DAVID W I D E R K E R

TWO FALLACIOUS SOFT/HARD

OBJECTIONS

TO ADAMS'

FACT DISTINCTION

(Received 20 April, 1988)

There is an intuitive distinction between two sorts of facts about the past: genuine or hard facts about the past such as (1) (2) Hitler attacked Russia in 1941. Kennedy died in 1963,

and soft facts about the past such as (3) (4) Hitler attacked Russia in 1941, 46 years before Casey's involvement in the Iranian affair. Jack correctly believed in 1982 that Casey will be involved in a scandal in 1987,

which, although being facts about the past, obtain in virtue of certain states of affairs or events occurring in the future. A philosopher who has made an attempt to give a precise account of this distinction is Marilyn Adams ([1] pp. 493--494). According to her: (AD)

(B)
(C)

Statement P is at least in part about time T = dr. The happening or not happening, actuality or non-actuality of something at T, is a necessary condition of the truth of P. Statement P expresses a hard fact about a time T ~- dr. P is not at least in part about any time future to T.

By contrast, (D) Statement P expresses a soft fact about a time T = df. P is at least in part about some time future to T.

Recently (AD) has come under attack from John Fischer and Hoffman and Rosenkrantz. One of their main criticisms is that according to (AD), every fact about a given time t turns out to be a soft about that
Philosophical Studies 57:103--107, 1989. 9 1989 KluwerAcademic Publishers'. Printed in the Netherlands.

104

DAVID WIDERKER

time ([2] p. 75; [3] pp. 592--3; [4] pp. 421). Consequently the distinction between these two sorts of fact collapses. My object in this paper is to show that the arguments adduced by them in support of this claim are not convincing. Consider first Fischer's criticism. Fischer takes (AD) to be an account which says that a given fact F is a soft fact about a time t, insofar as its obtaining at t entails that a contingent fact obtains at a time later than t ([3], p. 592). 1 Consequently, he develops the following objection to it. Consider the statement (5) John raises his arm at tl.

Intuitively, (5) expresses a hard fact about tl. However, on Adams theory it fails to do so. For (5) has as a logically necessary condition of its truth that (6) it is not the case that John raises his arm for the first time at t3.2

Hence, being at least in part about t3, (5) expresses merely a soft fact about tl. Fischer's objection, however, cannot be deemed convincing. Notice that although (5) entails (6), (5) does not entail that the state of affairs FI: that it is not the case that John raises his arm for the first time

obtains at t3. For instance, F1 may fail to obtain at t3 in a possible world in which there are no times later than tl. But in such a world (5) and (6) would still be true. To put it more generally, although (5) entails (6), (5) does not entail that (n) some contingent state of affairs obtains at t3.

To rule out this response, Fischer would have to require (i) that each time which actually exists, exists necessarily, or (ii) that time couldn't have had an end (it is impossible for time to end). However, these assumptions are very controversial and need not be accepted by the proponent of (AD). 3 Next enter Hoffman and Rosenkrantz. According to these writers, it

ON THE SOFT/HARD

FACT

DISTINCTION

105

is the assumption that there are necessarily existing entities such as God, numbers, properties and propositions, which suffices to refute Adams' distinction. For
9 if there are "necessary actuafities," that is, existents which must exist at every time, then their existence at any time t is a necessary condition of the truth of any statement whatsoever 9 This implies that for any statement p, and any time t, p is at least in part about t. ([4], p. 421.)

Apparently the thought here is that since (5) entails (7) Necessarily, God exists at every time t,

and since (7) entails (8) God exists at t3,

(5) also entails (8). In that case (5) would again count as a soft fact about tl, on Adams' view. There are two things one can say in response to this objection. First of all, one might question the conception of a necessary being involved in it. The ordinary conception of a necessary being is that of a being which couldn't have failed to exist. But this does not mean that such a being is necessarily temporal. As applied to God, such a claim would be flatly denied by philosophers such as Boethius and Aquinas, who conceive of God as existing outside time. Also it is not clear why one m u s t view abstract entities such as numbers and properties as necessarily temporal entities. For example, why couldn't there be a possible world which is timeless, in which mathematical truths such as '2 + 2 = 4' would still hold? The second way in which one may respond to the objection by Hoffman and Rosenkrantz is simply to deny the inference from (7) to (8). Notice that if (7) were to imply (8), the latter would be a necessary truth. However, if we allow for the possibility that different worlds may contain different times or, more specifically, for the possibility of a world which does not contain a time such as t3, then although it might be the case that in each possible world, God exists at every time existing in that world, it need not be the case that in each possible world God exists at t3. To rule out such a possibility, Hoffman and Rosenkrantz, like Fischer, would have to rely upon some very controversial assumptions about the nature of time. And as long as they

106

DAVID WtDERKER

haven't presented us with a good argument for the plausibility of these assumptions, their contention that on (AD) the distinction between hard and soft facts collapses is unfounded. Despite the weakness of the objections discussed above, it must be admitted that A d a m s ' account of the hard/soft fact distinction is stated rather obscurely. F o r example, it is not clear whether 'something' in (B) refers to events or to states of affairs. Also, it is not clear whether 'necessary condition' signifies a logically or a counterfactually necessary condition. 4 Moreover, (B) is ambiguous in the sense that the term 'at T' in it can be understood in two different ways: either modifying only the term 'something', or modifying the entire phrase 'The happening, or not happening, actuality or non-actuality of something'. If (B) is understood in the first way, then the claim that (5) entails (6), does count against the correctness of (AD). For this claim is equivalent to saying that (5) has as a necessary condition of its truth the non-obtaining of the state of affairs F2: that John raised his arm for the first time at t3.

However, when (B) is understood in the second way, which I take to be its intended interpretation, i.e. as meaning that it is the obtaining or non-obtaining at t of a given state of affairs which is a necessary condition for the truth of P, then the objection does not succeed. For even though (5) entails (6), it does not entail the obtaining at t3 of F1 nor does it entail the non-obtaining at t3 of the state of affairs F3: that John raised his arm for the first time.

(I.e. that at t3, F3 does not obtain.) In conclusion, whatever our ultimate verdict with regard to (AD), one thing seems clear. (AD) is not as fatally flawed as Fischer et aL think it is. 5 NOTES Or as he indicates in his earlier article, insofar as the truth of the statement expressing F entails that something happens at a time later than t ([2], p. 74--75). 2 'tl' and 't3' are meant to refer here to actually existing times, such as July 1, 1981, 10 a.m., etc. 3 For a refutation of the standard arguments for the endlessness of time, see ([5], pp.

ON T H E S O F T / H A R D F A C T D I S T I N C T I O N

107

96--104; [8], pp. 579--584). For a rigorous framework enabling one to talk coherently about time coming to an end, see ([7], pp. 98-- 115). 4 In ([2], pp. 73--74), Fischer argues convincingly that how one answers this question is highly relevant to whether or not (AD) provides a correct necessary condition for the locution 'Statement P expresses a soft fact about a time T'. 5 I would like to thank Norman Kretzmann, Phil Quinn and Tom Flint for some very useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

REFERENCES [1] Adams, Marilyn: 1967, 'Is the Existence of God a 'Hard Fact", The Philosophical Review 76,492--503. [2] Fischer, John Martin: 1983, 'Freedom and Foreknowledge', The Philosophical Review 92, 67--79. [3] Fischer, John Martin: 1986, 'Hard-Type Soft Facts', The Philosophical Review 94, 591--601. [4] Hoffman, Joshua and Rosenkrantz, Gary: 1984, 'Hard Facts and Soft Facts', The Philosophical Review 93, 419--434. [5] Newton-Smith, W. H.: 1980, TheStructure of Time (Routledge and Kegan Paul). [6] Pike, Nelson: 1966, 'Of God and Freedom: A Rejoinder'. The Philosophical Review 75,369--379. [7] Prior, A. N.: 1968, 'On the Logic of Ending Time', in Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford University Press) pp. 98--115. [8] Smith, Quentin: 1985, 'On the Beginning of Time', Not]s, 19, 579--584.

Center For Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, and Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52 100, Israel