The Truth Of Future Contingents In The Context Of Contemporary Logics

The truth of future contingents such as "it will rain tomorrow" remains a controversial topic.Classical logic follows the binary principle,that is,a proposition is either true or false.Then it seems easy for us to draw the conclusion that a future accidental event will either happen or not happen,whether we understand it literally and directly or use a series of logic rules to reason based on the binary principle.Since this perspective is counter-intuitive in nature and that Aristotle's counter-argument in his work On Interpretation is not the most convincing,logicians and philosophers have been trying to work on this difficult problem in a better way.The new solutions in contemporary logic can be roughly divided into two directions.One is a semantic scheme mainly composed of three-valued logic and super-valued logic and the two main components have made adjustments and modifications to the application scope of the binary principle;The other is a syntactic scheme,which,based on temporal logic,becomes a new formal system different from first-order predicate logic by adding non-truth function operators.Through differentiating these logic schemes,we found there are similarities as well as peculiarities.Although both three-valued logic and super-valued logic advocate reinterpreting the binary principle in semantic rules,their practices seems to part,especially the latter has avoided the challenge of invalidating the law of excluded middle faced by the former.Temporal logic and classical first-order predicate logic both follow the binary principle for future contingents,but their differences in formal schemes also make them rivals.Facing such phenomena,we need to consider two interrelated issues: Firstly,are these "conflicts" and "differences" nothing but superficial or originated from the essence? Second,can multiple logic systems coexist in a sense?After expounding and analyzing the translatability and "conflicts" among the four logic schemes mentioned above,this paper comes to the conclusion that the "differences" between these systems are only superficial,and they are all efforts from different directions towards the same logic goal.Generally speaking,this issue can be treated from an inclusive standpoint.At the semantic or syntactic level,logic pluralism is beneficial to logic research as they provide a new perspective for us to think about the nature and scope of logic and can inspire us to see the once-ignored possibilities.