Compatibilism and the Notion of Rendering Something False

In this paper I am concerned with Peter van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument. I focus on its probably best known version. In this form it crucially employs the notion of rendering a proposition false, a notion that has never been made sufficiently clear. The main aim of my paper is to shed light on this notion. The explications offered so far in the debate all are based on modal concepts. I argue that for sufficient results a “stronger”, hyper-intensional concept is needed, namely the concept expressed by the word “because”. I show that my analysis is superior to the prior ones. On the basis of this analysis I further explain why van Inwagen’s argument fails.