VI. UNCERTAINTY 1. Uncertainty and Acting uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters. They are only two different modes of establishing one thing. We may assume that the outcome of all events | VI. UNCERTAINTY 1. Uncertainty and Acting The uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters. They are only two different modes of establishing one thing. We may assume that the outcome of all events and changes is uniquely determined by eternal unchangeable laws governing becoming and development in the whole universe. We may consider the necessary connection and interdependence of all phenomena . their causal concatenation as the fundamental and ultimate fact. We may entirely discard the notion of undetermined chance. But however that may be or appear to the mind of a perfect intelligence the fact remains that to acting man the future is hidden. If man knew the future he would not have to choose and would not act. He would be like an automaton reacting to stimuli without any will of his own. Some philosophers are prepared to explode the notion of man s will as an illusion and self-deception because man must unwittingly behave according to the inevitable laws of causality. They may be right or wrong from the point of view of the prime mover or the cause of itself. However from the human point of view action is the ultimate thing. We do not assert that man is free in choosing and acting. We merely establish the fact that he chooses and acts and that we are at a loss to use the methods of the natural sciences for answering the question why he acts this way and not otherwise. Natural science does not render the future predictable. It makes it possible to foretell the results to be obtained by definite actions. But it leaves unpredictable two spheres that of insufficiently known natural phenomena and that of human acts of choice. Our ignorance with regard to these two spheres taints all human actions with uncertainty. Apodictic certainty is only within the orbit of the deductive system of aprioristic theory. The most that can be attained with regard to
