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Topic: Contingent fact


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In the News (Fri 1 Jun 12)

  
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A contingent fact is a true proposition that has the possibility of being true and the possibility of being false, in which possibility is understood in the broadly logical or conceptual sense.
By extension a contingent being is one who has both the possibility of existing and the possibility of not existing, with a necessary being not having the possibility of not existing.
It might be the fact that there exists a total aggregate of contingent beings (the universe), or maybe that there exists at least one contingent being, or that one object depends upon another for its existence.
www.pitt.edu /~rmgale/candt.htm   (4968 words)

  
  Contingency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of facts that are not logically necessary.
Contingency is opposed to necessity: a contingent act is an act which could not have been, which is not necessary (a necessary act is an act which could not not have been).
Beforehand, contingencies are hard to predict; failure to predict contingencies has led to the formulation of Murphy's law.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Contingent   (136 words)

  
 Contingent Valuation
The contingent valuation method is referred to as a “stated preference” method, because it asks people to directly state their values, rather than inferring values from actual choices, as the “revealed preference” methods do.
Contingent valuation is one of the only ways to assign dollar values to non-use values of the environment—values that do not involve market purchases and may not involve direct participation.
However, the fact that the contingent valuation method is based on asking people questions, as opposed to observing their actual behavior, is the source of enormous controversy.
www.ecosystemvaluation.org /contingent_valuation.htm   (6304 words)

  
 Phl 356: Lecture #7   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
If we conclude that the first cause is a necessary fact and that every other fact is caused by the first cause, and we assume that causes always necessitate their effects, we must conclude that every fact is necessary, that there are no contingent facts in the world.
Thus, the fact that Socrates was snub-nosed involves both Socrates and the property of being snub-nosed, and the fact that Plato was the teacher of Aristotle involves the beings Plato and Aristotle and the relation of being-the-teacher-of.
Since this fact is necessary, and whenever any fact is actual, the beings involved in that fact must actually exist, it follows that the being or beings involved in the first cause must exist necessarily.
www.la.utexas.edu /phl356/lec7.html   (3268 words)

  
 Robert C. Koons: Phl 356 Lecture #7
If we conclude that the first cause is a necessary fact and that every other fact is caused by the first cause, and we assume that causes always necessitate their effects, we must conclude that every fact is necessary, that there are no contingent facts in the world.
Thus, the fact that Socrates was snub-nosed involves both Socrates and the property of being snub-nosed, and the fact that Plato was the teacher of Aristotle involves the beings Plato and Aristotle and the relation of being-the-teacher-of.
Since the world is an exception to one rule, that wholly contingent facts have contingent causes, there seems to be some reason to believe that it may be an exception to a very similar rule, namely, that wholly contingent facts have causes of some kind.
www.leaderu.com /offices/koons/docs/lec7.html   (3277 words)

  
 SICE Dispute Settlement WTO Report WT/DS70/AB/R /F
Instead, the existence of this relationship of contingency, between the subsidy and export performance, must be inferred from the total configuration of the facts constituting and surrounding the granting of the subsidy, none of which on its own is likely to be decisive in any given case.
The mere fact that a subsidy is granted to enterprises which export shall not for that reason alone be considered to be an export subsidy within the meaning of this provision.
Rather, this fact was simply one of a number of facts that, when considered together, the Panel found demonstrated that the granting of subsidies by TPC was "tied to" actual or anticipated exports.
www.sice.oas.org /DISPUTE/wto/ds70/4064d06.asp   (2905 words)

  
 Robert C. Koons: Phl 356 Lecture #10
As I argued last week, the sort of argument from contingency that I have tried to carry out depends in the end on a particular view of the asymmetry of causation, namely, that effects necessitate their causes (where both effects and causes are considered as tokens rather than as types).
Let's say that a fact y is minimally contingent just in case it is wholly contingent, and it necessitates only necessary facts (that is, it does not necessitate any separate, contingent facts).
This fact does not by itself settle the question at hand, since we are interested in whether token-causes necessitate their token-effects, and Mackie's thought experiments concerns types (bar-production, coin-insertion), not tokens.
www.leaderu.com /offices/koons/docs/lec10.html   (4135 words)

  
 [No title]
A premise common to such arguments posits the existence of a contingency, whether that of a contingent being, truth, fact, etc. It is then reasoned that an explanation of this contingency is needed which either is, or involves, something which exists of necessity.
Instead, the explanans may be a contingent fact about this necessary being, and this seems to have been the path Leibniz followed in claiming that the existence of the world is a consequence of God's free choice.
Some describe contingent beings as those that are dependent for their existence upon other beings, thus, which do not contain the reason for their existence in themselves (thus, Copleston in his BBC debate with Russell).
sun.soci.niu.edu /~phildept/Kapitan/cosmolog.html   (3870 words)

  
 Chapter 5
It deals with the purely contingent fact that men have a disposition to feel emotions of approval and disapproval, and the equally contingent fact that in men this disposition is excited by contemplating the happiness or misery of human beings.
The utmost that a Utilitarian could honestly say of such facts is that the imperatives which are now categorical for Smith must once have been merely hypothetical, either for Smith himself or [124] for earlier members of his society or race.
In that case every rational being who contemplated the notion of [127] general happiness with enough attention would be able to see that it is desirable, though it is certainly not deducible from the notion of a rational being that he should find general happiness desirable.
www.ditext.com /broad/ftet/ftet5.html   (7706 words)

  
 Robert C. Koons: Phl 327 Lecture #16
The notions of "contingency" and "necessity" that the argument requires are outmoded and should be replaced by simpler notions of logical consistency and inconsistency.
Since the cosmos is a sum of wholly contingent facts, it is itself wholly contingent.
The argument commits the fallacy of composition: from the fact that each part of the cosmos is caused, it fallaciously draws the conclusion that the whole cosmos is caused.
www.leaderu.com /offices/koons/docs/chrphlec16.html   (1375 words)

  
 Part I: Necessary Being   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
If a fact depends on other facts for its existence, then it is a contingent fact.
So, if everything that exists in the universe is a contingent fact, then it follows that the universe must also be a contingent fact, because it depends on the existence of everything inside it to be true.
There may be some necessary truths that can't be conceived to be false, but there may also be brute facts, facts that don't depend on other facts to be true, but also are not self-explanatory.
www.msu.edu /~millettf/God/3.html   (423 words)

  
 Epsilon Calculi [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
Now it is contingent that the man who is in fact the man who lives next door is the man who lives next door, for he might have lived somewhere else; that is living next door is a property which belongs contingently, not necessarily, to the man to whom it does belong.
And similarly, it is contingent that the man who is in fact the mayor is the mayor; for someone else might have been elected instead.
It is this fact which supports the epsilon definition of the quantifiers; and it is what permits anaphoric reference to the same object by means of the same epsilon term.
www.iep.utm.edu /e/ep-calc.htm   (10009 words)

  
 Aquinas on Omniscience
Contingent truths include the laws of nature, the fact that there's a world at all, things that happen as outcomes of mechanical processes and a good deal else that's not too puzzling.
The fact that he can know them at all is a result of his eternal nature - his position "outside time." For our purposes, this is the most important idea in Aquinas's discussion.
These future contingents are not contingent qua items of God's knowledge, but considered in relation to their proximate causes, they are contingent.
brindedcow.umd.edu /236/omniscience_1.html   (1641 words)

  
 Fact-nodes
We don't currently make use of this distinction, but the idea is to represent the difference between definitional facts which identify a finite class of entities (e.g.
is a measure of how important the fact is from the point of view of the text generator's (and ultimately the content provider's) educational agenda: 1 is most interesting, 0 is least interesting.
is a representation of the degree to which the user has assimilated the fact: 1 is completely assimilated, 0 is completely unassimilated.
www.hcrc.ed.ac.uk /ilex/Manual/kr/KG/kg/node2.html   (647 words)

  
 Converted WP file 26658d
Thus, under the plain and unambiguous terms of the contingent fee agreement, the lower court correctly concluded that “whoever is liable” referred to the person responsible for causing Mr.
The facts, however, clearly indicate that the $25,000 payment for medical expenses incurred by Douglas Bass, which was received from the insurance company that insured the automobile in which Mr.
Contracts for contingent fees, generally having a greater potential for overreaching of clients than a fixed-fee contract, are closely scrutinized by the courts where there is a question as to their reasonableness.
www.state.wv.us /wvsca/docs/fall00/26658d.htm   (1817 words)

  
 SICE Dispute Settlement WTO Report WT/DS70/R /12
The fact that exports take place, or that increased exports were intended (without the subsidy having been made conditional on exportation), does not render a subsidy a prohibited subsidy.
The mere fact that a subsidy is accorded to enterprises which export shall not for that reason alone be considered to be an export subsidy within the meaning of this provision."
that neither export propensity nor "intent" to increase exports is a correct measure for determining whether a subsidy is "in fact" contingent upon exports.
www.sice.oas.org /DISPUTE/wto/70r00/70r12.asp   (2476 words)

  
 WTO | Appellate Body Repertory of Reports and Awards 1995-2004
The fact that the subsidies granted in the second set of circumstances might not be export contingent does not dissolve the export contingency arising in the first set of circumstances.
As the legal standard is the same for de facto and de jure export contingency, we believe that a “tie”, amounting to the relationship of contingency, between the granting of the subsidy and actual or anticipated exportation meets the legal standard of “contingent” in Article 3.1(a) of the SCM Agreement.
Rather, it must be demonstrated that, based on the facts of the case, the benchmark chosen relates or refers to, or is connected with, the conditions prevailing in the market of the country of provision.
www.wto.org /english/tratop_e/dispu_e/repertory_e/s2_e.htm   (10324 words)

  
 Peopleclick Industry Article: Contingent Workforce Management Systems   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
This pool of contingent workers may be viewed as a company's "external workforce." They are a flexible supply of labor that supplements and supports a core of permanent employees in peripheral, non-core functions and during periods of increased demand.
This stems from the fact that contingent workers are procured (or "engaged") with a services purchase contract, rather than hired under an employment contract.
Once engaged, the activities and performance of contingent workers must be tracked and monitored for contractual compliance, and of course they (or their suppliers) must be paid according to contract.
www.peopleclick.com /knowledge/ind_williams1.asp   (11374 words)

  
 Are Eliot Spitzer's Insurance Lawsuits Hitting the Wrong Targets? - Knowledge@Wharton
Despite the fact that contingent commissions appear to be legal, Spitzer has linked them to kickbacks and is using his clout to get insurance brokerages to stop the practice.
The "non-favored" insurers went along with the scheme because they knew that sooner or later it would be their turn to be a "favored" insurer, and the other companies would cover for them in a similar way.
And contingent commissions, particularly those based on profit, may actually stimulate competitive bidding by aligning the interest of the insurer with that of the intermediary, and by giving the insurer greater confidence in the selection of risks and in the information provided by the intermediary.
knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu /article/1298.cfm   (1833 words)

  
 Our argument is a valid deduction from four premisses, of which two are particularly controversial. We shall be using a ...
Furthermore, it is not even shown that he is contingently omnipotent and omniscient, just powerful and intelligent enough to be the supernatural designer-creator of the exceedingly complex and wondrous cosmos that in fact confronts us.
A Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact perhaps could have a conjunct that reports what some necessary being contingently does, for example that a necessarily existent God freely elects to actualize a certain possible world.
But then a contradiction results from holding q to be contingent, since it results in the apparently contradictory proposition that it is contingent that it is necessary that there exists a being who intentionally brings it about that p.
www.pitt.edu /~rmgale/godexist.htm   (6020 words)

  
 Kripke   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
Thus, it would seem that while it is true that Phosphorus=Hesperus, that is a contingent, that is, not a necessary, fact, in direct contradiction to what I just showed.
Necessity and possibility, must, might, could, are associated with counterfactual claims---if such and such had been the case (though in fact it wasn’t), so and so would have, could have, might have happened.
Thus, even though Hesperus might not have been the last celestial object we see in the morning, as a matter of fact, it is the last celestial object we see in the morning.
zillion.philosophy.arizona.edu /~Metaphysics/m3-9-3.html   (1144 words)

  
 Empirical fact: Van Inwagen holds that propositions like “capital punishment is an effective deterrent” are matters ...
Empirical fact: Van Inwagen holds that propositions like “capital punishment is an effective deterrent” are matters of empiri
Contingent fact:  A contingent fact is one which is not necessarily true.
Empirical fact:  Van Inwagen holds that propositions like “capital punishment is an effective deterrent” are matters of empirical fact.
www-personal.umich.edu /~emcurley/gloss365.htm   (786 words)

  
 Kripke on the contingent a priori   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
From the fact that these two categories are conceptually distinct, it does not follow that they are extensionally distinct; it does not follow, that is, that that there are any examples of truths which are necessary but not knowable a priori, or a priori but not necessary.
The main example of the contingent a priori Kripke is discusses is the example of the standard meter.
Suppose that everything in Kripke’s description of the case goes as he says, and that the speaker comes to know the proposition that the length of stick S is one meter on the basis of only that experience required for him to understand the proposition.
www.arts.mcgill.ca /philo/speaks/415/kripke-contingent-apriori.html   (1366 words)

  
 A New Cosmological Argument
Thus, for every contingent proposition, p, either p is a conjunct in this Fact or not-p is. And from this it follows that no two worlds have the same Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact.
Notice that there will not be in the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact a proposition reporting the existence of the necessary being in question, since this proposition is necessary, given that a being has necessary existence only if it is necessary that it exists.
For the explanans still will contain contingent propositions, namely propositions reporting the existence of the contingent substances in question, along with ones that report contingent, law-like connections between the dispositional states of these substances and their event effects.
www.georgetown.edu /faculty/ap85/papers/NewCosmo.html   (5971 words)

  
 StrongAtheism.net - Feedback from Josh Rasmussen
But the truth is, MOST philosophers (whether they be theists or non-theists) think that the fact that there are the states of affairs that make up the physical universe is a contingent fact, not a necessary one.
William Rowe is a notable example of an atheist philosopher who thinks that the fact that the universe exists is a contingent fact that could be explained.
William Rowe thinks the universe as a whole is contingent but that PSR (principle of sufficient reason) does not apply to it.
www.strongatheism.net /intro/fb_josh_rasmussen   (1307 words)

  
 strawson
is, the fact that this dependency exists is a contingent fact, and is
Facts about my body and my experiences are contingent.
D. It is not okay to use the second sense of 'have' due primarily to the fact that
www.afn.org /~afn31396/strawson.html   (666 words)

  
 [No title]
So, even though zombies might dream[z], their concept[z] of dreaming[z] would not be philosophically problematic in the way that ours is. Zombie philosophers would be persistently baffled[z] by the fact that we talk about `consciousness' as if it were something more than being the subject[z] of experiences[z].
What is most interesting is the fact the zombie scientists would have to regard consciousness (not consciousness[z]) as something beyond the scope of their science.
Nagel claims that they do not: The fact that mental states are not physical states because they can't be objectively described in the way that physical states can doesn't mean that they must be states of something different.
www.rpi.edu /~brings/moody.zombies.html   (2815 words)

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