MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 4:
BOETHIUS
- 480-525
- Roman
- important for passing on Aristotle
- senator, suspected of conspiracy
- Consolations of Philosophy: Lady Philosophy & I
Future Contingency:
- De Interpretacione: future statements cannot be t/f
- Principle of Bivalnce: all statements are either true or false
- future particulars are special
- even if the future is determined, it’s hard to interperet
- if future propositions were T/F this would imply logical determinism
- so we need to drop PoB for future propositions
- but God is omniscient, so he must know
Divine Forknowledge vs Human Freedom
- if everything is ordered, there wouldn’t be accidents/free will
- there is freedom and God also knows everything (past, present & future)
- if there wasn’t freedom we wouldn’t be punished for sins
- it’s not necessary for things to happen, it’s only necessary for them to be forseen
Solution:
1. Mode of cognition principle (Neoplatonic)
2. God’s eternity (Neoplatonic)
3. Necessity of the present (Aristotle)
Mode of Cognition Principle:
- everything is known according to the power of the knower
- God has higher power, so he will know things we cannot
God’s Eternity:
- whole, simultaneous, boundless life
- God is atop a temporal plane where he perceives all past, present, future simultaneously (like how we perceived the totality of the past, even tho the past was not determined)
Necessity of the Present:
- when something is perceived in the present, it’s being true is necessary knowledge
- God perceives all as essentially present, so he knows everything necessarily
So freedom is preserved and God knows everything