Asseverative ciscourse and contingency in Aristotle: The sea battle tomorrow in De Interpretatione 9

Author(s)

Paulo Fernando Tadeu Ferreira

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2009-03-11

Examining board members

Marco Antonio de Avila Zingano; Luiz Carlos Pinheiro Dias Pereira; Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos

• Advisor: Marco Antonio de Avila Zingano

Abstract

Aristotles refusal of causal determinism in Metaphysics E3/K8 by means of the thesis that not every event is necessitated entails (given the conception put forward in Categories 5 that a proposition is either true or false according to its either corresponding or not corresponding at a given time to a state of affairs at that same given time) his refusal of logical determinism in De Interpretatione 9 by means of the thesis that propositions about future contingent events are neither true nor false ex ante facto but become either true or false afterwards. Aristotles commitment to non-necessitated events stems, it is argued, from his commitment to the notion of deliberation. This work includes a translation, with commentary, of De Interpretatione 9. (AU)