Alexander's Sea Battle: a discussion of Alexander of Aphrodisias De Fato 10

Abstract

The tenth chapter of Alexander of Aphrodisias' De Fato' contains a treatment of fatalism and future truth which clearly harks back to Aristotle's famous 'Sea Battle' discussion in De Interpretatione (DI) 9.2 Alexander's discussion has not yet been satisfatorily interpreted: this paper is intended to help remedy this lack. On the traditional interpretation of Aristotle's argument, he accepted the fatalist's inference from the truth of a statement about a future contingency (which I will call a future contingent statement, FCS for short) to its necessity, but sought to counter necessitarianism by denying the principle of bivalence (PB) on which the fatalist's inference rests.3 This interpretation has in recent times been challenged from two quarters. According to one view (the 'modern' interpretation), Aristotle does not seek to restrict PB; rather, he rebuts fatalism by distinguishing between the truth/falsity of a FCS and its necessity, allowing the former but refusing the latter, and in particular banning any inference from a necessary disjunction of FCSs (such as 'There will be a sea battle tomorrow or there will not be a sea battle tomorrow') to the several necessities of the disjuncts.4 Others