One expression can hold certainty and ignorance of the future together.

Evidence

The dialectical composition of such concepts as ‘the future’, ‘plasticity’, and ‘temporality’ forms the anticipatory structure operating within subjectivity itself as Hegel conceived it. To distinguish this structure from the future as it is ordinarily understood, we will name this structure ‘to see (what is) coming’ (le ‘voir venir’), obeying Hegel’s injunction to philosophize in one’s own idiom. ‘Voir venir’ in French means to wait, while, as is prudent, observing how events are developing. But it also suggests that other people’s intentions and plans must be probed and guessed at. It is an expression that can thus refer at one and the same time to the state of ‘being sure of what is coming’ (‘être sûr de ce qui vient’) and of ‘not knowing what is coming’ (‘ne pas savoir ce qui va venir’). It is on this account that the ‘voir venir’, ‘to see (what is) coming’, can represent that interplay, within Hegelian philosophy, of teleological necessity and surprise. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 250

Categorization

• DEFINE: The key definition of ‘voir venir’ naming the full dialectical structure that will organize the rest of the book.