Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?
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Neither of my examples are logical tautologies.
They are necessarily true, but not by virtue of their logical form.
The problem that was posed was whether we can know anything about the future. The answer is yes because we can deduce necessary truths. Some of which are tautologies( my examples are not). Even if they were they still count as knowledge about the future, useful or not.
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They are necessarily true by virtue of the meaning of the parts. Thats what I mean by tautology, but lets not have an extremely dull conversation about that [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
The point remain, all you are saying is that you know that necessarily true propositions wont be false tomorrow.
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Now if he was asking whether we can know which possible future events will occur then the answer is also yes. Unless you are some kind of uber old fashion skeptic who thinks no inductive support can justify a belief. This person would also be commited to say we arent justified in believing that we have hands, or that we know our parent's names, or that physical objects exist, etc.
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I dont think thats what skeptics claim. Induction can support beliefs, one question is can it support knowledge. Even if you allow that induction can support knowledge then thats not enough to make knowledge possible.
chez
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