Contingentism

Necessitism is the view that necessarily everything is necessarily something (so ontology is non-contingent). Analogously, permanentism is the view that always everything is always something (so ontology is unchanging). Different ways of developing these views are distinguished. On the other side, contingentism is the negation of necessitism, and temporaryism is the negation of permanentism.

Throughout this book, I use the term "contingentism" to denote a way of understanding existence that differs usefully from the standard essentialist view.