Talk:Contingency (philosophy)

How do fit in terms s.a. false - impossible - absurd?
Is there also a word to describe the status of a proposition that is false or false given circumstances? I wondered what the opposite of a "possible proposition" would be called. An "impossible proposition" would be the obvious choice but I'm afraid "impossible" must mean the same as necessarily false. Can anybody help me? Thanks in advance :) 84.112.147.130 (talk) 11:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Why isn't there also a non philosophical article for "Contingency"?
Why isn't there an article about non-philosophical definitions of "contingency"? Skeptical Dude (talk) 23:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There are several articles of different meanings of Contingency. See Contingency (disambiguation). Perhaps we should redirect Contingency on the disambiguation page. Nebucaddy (talk) 18:13, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes that seems like a better approach. Now it seems like this is the only answer. 129.16.192.108 (talk) 10:59, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Done. – Smyth\talk 13:24, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

False information
This part of the article is positively false:

"This again raises the question of contingency because that which is deemed necessary or impossible depends almost entirely on time and perspective. In United States history, there was a time when even a congressman who opposed slavery would conclude that its retraction would be impossible. The same held true for those who favored women’s suffrage. Today in the United States, slavery has been abolished and women have the right to vote."

To illustrate my point, here is a quote from Leonardo da Vinci: "The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."

There are small political minority parties all over the world. All of them, I'm sure, think that they are the ones who are right and everybody else can change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.73.146 (talk) 09:56, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Primary meaning
Please see Talk:Contingency_(disambiguation). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 01:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposition classes
Shouldn't the section about four classes of proposition be removed from the lead, and inserted someplace into the article on Proposition (philosophy) instead? Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

opposite to contingency
The opposite to contingency in philosphy is determinism, is it not? - Why is not here any mention of that - little as there is a mention of contingency in the article on determinism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:C197:6E00:51DD:2448:9343:C835 (talk) 13:35, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Please be more considerate. Thid article lacks credibility.
What does many worlds jargon even mean? 109.245.38.186 (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Overhaul Project
Hi hello. I'm planning an overhaul of this page and attempting to elevate it to GA-Class status. This is a Vital Article for the Philosophy wikiproject and, as such, I'm performing an overhaul in the following ways, top to bottom: 1. Readability - logic pages tend to be challenging, I'm trying to alleviate this. 2. Citations - simply expanding these, mostly to support historical and non-basic factual claims about the subject. 3. Pictures and relevant captions - a necessary condition for GA-Class status. 4. Expansion of material - this seems necessary. There are two big sections currently and neither speak to the complexity (and history) this concept has had. Contingency is the third most significant modal status in logic; it's like if the necessity page only had two paragraphs. Based on cursory research, it is evident this subject covers more than a basic overview of the concept itself and "relativism in rhetoric" (whatever that means). Looks like a few members of the talk page have suggested redirecting the page or merging it. But that feels like a cop out when it's more interesting to do some thorough research and just develop the page. 5. Reorganization - with expansion of material comes a natural reorganization of concepts. It's less of a reorganization than it is simply the initial organization of many new sections.

Per uzh, I'm not expecting anyone to get to this page before I actually complete my overhaul. But if someone get's to this in the year 2028 and would like to develop it, I'll probably still be around studying logic and would be open to your ideas for how it should look.

Just in case someone manages to reach the page before my overhaul is complete, here's a link: Draft:Contingency (philosophy)

🦄 Non-pegasus (talk) 17:07, 22 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Okay. I've been sitting on these edits for months and I decided I needed to revise and upload. I admit that while I gave significant attention to each of my 5 intentions outlined above, there is work to be done. Read-ability is better but really only for a serious logic student, when I would have liked to see this readable also for more early-level logic readers. I guess in practice I wrote this for the more advanced students. Also, I clearly put a lot of emphasis on early modern work when Aristotle probably should have been the bigger focus under the (brand-new) Future Contingency section. Considering the additions, new citations, I'd give myself between 2.5 or 3 stars out of 5. I would really appreciate additional input from someone else who cares a lot about this subject. Cheers to the person in 2028 who sees these talk-page entries and sees what I'm trying to do. My mind is open to constructive criticism and my email notifs should be turned on forever. Let me know! 🦄Non-pegasus (talk) 18:41, 25 February 2024 (UTC)