Future tense explanations?

Question

Is it possible to explain in the future tense? For example, "there will be smoke" because "there will be fire"?

Answer 1

Short Answer

Yes, and the future tense broadly segregates classes of explanation according to philosophers; if one presumes uncertainty in one's claims, then the explanation might broadly be considered scientific; if one relies on unjustified beliefs, the explanation might be termed an article of faith or true belief in the sense of the true believer. Both are forms of explanation, but there is a profound philosophical distinction which depends on the intent of the locution of the claim. Such differences hinge upon metaphysical presuppositions of the claimant's epistemological beliefs, what is termed by many as metaepistemology.

Long Answer

If an explanation is proffered in the future tense as a hypothetical, then future tense raises the issue of modality. In this way, one is dealing with an explanatory prediction since the speaker, by context, presumes his own fallibility. For example, if Einstein were to have said, light is going to bend because of my theory, he is working with an implicit or explicit presumption that the claim is open to confirmation, verification, or falsification. This is why among the science-savvy, one often hears lectures on the difference between hypothesis and theory.

Alternatively, however, a speaker may use the future tense presuming their own certainty, and therefore the pragmatic aspect of the locution is meant to be a correspondent truth. An absolutist, for instance, particularly if also a true-believer, may simply give an explanation in the future tense and not make the distinction between past, present, and future in terms of epistemic modality. A claim like that in the extreme might appear as "If you kill in the name of SuchAndSuch, you will be rewarded in the afterlife because InsertFundamentalistDoctrineHere; after all, that is how it has been, how it is, and how it will be." You can see how in such a claim might be considered (right or wrong) incorrigible. Words such as faith, dogma, kool-aid, and ideology are often bandied about in such a context of interpreting epistemological positions.

So, there are two distinct uses of the future tense in practice. The first of them pertains to an open examination of modality be it termed epistemic or alethic. In this sense, future verb tense is very important because placing events or actions in the future makes it uncertain barring some extreme presumption of determinism. Inductive logic is invoked normally in these situations. For example, consider the following claim:

He will arrive at home this evening.

All things being equal, the fact this claim is in the future tense is indicative of a degree of uncertainty. For instance:

He will arrive at home this evening (according to his claim).
He will arrive at home this evening (weather permitting).
He will arrive at home this evening (presuming he isn't arrested). [and so on...]

In this case, explanation should be understood as tentative and indicative of the defeasibility of reason. When one wants to use shiny words to raise this caveat to consciousness, one often sees the phrase ceteris paribus which simply translates as all things being equal or could simply communicated with the adverb 'usually' or 'generally'.

When you hear the caricature "science vs. religion" or "skepticism vs. faith", that is what is being drawn out: the underlying presumptions about modality in relation to the question of metaphysical necessity between the two. Thus, faith can be simplified to the position that truth is contingent upon belief, where as in skepticism, again to do violence to the complexity and nuance, one can define it as belief is contingent upon truth. Interestingly, David Lewis created a fascinating system of belief through his rationalist tendencies termed modal realism. From WP:

Modal realism is the view propounded by David Kellogg Lewis that all possible worlds are real in the same way as is the actual world: they are "of a kind with this world of ours."3 It is based on the following tenets: possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible entities; the term actual in actual world is indexical, i.e. any subject can declare their world to be the actual one, much as they label the place they are "here" and the time they are "now".

Thus, the future tense is indicative of modality, and modality metaphysically necessitates alternative "places" of physical reality called possible worlds. This is a perfect example of a rational belief system (thus not susceptible to claims of true belief levied against the claimant) that puts logic before belief as opposed to empirical evidence thus satisfying rationalist claims for justification (and broadly ignoring empirical requirements) of knowledge.