgenuinely–i.e.,objectivetelyorontologically,asopposed
to epistemically–openif therearebranchesonwhich,say,tomorrowa sea-battle
willoccurandothersonwhichitwon’t–andnobranchcanbeprivilegedoverthe
A.Santelli((cid:2))
UniversityofL’Aquila,L’Aquila,Italy
e-mail:[email protected]
©SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2022 1
A.Santelli(ed.),OckhamismandPhilosophyofTime,SyntheseLibrary452,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90359-6_1
2 A.Santelli
others.Whatthisusuallymeansisthatifweweretopositsuchaprivilegedbranch,
then time would be linear, and hence the future would be as closed as the past.
Assomeadvocatesofbranchinginfactarefondofputtingit,“branchingrulesout
actuality”,thatis, the possibility of pickingoutoneparticularfutureas theactual
future, namely the one containing the course of events that will be realized. The
futureinquestioniswhatBelnapandGreen(1994)hascalledtheThinRedLine.
Even though the tree model has triggered valuable research both in logic and
philosophy,over the past few years some scholars began questioning its apparent
attractiveness.Inparticular,AndreaIaconaandFabriceCorreia–amongthemany
whotookpartintheLanguageandTemporalityworkshopheldinL’Aquila(Italy),
inSeptember2009–felttheneedtoreassesstheroleofthetreemodelinorderto
dealwithsomeimportantissues,bothsemanticandmetaphysical,thatsuchamodel,
ontheirview,hasleftunsettled.Thatneed,moresharedthanexpected,later grew
intoavolumeentitledAroundtheTree(2013),alsoeditedbySpringer,inwhichthe
authorsgatheredprominentcontributionsfromdifferentphilosophicalbackgrounds
aimed mainly at provoking a substantive discussion about the tree model and its
possible alternatives, as well as at providing additional insights on central topics
oftenconnectedwithit.
Inthisrespect,thepresentvolumeintendstofurtherdevelopIaconaandCorreia’s
project. Indeed, its main purpose is to introduce and critically assess Ockhamism,
namelythetheorythatinAroundtheTreehasrepeatedlyemergedasoneofthemain
alternativestotheview,alreadymentioned,thatpositingaThinRedLineforcesus
togiveupobjectiveindeterminism.Tothisend,italso bringstogetherestablished
scholarsinthefieldsofmetaphysicsoftime,semanticsandtemporallogic,history
ofmedievalphilosophy,andphilosophyofphysics,alllinkedbythecommongoal
ofclarifyingthenatureoftheOckhamism,itshistoricalroots,andtheroleitplays
inthecurrentdebateonfuturecontingents.1
The problemof future contingents,as is well known,is the problemof how to
assignadefinitetruthvaluetosentencesregardingeventswhoseoccurrenceisnot
inevitable. Traditionally, its first formulation dates back to Aristotle who, in the
famous De Interpretatione IX, seems to claim that bivalence entails fatalism, the
metaphysical doctrine according to which everything that happens, happens with
necessity(where“necessity”herestandsfor“historicalnecessity”,thatis,necessity
with respect to our past and present). Aristotle’s conviction is that, since fatalism
hastheunacceptableconsequenceofdenyinghumanfreedom,itmustbeconcluded
that the only way to secure the contingencyof the future consists in rejecting the
1Itisimportanttounderstandthatitisbeyondthescopeofboththepresentworkandthevolume
toexploreindetailissuessuchasthenatureof(in)determinism,fatalismortheopennessofthe
future,andhowthesenotionsareconnectedwithoneanother.Althoughtheyareallrelevantissues,
IbelievethattheyarerelatedtocontemporaryOckhamismonlygenerically,andalsothataproper
discussionoftheirconnectionwouldverylikelyrequireustowriteanothervolume.
