Lorenzo Valla on the Problem of Free Will and Modal Logic

Abstract

The question of free will, that is, the conflict between God's foreknowledge and man's free will, has been a long-standing controversy in the history of philosophy, dating back to Aristotle's discussion of "future contingency" and his refutation of "fatalism". Valla, as a Renaissance humanist, criticized Boethius's solution to the problem of free will in his “Dialogue on Free Will”, but was criticized for not answering the question directly. However, Valla responded to the question again from the perspective of modal logic in his “Dialectical Disputations”. This paper examines the ancient and medieval contexts of the problem of free will separately, and reassesses Valla's logical solution to the problem of free will in terms of the relationship between "future contingency" and the principle of bi-valence.