The Contingency of Contingency

Typically, inquiry is directed towards truths, towards what is actually the case. But it is also natural to take an interest in whether or not things might have been different from how they are. The distinction between those truths that could and those that could not have failed to hold - between contingent and non-contingent ones - is also important for our conceptions of ourselves: my identity is partly a function of whether or not I think I could have belonged to a different nationality, profession, class, race, gender, or even species. It is important for our conception of our own agency: whether we see ourselves as free may depend on whether we think we could have acted differently. Finally, it is important for how we view what happens to us. If we are fatalists, we take it to happen of necessity. If not, we tend to display emotions, such as regret, relief, or disappointment, which seem to presuppose that things could have gone differently.

While the idea that things could have gone differently in some ways but not in others is typically only implicit in many of our ordinary thoughts, it has received a great deal of explicit discussion in philosophy. The notion of contingency and its cognates is central in many theories and arguments.

I aim to address a simple question: which truths could have failed to hold, that is, which truths are contingent, and which ones are not? A good answer would not consist of a mere list, but should be principled and general. In a nutshell, my answer is that a truth is contingent unless it is a logical or conceptual truth. That answer, I shall argue, has surprising implications. Most strikingly, it leads us to conclude that contingency is itself a contingent matter - some truths about what could have been different are themselves not necessary.

Traditionally, philosophers have seen themselves as seeking some special class of truths that are non-contingent. These include so-called "metaphysical" truths concerning the structure of the world, and truths about certain general and abstract matters. Typically, philosophers would have included truths about contingency in that category, without much by way of argument. If I am right, then these widely held assumptions need to be given up.

The project deals with topics of central importance in many philosophical debates. It is of a foundational nature, and any prediction of impact will be speculative. Nonetheless, I would like to emphasize that historically, the development of a concept of contingency, and the recognition that many facts are contingent, has had wide-ranging implications for how people viewed themselves and their society.

For ancient and medieval philosophers, the idea that the world is contingent was strongly linked to the idea that the future is open: what will happen tomorrow is not determined, or fixed, by the state of the world today. Typically, Duns Scotus is credited with being the first philosopher to articulate a synchronic conception of contingency, according to which even the present or the past could have been different. He linked this to the concept of the freedom of the will, and also to political freedom and independence. "We can do otherwise than we do, and this is because we are independent of nature. ... Features of this doctrine are duly modulated by Scotus into a concept of political independence" (Alexander Broadie, A History of Scottish Philosophy, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh: 2009, p. 25).

My aims for impact are more modest than those of Scotus. Nevertheless, I hope that through the circulation of ideas and the advancement of historically important debates within and beyond the academic context, the work to be done during the project period will have some influence outside academia, albeit indirectly.