Beyond Probability? New Normative Paradigms

Abstract

The modern orientation towards ignorance contrasts starkly with traditional approaches. In the older view there is no room even for irreducible uncertainty, and all intractable forms of ignorance are banished from analysis. The modern view, on the other hand, in the words of Renee Fox (1980: 9) sees “errors and mistakes, as well as uncertainty and chance, as perennial parts of the… human condition.” Nor is this view consensual or stationary. At the very least, the past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in public awareness of uncertainty and fundamental challenges to traditional methods for coping with it. Concurrently, applied mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and philosophers have questioned the exalted position of probability theory as the dominant formalism for analyzing uncertainty.

“It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect… Because of this, these are hard times for the human intellect.”Lewis Thomas.

“… everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”Will Rogers.