Logical determinism is the view that a proposition about the future is either necessarily true, or its negation is necessarily true. The argument for this is as follows. By

excluded middle In logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) states that for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true. It is one of the so-called three laws of thought, along with the law of noncontrad ...

, the future tense proposition (‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’) is either true now, or its negation is true. But what makes it (or its negation) true is the present existence of a state of affairs – a

truthmaker Truthmaker theory is "the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists". The basic intuition behind truthmaker theory is that truth depends on being. For example, a perceptual experience of a green tre ...

. If so, then the future is determined in the sense that the way things are now – namely the state of affairs that makes ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’ or its negation true – determines the way that things will be. Furthermore, if the past is necessary, in the sense that a state of affairs that existed yesterday cannot be altered, then the state of affairs that made the proposition ‘There will be a sea-battle tomorrow’ true cannot be changed, and so the proposition or its negation is necessarily true, and it is either necessarily the case that there will be a sea-battle tomorrow, or necessarily ''not'' the case. The term ‘logical determinism’ (''Logischer Determinismus'') was introduced by

Moritz Schlick Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick (; ; 14 April 1882 – 22 June 1936) was a German philosopher, physicist, and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle. Early life and works Schlick was born in Berlin to a wealthy Prussian f ...

. Logical determinism seems to present a problem for the conception of

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to acti ...

which requires that different courses of action are possible, for the sea-battle argument suggests that only one course is possible, because necessary. In trying to resolve the problem, the 13th century philosopher

Duns Scotus John Duns Scotus ( – 8 November 1308), commonly called Duns Scotus ( ; ; "Duns the Scot"), was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher, and theologian. He is one of the four most important ...

argued in an early work that a future proposition can be understood in two ways: either as signifying something in reality that makes something be true in the future, or simply as signifying that something will be the case. The second sense is weaker in that it does not commit us to any ''present'' state of affairs that makes the future proposition true, only a ''future'' state of affairs.Buckner and Zupko, p. 318

References

*Schlick, M. ‘Die Kausalität in der gegenwärtigen Physik’, ''Naturwissenschaften'' 19 (1931),145-162; Eng. tr. (by P. Heath, 1979), in ''Philosophical Papers'' (Volume II). H. L. Mulder and B. F. van de Velde-Schlick (eds.), Dordrecht: D. Reidel. 176-209 * Woleński, J. 'An Analysis of Logical Determinism', 1996.

Notes

{{reflist Free will Logic

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References

Notes