Worlds of Uncertainty
War, Philosophies and Projects for Order

Argues that though we cannot control uncertainty in the world, measures can be taken to manage unpredictable events and processes.

Peter Haldén (Author)

9781009392686, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 December 2023

332 pages
23 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.491 kg

'In this historically sweeping and intellectually rich analysis, Haldén aims to rethink the dominant understandings of uncertainty in the Western philosophical tradition. Focusing on the ontology of warfare from the early fourteenth century until today, he shows how uncertainty shaped the social and political thinking but also the military policy. This book demonstrates an impressive breadth of knowledge and provides an innovative analysis that challenges the common-sense understandings of uncertainty.' Siniša Malešević, University College, Dublin, and CNAM, Paris

In recent years we have faced huge uncertainty and unpredictability across the world: Covid-19, political turbulence, climate change and war in Europe, among many other events. Through a historical analysis of worldviews, Peter Haldén provides nuance to the common belief in an uncertain world by showing the predictable nature of modern society and arguing that human beings create predictability through norms, laws, trust and collaboration. Haldén shows that, since the Renaissance, two worldviews define Western civilization: first, that the world is knowable and governed by laws, regularities, mechanisms or plan, hence it is possible to control and the future is possible to foresee; second, that the world is governed by chance, impossible to predict and control and therefore shocks and surprises are inevitable. Worlds of Uncertainty argues that between these two extremes lie positions that recognize the principal unpredictability of the world but seek pragmatic ways of navigating through it.

1. Introduction
2. Divine providence, history and fortuna
3. Accommodations of uncertainty (1650–1790)
4. The future as promise, problem and project (1790–1913)
5. Hubris and trepidation (1914–1989)
6. Conjuring uncertainty (1989–2022)
7. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB]