ABSTRACT

Futurology encourages the development of knowledge and facts so that prediction will result in consequential behavior. Thus, when futurologists attach themselves to corporate institutions their analysis of predictive behavior is intended to have operational consequences. Some have believed that there is both a soothsaying and prophetic quality to futurology. In a capitalist state such as the United States, futurology is predicated on a strain of deformed Hegelianism. The policy sciences, planning and futurology, became the philosophical pragmatist's practical tool to forget about the past, unless it could be used instrumentally to control the future. The historical precursors to policy planning and futurology were gentle and serious men. Flechtheim's presuppositions and goals are shared by both state socialists and American pragmatists, but each group gives its own meaning to futurology. To be concerned with radical social reconstruction means understanding the difference between facts and truth.