Skepticism and Beliefs about the Future

Skepticism and Beliefs about the FutureAuthor(s): William L. RoweSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Aug., 1976), pp. 105-109Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4319071 .

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WILLIAM L. ROWE

SKEPTICISM AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE FUTURE

(Received 1 July, 1975)

In a well-known paper 'Will The Future Be Like The Past'" Professor F.L. Will endeavors to prove that the skeptical argument concerning our beliefs about the future rests ultimately on an equivocation on the word 'future', a logical slip which, once seen, does away with the skeptic's argument. I propose to examine Will's argument and to show that the skeptic's reasoning does not rest on such an equivocation. My primary aim, however, is to clarify the reasoning of the skeptic and to focus attention on the crucial issue that separates the skeptic from the non-skeptic.

The conclusion the skeptic endeavors to establish is that it is impossible to justify on the basis of past experience alone our beliefs about the future. The essence of his argument is (1) that past experience is evidence for a belief about the future only if some principle of uniformity - e.g., "The future will be like the past" - is presupposed, and (2) that no empirical evidence' can be given for the proposition "The future will be like the past" since that too is a statement about the future and, as we have seen, past experience can be evidence for a statement about the future only if the statement now in question (or one very much like it) is presupposed.

To the objection that we do have confirming evidence that the future will be like the past, the skeptic has a seemingly forceful reply. The reply has been given its classic expression by Russell.

It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past, and has always been found to resemble the past, so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures. But such an argument really begs the very question at issue. We have experience of past futures, but not of future futures, and the question is: Will future futures resemble past futures? This question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone.2

It is in this familiar move by the skeptic that Will thinks he detects a shift to a different sense of 'future'.

There are then, two senses of the world 'future' to be carefully discriminated. They may be designated future-1 and future-2. In the sense of future-i, when one speaks

Philosophical Studies 30 (1976) 105 -109. All Rights Reserved Copyright ? 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland



106 WILLIAM L. ROWE

about the future he is speaking of events which have not occurred, of things which do not exist, but of events and things which, with the constant movement of the line of the present, may sometime occur or exist. In the sense of future-2, when one speaks about the future he is speaking of the time which is always beyond the line of the moving present, of a time which never comes, which by definition can never come, no matter how far the line of the present moves. (p. 48)

Briefly put, the essence of Will's argument is that when the skeptic initially raises the question of whether it is possible to have empirical evidence for the proposition that the future will be like the past he is using 'future' in the sense of future-1. However, when the skeptic engages in the kind of reasoning displayed in the paragraph cited from Russell, he, unwittingly, begins to use 'future' in the sense of future-2.

We must now see exactly why Will thinks the skeptic shifts from'future' in the sense of future-I to 'future' in the sense of future-2.

Suppose that in 1936, to take but a short span of time, a man says that in the above-defined sense the future will be like the past. In 1936, if he could somehow have shown that 1937 would be like 1936, this would have been evidence for his statement, as even a skeptic would admit. But in 1937, when he does establish that 1937 is like 1936, it has somehow ceased to be evidence. So long as he did not have it, it was evidence; as soon as he gets it it ceases to be. (p. 45)

I shall argue presently that Will misunderstands the skeptic's position when he implies that if it could somehow be shown in 1936 that 1937 would be like the past the skeptic would admit that this fact constituted evidence for the assertion, made in 1936, that the future will be like the past. But if we assume for the moment that Will is right about this point, I think we can understand how he is led to conclude that the skeptic shifts the sense of 'future'. Will is led to this conclusion, I believe, in order to explain what he takes to be two points in the skeptic's position. These points are:

(1) The skeptic would admit that if the fact that 1937 resembles 1936 were somehow established in 1936 this fact would consti- tute evidence for the assertion, made in 1936, that the future will be like the past.

(2) The skeptic would deny in 1937, when it is established that 1937 resembles 1936, that this fact constitutes evidence for the assertion, made in 1936, that the future will be like the past.

From (1) Will concludes that the skeptic begins by using 'future' in the sense of future-i. From (2) and the skeptic's reason for (2) Will concludes that the



SKEPTICISM AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE FUTURE 107

skeptic ends by using 'future' in the sense of future-2. The reason the skeptic gives for his denial in (2) is that 1937 is no longer future; it is a past future, and past futures are not evidence for future futures unless one assumes, quite circularly, that the future will be like the past. But, Will reasons, if, when in 1937 it is established that 1937 is like 1936, this fact ceases to be evidence, it must be that the skeptic has unknowingly shifted the sense of 'future' from future-I to future-2. He has unwittingly construed the 1936 assertion. "The future will be like the past" as "The future-2 will be like the past". The skeptic dismisses 1937 as a past future and, hence, not evidence because the 'future' always lies beyond the moving line of the present. What he does not see is that he is now talking about a future which never comes.

I believe that we can make perfectly good sense out of the skeptic's reasoning without supposing that he is equivocating on the word 'future' in the way Will charges. The first step to distinguish the sentence "The future will be like the past" from what is asserted (the proposition) when that sentence is used to make an assertion. Suppose that in 1936 a man uses the sentence "The future will be like the past" to make an assertion. Following Will, we may say that what he asserts is that 1937, 1938, and succeeding years will be like past years. (I shall refer to this assertion as A.) Suppose again that in 1952 a man uses the same sentence to make an assertion. What he asserts is that 1953, 1954, and succeeding years will be like past years. (I shall refer to this assertion as B.) The same sentence "The future will be like the past" is used on both occasions, but what is asserted is not the same. However, the assertions are not logically independent. A entails B, but B does not entail A. Every year which is claimed in B to be like its past is also claimed in A to be like its past. But in A it is claimed, as in B it is not, that the years 1937-52 will resemble past years.

Having distinguished A and B, we can understand Russell's controversial remarks about past futures and future futures in the following way. Granted that in 1952 we are in the position to observe that the past futures of 1937-52 have resembled their pasts, the question still remains whether the future futures of 1953, 1954, etc. will resemble their pasts. "This question is not to be answered by an argument which starts from past futures alone." We may understand Russell here as saying simply that the years of 1937-52 are not genuine evidence for B. Or, what amounts to the same thing, that the years of 1937-52 are evidence for B only if one assumes, quite circularly, that the future is like the past. Will makes the mistake of assuming that Russell is



108 WILLIAM L. ROWE

talking about the 1936 assertion that the future will be like the past and saying that 1937-52, since they are now past, cannot any longer be evidence for that assertion. Starting from this mistaken assumption, Will concludes that Russell has shifted the meaning of 'future' from future-I to future-2. But no such conclusion is warranted by what Russell in fact says. At any rate, having distinguished A and B we may quite easily understand Russell's remark about past futures and future futures without having to suppose that he has shifted the sense of 'future' from future-1 to future-2.

Will's basic mistake, I believe, is his assumption that in 1936 if he could have somehow shown that 1937-52 would be like 1936 Russell (and other skeptics) would have accepted this as evidence for A. This is a mistake. For whether it is 1936 or 1952 the years 1937-52 will not be, on Russell's view, genuine evidence for B. Hence, whether it is 1936 or 1952, Russell is committed to holding that the fact that the years 1937-52 are like 1936 provides in itself no evidence for A.3 Because Will mistakenly believes that the skeptic in 1936 would accept 1937-52 as evidence for A and correctly believes that the skeptic in 1952 would reject 1937-52 as evidence for the 1936 assertion that the future will be like the past, he is led to the mistaken conclusion that the skeptic has shifted the sense of 'future' in the 1936 assertion from future-I to future-2.

Faced with these objections, Will might reply that although the skeptic's argument need not rest on an equivocation on the word 'future' it, never- theless, must be rejected. For it does result in the claim that the years 1937-52 - no matter how much they resemble the past - are not evidence for A. But I do not think that the skeptic need be moved by this point. For he has argued that past experience is evidence for a statement about the future only if some principle of uniformity (e.g., "The future will be like the past") is presupposed. Since, relative to 1937-52, B is a statement about the future, it follows that 1937-52 are evidence for B only if B (or some statement very much like B) is presupposed. In short, the years 1937-52 are not evidence for B. Convinced of the correctness of this piece of reasoning, the skeptic draws the logical conclusion that since A entails B the years 1937-52 are not evidence for A. If this skeptical conclusion is absurd or false there must be an error in the skeptic's argument for it. Until that error is pointed out, the skeptic may choose to accept the 'absurd' conclusion rather than deny the soundness of his argument.

Purdue University



SKEPTICISM AND BELIEFS ABOUT THE FUTURE 109

NOTES

1 This paper was originally published in Mind (1946). It is reprinted in A.G.N. Flew (ed.), Logic and Language (second series), (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1959). I shall refer to the paper as it occurs in Logic and Language (second series). 2 Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1912), pp. 64-65. (The page references are to the reset edition first published in 1946.) 3 A entails B; therefore whatever is evidence for A must also be evidence for B. In denying that the years 1937-52 are evidence for B, Russell is logically committed to denying that the years 1937-5 2 are evidence for A.



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Skepticism and Beliefs about the Future