Sibylla or, The revival of prophecyC. A. MaceOmniClassics · Literature
Sibylla or, The revival of prophecy
C. A. MaceA philosopher asks whether prediction can become a disciplined scientific activity rather than an ambitious guess.
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About the book
C. A. Mace considers the modern revival of prophecy through the language of scientific forecasting. If theories are tested by the events they predict, he asks, why has organized knowledge so often stopped short of sustained prediction about human affairs? The essay distinguishes claims about particular future events from more cautious reasoning about broad tendencies. It also stresses the importance of observations and experiments carried forward across generations, beyond the short span rewarded by immediate publication. Written for the Today and Tomorrow series, the book joins methodological reflection with speculation of its own. Its forecasts belong to the intellectual conditions of the 1920s, but its underlying problem remains recognizable: how to make imaginative thinking about the future answerable to evidence without forbidding speculation altogether.
- Prediction and evidence
- Scientific organization
- Speculation and uncertainty
Why read it
Mace connects the reliability of long-range prediction with the less glamorous problem of maintaining observations beyond one researcher's lifetime.
English E. P. Dutton edition published in 1927