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This distinction begins to reveal the ordinary English meaning of the word "contingency," in which the truth of one thing depends on the truth of another. On the one hand, the mathematical idea that a sum of two and two is four is always possible and always true, which makes it necessary and therefore not contingent. This mathematical truth ...
Therefore, the objection goes, the step in the argument that assumes that the collection of contingent things is also contingent, is wrong. [14] However, Avicenna dismisses this counter-argument as a capitulation, and not an objection at all. If the entire collection of contingent things is not contingent, then it must be necessary.
Contingency or Contingent may refer to: Contingency (philosophy), in philosophy and logic; Contingency plan, in planning; Contingency (electrical grid), in electrical grid engineering; Contingency table, in statistics; Contingency theory, in organizational theory; Contingency (evolutionary biology) Contingency management, in medicine ...
Treating logical truths, analytic truths, and necessary truths as equivalent, logical truths can be contrasted with facts (which can also be called contingent claims or synthetic claims). Contingent truths are true in this world, but could have turned out otherwise (in other words, they are false in at least one possible world).
Future contingent propositions (or simply, future contingents) are statements about states of affairs in the future that are contingent: neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. The problem of future contingents seems to have been first discussed by Aristotle in chapter 9 of his On Interpretation ( De Interpretatione ), using the famous ...
The metaphysical distinction between necessary and contingent truths has also been related to a priori and a posteriori knowledge. A proposition that is necessarily true is one in which its negation is self-contradictory; it is true in every possible world. For example, considering the proposition "all bachelors are unmarried:" its negation (i ...
But imperfection is merely limitation; if existence is good, as Leibniz maintains, then the mere existence of evil requires that evil also be good. In addition, libertarian Christian theology (not related to political libertarianism) defines sin as not necessary but contingent, the result of free will. Russell maintains that Leibniz failed to ...
A conditional sentence is a sentence in a natural language that expresses that one thing is contingent on another, e.g., "If it rains, the picnic will be cancelled." They are so called because the impact of the sentence’s main clause is conditional on a subordinate clause.