Cinema: The Circus (1928)

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Uncertainty and Acting

The uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters. They are only two different modes of establishing one thing.

We may assume that the outcome of all events and changes is uniquely determined by eternal unchangeable laws governing becoming and development in the whole universe. We may consider the necessary connection and interdependence of all phenomena, i.e., their causal concatenation, as the fundamental and ultimate fact. We may entirely discard the notion of undetermined chance. But however that may be, or appear to the mind of a perfect intelligence, the fact remains that to acting man the future is hidden. If man knew the future, he would not have to choose and would not act. He would be like an automaton, reacting to stimuli without any will of his own.

Some philosophers are prepared to explode the notion of man's will as an illusion and self-deception because man must unwittingly behave according to the inevitable laws of causality. They may be right or wrong from the point of view of the prime mover or the cause of itself. However, from the human point of view action is the ultimate thing. We do not assert that man is "free" in choosing and acting. We merely establish the fact that he chooses and acts and that we are at a loss to use the methods of the natural sciences for answering the question why he acts this way and not otherwise.

Natural science does not render the future predictable. It makes it possible to foretell the results to be obtained by definite actions. But it leaves unpredictable two spheres: that of insufficiently known natural phenomena and that of human acts of choice. Our ignorance with regard to these two spheres taints all human actions with uncertainty. Apodictic certainty is only within the orbit of the deductive system of aprioristic theory. The most that can be attained with regard to reality is probability.

It is not the task of praxeology to investigate whether or not it is permissible to consider as certain some of the theorems of the empirical [p. 106] natural sciences. This problem is without practical importance for praxeological considerations. At any rate, the theorems of physics and chemistry have such a high degree of probability that we are entitled to call them certain for all practical purposes. We can practically forecast the working of a machine constructed according to the rules of scientific technology. But the construction of a machine is only a part in a broader program that aims at supplying the consumers with the machine's products. Whether this was or was not the most appropriate plan depends on the development of future conditions which at the time of the plan's execution cannot be forecast with certainty. Thus the degree of certainty with regard to the technological outcome of the machine's construction, whatever it may be, does not remove the uncertainty inherent in the whole action. Future needs and valuations, the reaction of men to changes in conditions, future scientific and technological knowledge, future ideologies and policies can never be foretold with more than a greater or smaller degree of probability. Every action refers to an unknown future. It is in this sense always a risky speculation.

The problems of truth and certainty concern the general theory of human knowledge. The problem of probability, on the other hand, is a primary concern of praxeology.

(Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, Chapter VI. Uncertainty)

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Leisure and Culture: Rugby

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, while it was growing the industrial economy, emerged different kinds of Sport. One of them (maybe the most important) was the Rugby. On the one hand it showed us the new aristocracy from Oxford, Eton, etc. and on the other hand served as cultural event for many people and lifestyles all over the world. 

The picture above is a great example of this: The Roses Match (painted by William Barnes Wollen)

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If This is a Man

• You who live safe
• In your warm houses,
• You who find, returning in the evening,
• Hot food and friendly faces:
• 
  

• Consider if this is a man
• Who works in the mud,
• Who does not know peace,
• Who fights for a scrap of bread,
• Who dies because of a yes or a no.
• Consider if this is a woman
• Without hair and without name,
• With no more strength to remember,
• Her eyes empty and her womb cold
• Like a frog in winter.
• 
  

• Meditate that this came about:
• I commend these words to you.
• Carve them in your hearts
• At home, in the street,
• Going to bed, rising;
• Repeat them to your children.
• 
  

• Or may your house fall apart,
• May illness impede you,
• May your children turn their faces from you.

Primo Levi, 1947

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