Abstract

The paper tries to demonstrate the validity of Aristotle’s sea-battle argument, which is still considered as invalid by many authors. The first part presents the usual reconstruction of Aristotle’s argument and the reason for its rejection. It presents the late antique adoption of the argument as valid and strong by Ammonios and Boethius as well as its modern defence. In the second part, the elements that together assure the validity of the argument are combined and cast in the form of two premisses, namely fact-correspondence and the unchangeability of facts. It is shown that these two presuppositions together assure the conclusion, i. e. the negation of bivalence for future contingents, and that they are explicitly stated in several of Aristotle’s texts and in Peri Hermeneias 9 in particular.