Aristotle, On Interpretation - Necessity, Contingency, and Future Propositions - Sadler's Lectures
From Sadler's Lectures by Lectures on classic and contemporary philosophical texts and thinkers by Gregory B. Sadler
May 6, 2026 · 14 min
About this episode
This lecture explores Aristotle's work On Interpretation, focusing on modalities and the truth values of future propositions.
This lecture discusses the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle' work, On Interpretation, focusing on his discussion of what have come to be called "modalities" such as necessity, contingency, possibility, and impossibility, with the truth values of future seemingly contingent propositions in mind, for example that a sea-battle will or will not take place tomorrow. One possible approach is to say that since propositions must be either true or false, future propositions already are true or false of necessity and that we simply don't know their truth or falsity. Another is to say that it is necessary for them to be either true or false, but that neither of these truth values are necessary to contingent propositions referring to future events that have not yet happened. To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO You can find over 4,000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler Purchase Aristotle's On Interpretation - amzn.to/3nS55ud
People in this episode
Host: Gregory B. Sadler
Topics covered
- modalities
- necessity
- contingency
- future propositions
- philosophy
Keywords
- Aristotle
- On Interpretation
- necessity
- contingency
- future propositions
- modalities
- philosophy
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: On Interpretation
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