In this book Savetr talks about time, and one of the philosophers he makes reference to is Aristotle and how he supported the theory of future contingents, against the doctrine of destiny, where everything is already decided without the possibility of change.
When we talk about the future everything is uncertain, we can’t know what is going to happen, the contingent theory, though it supports this idea, narrows the possibilities of what could happen in the future. Savater explains this with the example of the naval battle, on the eve of the big fight we can assert two possibilities, there will be or there will not be a naval battle, we can’t have certainties about any of them, but we still know the possibilities.
I think this theory of an open future makes a lot of sense, because future is the one thing we can never be sure of, and when the contingents may narrow the possibilities of what is going to happen they never tell us what is actually happening, when we talk about future there is not most likely to. And even though those possibilities are not depending on us humans, like natural disasters, we always have an influence in what is going to happen, we can protect themselves against it, we don’t just stay aside and wait.
I disagree with Aristotle and his theory. I think that the future is open, there is nothing predetermined. We are the ones that decide our future. Obviously you can’t prevent a natural disaster from happening, but you can investigate when will it happen and take the necessary precautions and go to a save place. We make up our future depending on our actions in our present. Failing or not failing tomorrow’s exam depends on whether I study today or not. I can make that kind of decisions to have positive odds on whether I fail or not, but we could never be 100% sure.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Mariana, we MOVE, we break the barriers and interferences and keep moving till we are so damaged to keep on going and we die. That's what I think and I also think that the example in the book was kind of weird, I accept it but I have to say it is not "this or that" there are more possibilities that we are not aware of.
ReplyDelete