invitation to a philosophy talk

The CEU Philosophy Department cordially invites you to a talk by Patrick Greenough (University of St. Andrews, Scotland) on 'The Open Future' Tuesday, 28 November, 5.00pm, Zrinyi 14, Room 412 ABSTRACT The goal in this talk is to delineate two closely related models of the open future. The first of these is a truthmaker gap model, the second is a truthmaking gap model. These models share the following features: (1) They are both branching-time models of the open future. (2) However, they pose no threat to classical logic or classical semantics and they thus stand in contrast to the many and various enduringly popular truth-value gap conceptions of the open future. (3) They both deploy conceptions of indeterminacy which are able to capture the hitherto elusive (non-epistemic) distinction between truth and determinate truth. (4) As a result, they stand in opposition to what may be termed the orthodox conception of (worldly) indeterminacy. (5) They allow that determinate truth and indeterminate truth (for token utterances) are both absolute. (6) Despite the fact that time branches, the (indexical) singular term ‘The future’ refers to one and only one of these future histories-though at the time of utterance it is not determined which one. (7) In consequence, the conceptions on offer do not threaten eternalism since the past, the present, and the future all exist (though they are not all equally real). (8) Moreover, unlike all other extant branching conceptions of time, both models yield a perfectly natural specification of the truth-conditions of a future-tensed sentence in terms of what happens in the future with respect to the utterance of the sentence in question. (9) Though both models are developed within a static conception of time (under which time has a B-ordering) they are also compatible (when suitably adjusted) with a dynamical conception (under which time has an A-ordering). (10) Finally, they are available to both deflationary and inflationary conceptions of truth, truthmakers, and truthmaking. Recommended Reading: McFarlane, John 2003. 'Future Contingents and Relative Truth', The Philosophical Quarterly 53:321-36.