Table of Contents

Preface Introduction Preliminaries The Shape of Things to Come I. BACKGROUND 1. The Philosophical Anthropology of Forecasting The Indispensability of Forecasters Attitudes toward Foreknowledge: Predictability Believers and Skeptics 2. Historical Stagesetting From Antiquity to the Middle Ages The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries The Nineteenth Century The Rise (and Fall?) of Futurology in the Post-World War II Era II. CONCEPTUAL, EPISTEMIC, AND ONTOLOGICAL BASICS 3. Conceptual Preliminaries Predictive Questions and Answers Predictions versus Forecasts Prediction and Probability Pseudoprediction and Spurious Futurity Prediction and Mathematics Metapredictions, Reflexivity, and Feedback Phenomena 4. Basic Epistemic Issues Rational Anticipation: The Need for Predictive Cogency The Information Sensitivity of Prediction The Essentiality of Detail and the Security Definiteness Tradeoff The Prospect of Rational Prediction and the Justification of Induction The Risk of Error 5. Some Ontological Issues Futuristic Ontology: The Truth Status of Claims about the Future Predictability versus Predetermination: The LaPlacean Vision Statistical Predictability Predictive Reach: Forecasting Horizons and Short-Range versus Long-Range Forecasting Volatility and the Prospects of Prediction: The Circumstantiality or Prediction III. PREDICTIVE METHODS AND THEIR POTENTIAL 6. Predictive Methods Predictive Methodologies Unformalized (Judgmental) Predictions Amalgamating Expert Predictions: Aggregation Process (Averaging) Amalgamating Expert Predictions: Delphi Methodology and Concensus Systematized Expertise ("Expert Systems" or "Bootstrapping") Some Formal Methods of Prediction: Trend Extrapolation, Pattern Fitting Indicators (Rationalized and Unexplained) Black-Box Prediction and Its Role Scientific Prediction: Predictive Validation via Laws and Modeling Second-Order Processes: Forecast Amalgamation 7. The Evaluation of Prediction and Predictors Evaluating Predictive Questions The Resolvability of Predictive Questions Difficulty The Relevancy of Predictive Answers Predictive Detail: Specifics versus Generalities Correctness Accuracy Credibility / Evidentiation / Probability The Dialectic of Credibility and Correctness Robustness On Evaluating Predictors: Standards of Predictive Competence 8. Obstacles to Predictive Foreknowledge The Epistemological and Ontological Limits of Predictability Uncertainty: Ignorance as a Prime Obstacle to Prediction Anarchy and Instability Ontological Impredictability: Chance More on Chance and Uncertainty: The Case of the Surprise Examination Chaos (Or Extreme Volatility) Spontaneity, Choice, and Free Will Innovation Fuzziness: Problems of Quantum Indeterminism Myopia Inferential Incapacity Factor Exfoliation and Impredictability Diffusion Misprediction: Prediction Spoilers IV. PREDICTIVE PRACTICE 9. Prediction in the Sciences Prediction and the Aims of Science The Supposed Symmetry of Prediction and Explanation The Harmony Thesis: The Symbiosis of Explanation and Prediction Predicitve Slack: The Looseness of Fit between Predictive Performance and the Truth of Theories Limits to Predictive Capacity 10. Predictions about Natural Science: The Problem of Future Knowledge The Impermanence of Theory in Natural Science: Why Theories Fail Difficulites in Predicting Future Science In Natural Science, the Present Cannot Speak for the Future Could Natural Science Achieve Predictive Completeness? The Infeasibility of Identifying Insolubilia Predictive Implications of the Information / Knowledge Relationship 11. Prediction in Human Affairs The Fate of Individuals and Groups Prediction in Economics Other Social Sciences (Demographics, Sociology, Politics, etc.) Can History Predict? V. PREDICTIVE LIMITS 12. Fundamental Limits on Predictors The Impracticability of an All-Purpose Predictive Engine Problems of Reflexivity and Metaprediction Predictive Exaggeration and Other Biases 13. Predictive Incapacity and Rational Decision Problems Rationality and Predictability Predictive Overdetermination: The Case of the Predictive Poisoner Another Case of Analysis Underdetermination: The Prisoner's Dilemma Lessons 14. The Shape of Things to Come: Facing the Future Key Aspects of the Future The Problem of the Future's Tractability Coping with Impotence The Portent of the Future: Optimism versus Pessimism Would We Really Want to Know? Coda Notes Bibliography Index of Names

About the Author

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of more than sixty books, including Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge and Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy, both published by SUNY Press. For more than three decades he has been editor of American Philosophical Quarterly.

Reviews

"A bold overview of the nature of forecasting. The topic is significant for a number of fields, from philosophy of science (prediction as confirmation) to game theory, indeed to any area where theoretical or practical prediction is required."--Robert E. Butts, University of Western Ontario "Comprehensive, carefully crafted, scholarly when necessary, and very readable. This is an important book [that] bears strikingly on a wide range of topics."--Robert Almeder, Georgia State University "By sorting through a number of common-sense assumptions and exploring their limitations and strengths, Rescher gives real merit to an intellectual case for a theory of prediction." --Joseph C. Pitt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University