The Nature of Contingency

A contingent--or merely actual though not necessary--truth was conceived by Leibniz as being any truth whose contrary contains no contradiction in terms, but which is still true. That I am at my computer right now is true and actual, but its contrary (that I may not have been here) is not a contradiction; thus it is called a contingent truth that I am at the computer right now. It is true that I am at the computer--every bit as true as the idea that all squares have four sides--but while a five-sided square involves a contradiction and could never attain, that I am at the computer right now is in no way impossible to have been false.

I do not believe this is a very good definition of what a contingent truth is. Spinoza's ideas present it with a serious difficulty. For though I am at the computer right now and I am aware of no logical impossibility of the contrary, this does not mean there is no such impossibility that is simply beyond my ken. For me to have not been here it would require an alteration in various other truths; perhaps if I were reading right now this would have required me to not contemplate a few minutes ago the ideas now consuming me. For these ideas to have never occurred to me it would require that I had not gone for a walk prior to sitting here, etc., etc., etc. Many things would have to have happened otherwise than they did for it to not have been true that I should have ended up at the computer this moment.

Spinoza's belief was that were I able to contemplate every one of these events that would be required for me to have not ended up writing right now, I would ultimately be led to a contradiction every bit as absurd as a five-sided square. He held that for me to have been reading right now instead of writing it would require some alteration in various events, alterations to allow for these alterations, and so on; till in some place, totally beyond my awareness, it would require a contradiction for me to have not been writing right now.

I would hold that such a view as Spinoza's is not shown indubitably to be the case; yet still it is an epistemic possibility, and could in fact be true though I am not aware of it or its proof. I have, while no certain proof that Spinoza is right, no proof of the contrary of Spinoza's scheme either. Obviously it is in fact the case that the chain of causality that led me to be writing at present gets beyond my ken at some point very near to me; and that it goes on requiring alterations in contingent truths far beyond what I can contemplate. Whether it would require a contradiction, finally, I cannot say one way or the other.

We might put the argument another way. Suppose that there are laws for matter--atoms and energy and other physical phenomena. The laws of matter and their nature are at a certain point set, then everything that follows could not be otherwise without a violation in those laws. But suppose now we are at the point when those laws are set and established, everything thenceforth unavoidably following from those laws once they become what they will. Now suppose that there is a logical determination in the setting and establishment of those laws; the laws of physics become what they are and will forever be because for them to be formed otherwise would require a contradiction. The laws of physics are set with what nature they have due to a logical necessity at their origin, and for them to be altered thenceforth is as impossible--impossible physically this time--as it is for me to float up to my ceiling right now.

Now, in such a world, would any actual truth not be necessary? It is a truth that if I jump off a fourth-story balcony I will fall. This is due to the laws of gravitation; it is impossible for those laws to be what they are and have me not in fact fall. But suppose that the laws of gravitation have the nature they have because at the foundation of things they could not be otherwise without a contradiction. Suppose--simply for sake of argument--that gravitation came to be from the start because of logical necessity. And I fall when jumping off a balcony because of that law of gravity. Can we still hold that I might not have fallen without there being a logical contradiction? Would it not, in the final analysis, require a contradiction for me not to have fallen? Is it, then, not a necessary truth that I fall if I jump off the balcony? I could not do otherwise, after all, without a violation of the laws of gravity; and if the laws of gravity are what they are due to logical necessity, it would require a contradiction and logical impossibility for me not to fall. This is what Spinoza would mean by all truths that follow from physical necessity being, ultimately, logically necessary as well as physically.

I would hold that in this dispute--which is really a dispute between Leibniz and Spinoza--there is no way for us to determine the victor, at least for our purposes here. Leibniz seems correct when he holds that there is a different sort of falsity in the idea that I should not be at the computer right now, and the falsity involved in a five-sided square. And yet Spinoza would be correct to assume that for me not to have been here, it would require alterations in innumerable truths that very quickly get beyond my sight and ability of assessment. I do not know all of the things that would have had to be altered for me not to be here right now, and I cannot claim to know that, in the end, it would not in fact require a contradiction for me not to have been here. But this dispute aside, I would suggest that there is still a coherent distinction between contingency and necessity--even assuming Spinoza is right in this controversy. In fact, I believe the following is what is the true meaning of what is a contingent--actual but not necessary--truth.

A contingent truth is not one that is true but could have been otherwise; we have shown that we cannot be certain on this point about any given truth. I would say that if necessity means anything, it means there is no time, no place, no mode of being where it is false. That two plus two equals four is a necessary truth; and it has always been true, is true in every nation of the earth, and will forever be true, no matter what. That "Ratcliff is at the computer" is obviously not a necessary truth with this definition; many days of the week it is not true, and it will not forever be true, etc. A necessary truth is a truth that could not be otherwise, in the sense that at no time and in no place is it in fact otherwise. A contingent truth, on the other hand, is not contingent due to the fact that it could have been otherwise; it is contingent due to its temporary nature. It is a truth that is not an eternal truth, there being many times when it is not true, and there being no assurance in reason that it will always be true.

Whether my being at the computer right now resulted from a chain-reaction, which has its origin in, and ultimately rests on, logical necessity, I do not claim to know. But the fact remains that "Ratcliff is at the computer" could be false, in the sense that there are many times when it is in fact false.

Thus, merely contingent truths--whether we believe they could have been otherwise or not--are what you would call "temporary truths". They could be otherwise in the sense that at certain times, days of the week, and so on, they are in fact otherwise. A necessary truth is a truth that could not be otherwise in the sense that it never is, nor can ever be at any time, otherwise.

But we do not distinguish between necessity and contingency based on observations of whether at some times they are true and other times are not. Rather, we are assured by the nature of the proposition that two plus two will always be four, as much as we can be certain that "Ratcliff is at the computer" could never attain the same status as an eternal truth; we know this merely by reason's perceiving it. It may in fact have been impossible, in some determinist's theory, for me not to have been at the computer right now, even logically impossible; but such a truth is still contingent in the sense that it is merely temporarily true and could never be eternal truth.

These considerations below were briefly touched on by me in my essay, "That the Cognitive is Prior to the Material". I felt that what I spelled out there about necessary truths being eternal and never being otherwise needed a little more articulation, which I am doing presently. And to go back to the argumentation found there, I would refer my reader to find the proof there that, "If possibly P, then necessarily possibly P," is true, P being any proposition at all. If we grant this, then we must grant that everything actual, everything that ever came to be, is possible by necessity. And under the definition of necessary possibility found in the present essay, we must hold that everything actual (and therefore possible) is eternally possible, since it is necessarily possible. What is necessarily possible must be necessarily possible eternally; we have said that necessary truths can never be temporary truths, but must exist as eternally as the truths of arithmetic. Thus, if Mozart's 41st ("Jupiter") symphony was ever actual (which it obviously was), it has forever been, and will eternally be, possible (since possibility is always necessary possibility). And so we must assign the Jupiter symphony an ontology as a possible entity, which existed as necessary possibility even at the time of the dinosaurs.

Such an idea seems far-fetched, but this is what necessity is--it is eternal truth; and possibility is always necessary possibility. So we must hold that everything actual is possible, everything possible being necessarily possible; and thus everything actual was and is eternally possible, as eternal as the truths of arithmetic. Thus, at the time of the dinosaurs the Jupiter symphony existed as a possible entity (in what I would call a cognitive ontology, similar to the ontology of numbers and arithmetic), since it obviously did become actual. For any truth to be actual requires it to be possible, and everything possible is necessarily possible. Thus--according to the conventional definition of necessity as eternal truth--all the cosmos, and everything that ever was or will be actual, was always, and will eternally be, possible. Contingent truths are true just temporarily (whether they could have been otherwise or not), and necessary truths are eternal truths; and all possible truths--whether contingent or necessary--are necessarily possible, and thus eternally possible. Everything that ever was actual in the cosmos is eternally possible, and there was never a time when it was not existing as a possible entity, in an ontology best thought of as cognitive in nature.

Angelhaunt.net: Because earth's madness is heaven's sense.