Prediction of historical events is a practical act, not a scientific act of knowledge.
Evidence
But the Theses on Feuerbach had already criticised in advance this simplistic conception. In reality one can “scientifically” foresee only the struggle, but not the concrete moments of the struggle, which cannot but be the results of opposing forces in continuous movement, which are never reducible to fixed quantities since within them quantity is continually becoming quality. In reality one can “foresee” to the extent that one acts, to the extent that one applies a voluntary effort and therefore contributes concretely to creating the result “foreseen”. Prediction reveals itself thus not as a scientific act of knowledge, but as the abstract expression of the effort made, the practical way of creating a collective will. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1558
Categorization
- DEFINE: Gramsci redefines prediction as the expression of voluntary effort creating a collective will rather than as foresight of determinate events.
- XREF: This bears on the Islamophobia readings’ treatment of political struggle and the contingency of outcomes versus deterministic ‘mechanism’ accounts of state racism. — connects to: The future is unknowable by definition, so prediction is only practical action.; Pure inductive knowledge cannot justify claims about the future.; Mechanical causality cannot account for qualitative change or historical novelty. (+1 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1558
Broader Connections
- The future is unknowable by definition, so prediction is only practical action.
#corroborates(0.85) - Pure inductive knowledge cannot justify claims about the future.
#corroborates(0.80) - Futurist prophecy can never be falsified by events
#corroborates(0.80) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 748 - Mechanical causality cannot account for qualitative change or historical novelty.
#corroborates(0.75)