Foundations of Futures Studies by Jose Valciukas

Author:Jose Valciukas [Valciukas, Jose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Future Studies
ISBN: 9781351519434
Google: szgrDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T03:26:22+00:00

But the Future Is Not Factual

In sum, the claims considered above that futures studies is an art and not a science are not well founded. They rest either on such a loose definition of art that art cannot be distinguished from science or on false ideas about the defining characteristics of both art and science.

There is, however, a third argument against futures studies being or becoming a science that many futurists find convincing, and it is an argument made by such writers as D. Bell and Lasswell. It is that the future, as we saw in chapter 3, is not yet existent and, therefore, is not factual. Although this assertion is true, it is wrong to conclude that, therefore, futures studies is not or cannot be a science.

Although, since it doesn’t yet exist, we cannot study the future directly, we can study it indirectly by studying factual things that have a bearing on the future. We have already seen in chapter 2, for example, that present possibilities for the future are factual. They can be studied, like other aspects of reality, using the methods of science. There are many other factual phenomena that bear on the coming future, as well. They can be investigated and used as part of the reasoning and marshaling of evidence underlying the construction and analysis of images of the future. These past and present things were—or are—existential. They really happened or are happening. Thus, they can be observed and studied just as any other phenomena that are subjects of scientific investigation. They may not tell us what the future will be, but they help us in testing our assertions about the possible, the probable and even, as we shall see in volume 2, the preferable future. Furthermore, some of them may be instrumental in bringing a given future into being.

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