TY - JOUR

T1 - Prior’s turn from determinism to indeterminism

AU - Hasle, Per Frederik Vilhelm

AU - Jakobsen, David

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Indeterminism assumes a central place in Arthur Norman Prior’sinvention and development of modern tense logic. Before thisindeterminism, Prior was for a number of years a devoutdeterminist. But Prior’s turn from determinism to indeterminism, soimportant for his mature work, has never been explained properly.This article presents the enigma of Prior’s turn from determinism toindeterminism. We know much about his early determinism andrecently have learned more about how he became a determinist, but,apart from the fact that he in the course of the years between 1949and 1953 became an indeterminist, we know very little about how orwhy he became an indeterminist and what exactly he thenunderstood by free will and indeterminism. He never explained thishimself at any length, but scattered remarks in various texts providesome aid in approaching this issue. We here take a look at someimportant texts in which Prior writes about the free will to help us astep further toward solving this riddle

AB - Indeterminism assumes a central place in Arthur Norman Prior’sinvention and development of modern tense logic. Before thisindeterminism, Prior was for a number of years a devoutdeterminist. But Prior’s turn from determinism to indeterminism, soimportant for his mature work, has never been explained properly.This article presents the enigma of Prior’s turn from determinism toindeterminism. We know much about his early determinism andrecently have learned more about how he became a determinist, but,apart from the fact that he in the course of the years between 1949and 1953 became an indeterminist, we know very little about how orwhy he became an indeterminist and what exactly he thenunderstood by free will and indeterminism. He never explained thishimself at any length, but scattered remarks in various texts providesome aid in approaching this issue. We here take a look at someimportant texts in which Prior writes about the free will to help us astep further toward solving this riddle

U2 - 10.54337/lpt.v5i1.7990

DO - 10.54337/lpt.v5i1.7990

M3 - Journal article

VL - 5

JO - Logic and Philosophy of Time: Themes from Prior

JF - Logic and Philosophy of Time: Themes from Prior

IS - 1

ER -