Contingency — What can be but could also not be; the opposite of necessity. A contingent being exists but does not contain within itself the reason for its existence. In medieval cosmology (Thomas Aquinas), the existence of contingent beings requires a Necessary Being as their cause — an argument for God’s existence. In existentialism (Sartre), the radical contingency of human existence — “thrown” into the world without prior reason — is the starting point for both freedom and anxiety.
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