Contingency

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For contingency in estimates, see Cost contingency. In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of facts that are not logically necessarily true or false. Contingency is opposed to necessity: a contingent act is an act which could have not been, an act which is not necessary (could not have not been). Contingency differs from possibility, in a formal sense, as the latter includes statements which are necessarily true as well as not necessarily false, while a statement cannot be said to be contingent if it is true necessarily.

In colloquial English, a contingency is something that can happen, but that generally is not anticipated. Planning for contingencies often requires a more imaginative approach, because contingencies are inherently not obvious. Large organizations, such as governments, are often criticized for not planning for contingencies because the construction of plans to deal with contingencies often involves thinking outside the box. Beforehand, contingencies are hard to predict; this failure to appreciate contingencies ahead of time has led to the formulation of Murphy's law.

In the Dungeons and Dragons themed role-playing games, the term contingency or Spell Contingency refers to a passive spell or neutral spell. The spell itself is made up of one or more lower level spells which automatically spring into effect once certain conditions are met. Though similar to the spell "Spell Trigger", the spell: Spell Contingency is not under the direct control of the user, i.e. it cannot be used as an extra ability and moreover Spell Contingency tends to be of a more defensive nature than offensive. Spell Contingency is furthermore advanced by a more powerful version of the same spell called Chain Contingency, where a larger number of subsidiary spells of a higher level can be used as its spell composite.

External links

• Michael Shermer, "Glorious Contingency," Metanexus Net

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Last updated on Wednesday February 20, 2008 at 08:23:39 PST (GMT -0800)
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