ABSTRACT
There have always been important thinkers who maintained that the future course of human affairs is objectively certain. Suppose that Cassandra had specified that Troy would fall when a wooden horse was brought within its walls. The myth of Oedipus seems specially designed to show that man is powerless to change a future of which he has foreknowledge. A principle of uncertainty characterizes the particular events which most directly interest us, inasmuch as any knowledge we acquire of them can incite us to an action which will contradict this knowledge. For a given person, who is at once knower and agent, the future is divided into dominating and masterable parts. The government controls monetary and fiscal policy, public-works spending, and so forth, and thus it can master my dominating future. It is important to realize that neither a primary forecast nor a secondary forecast constitutes a historical prediction. This implies a "prediction" bearing upon the behavior of the authority.
