tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post599973982906802330..comments2024-03-18T20:24:18.935-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: "I am obliged to A at t"Alexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-36335672901702727362011-03-15T23:08:23.930-05:002011-03-15T23:08:23.930-05:00Neat paper, Patrick, which I've just skimmed, ...Neat paper, Patrick, which I've just skimmed, so I may have missed something relevant to what I will say.<br /><br />Here's a worry. The following sounds fine: "At t0, it was going to happen that at t2 I would break a leg, but you prevented it by your timely action at t1."<br /><br />But the following sounds bad: "At t0, it was true that at t2 I would break a leg, but you prevented it by your timely action at t1." <br /><br />In other words, "it is going to happen that" and "it will be the case that" are not exactly interchangeable in these cases. The former, I think, expresses a disposition. <br /><br /><br />I also think that "it was going to happen that" has a contextual dependence which "it was the case that it would be that" lacks. Take the case of a chancy preventer, whose probability of preventing is p. If p is very big, we don't want to say "it was going to happen that". If p is very small, we do want to say "it was going to happen that". Where the boundary between us being willing to say it and us being unwilling to say it is going to be drawn will depend on the context. But I don't think we make a similar distinction on the "will" side.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-28866494635895235902011-03-15T22:32:11.082-05:002011-03-15T22:32:11.082-05:00Hey Alex,
Re: your Note 1 -- yes, but see my pape...Hey Alex,<br /><br />Re: your Note 1 -- yes, but see my paper in the newest OSPR (Vol III), "Geachianism." :)<br /><br />Patrickpatrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14550833360405941792noreply@blogger.com