On the Horizon

Social foresight
Roberto Poli
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Roberto Poli , (2015),"Social foresight", On the Horizon, Vol. 23 Iss 2 pp. 85 - 99
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 Social foresight
Roberto Poli
Roberto Poli is Professor
at the Department of
Sociology and Social
Research, University of
Trento, Trento, Italy.
Downloaded by Professor Roberto Poli At 07:32 07 May 2015 (PT)
Received 24 January 2015
Revised 9 March 2015
Accepted 9 March 2015
DOI 10.1108/OTH-01-2015-0003
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the three guiding ideas of the social foresight course,
namely, the difference between abstract and concrete futures (i.e. the difference between risk and
uncertainty); the three levels of futures studies (forecast, foresight and anticipation); and an overview of
the early signs of the incipient shift of human and social sciences from their so-far predominant
past-orientation to a new, still unfolding, future-orientation.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a reconstruction of the guiding ideas that have been
used for designing the social foresight course.
Findings – As far as anticipation is concerned, the authors’ understanding of anticipation is still
cursory, and the novelty of the perspective may conceal the difficulty implied by this otherwise
refreshingly new vision. The theory is at such an early phase of development that it still lacks a unified
conceptual language for theorizing and operationalizing anticipation to facilitate cross-disciplinary
conversations.
Originality/value – The ability to anticipate in complex environments may improve the resilience of
societies under threat from a global proliferation of agents and forces by articulating insecurities through
anticipatory processes. However, to achieve this end, the joint expertise and theoretical awareness of
both the futurists and the human and social scientists is needed.
Keywords Risk, Uncertainty, Futures literacy, Anticipation, Abstract future, Latent
Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction
The three courses “Social Foresight”, “Methods” and “Scenarios” present the basics of
futures studies. “Social Foresight” introduces futures studies and provides the conceptual
scaffolding for the entire master program; “Methods” offers an overview of selected
methods such as strategic interviews, Delphi, Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) and
morphological analysis; “Scenarios” adopts the learning-by-doing approach: students are
asked to select a topic of their interest and the teacher works as a facilitator helping them
to build a set of scenarios according to the intuitive methodology known as the Shell
method. After completing the scenarios, an overview of different scenarios’ methodologies
is presented to the students. For the first edition of the master program, the same teacher
has given these three courses. While this choice facilitates the courses’ overall coherence,
the implicit danger is that of fostering a unilateral perspective point. For this reason, the next
editions of the master will consider assigning these courses to different teachers.
The following sections of the paper present the three guiding ideas of the social foresight
course, namely:
1. The difference between abstract and concrete futures (i.e. the difference between risk
and uncertainty) (Section 2).
2. The three levels of future studies (Section 4).
VOL. 23 NO. 2 2015, pp. 85-99, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1074-8121 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 85
 3. An overview of the early signs of the incipient shift of the human and social sciences
from their so-far predominant past-orientation to a new, still unfolding, future-orientation
(Section 5).
A few introductory notes on the concepts of “latents” and “futures in the making” – which
will be used in Section 2 – are collected in Section 3.

2. Apropos risk and uncertainty: abstract and concrete futures

Economics deals with the future in many different ways, at many different levels.
Governments deal with forecasts on the inflation rate and the increase or decline in the
gross domestic product; almost any aspect of the strategic management of companies
concerns the future: from calculation of the production of goods adjusted to seasonal
variations to long-term decisions about producing entirely new goods or opening new
factories. In its turn, finance is entirely based on future expectations (“buy assets that are
going to grow in value, sell assets that are going to fall in value”). According to rational
expectations theory, aggregate predictions are correct because individual errors are
random. Therefore, predicted outcomes do not diverge systematically from the resulting
market equilibrium. As a consequence, the uncertainty of the future becomes a predictable
forecast, paving the way for the rational calculation of optimal choices Beckert (2013,
p. 221).
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Despite all the objections raised against the just summarized train of thought – for instance,
those centered on the role played by cognitive biases or true novelties or the fact that
“during the past thirty years substantial experimental data have shown that all axioms of
expected utility theory have been violated by real subjects in experimentally controlled
situations” (Berthoz, 2003) – the ideology of the rational calculation of optimal choices is still
the position defended by the vast majority of working economists. The problem is that real
agents are far from being ideal or idealized decision-makers, as expected utility theory
assumes. On the contrary, they systematically make mistakes, for various reasons,
including social pressure, the tendency to agree with others, the influence exerted by
hierarchical structures, the role of emotions, the desire to be right and the way in which
problems are represented. On the other hand, economists tend to analyze uncertainty as
if it were a risk. The distinction between the calculability of risk as opposed to the
incalculability of uncertainty was introduced by Frank Knight in as early as the 1920s
(Knight, 1921). This notwithstanding, within economic thought, there seems to be an
unrestrainable tendency to blur the differences between them and to see everything as a
risk. This may depend on the fact that economic agents see the future as a commodity, a
good to be traded like any other good:
 banks calculate the value of the future with respect to interest and credit; and
 insurance companies calculate the value of future risk.
These futures are abstract possibilities, independent from any context. They are reduced
to pure, i.e. abstract, exchange value. The future as a commodity “can be calculated
anywhere, at any time and exploited for any circumstance” (Adam and Groves, 2007,
p. 10). Once the future has been traded as an abstract exchange value, “speed provides not
only evolutionary and cultural but also commercial advantage” (Adam and Groves, 2007,
p. 102). However, trading concrete with abstract futures paves the way for the onset of
uncertainty (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 55). As the experience of the past two centuries
shows, “efforts to control, manage and engineer the future produce unprecedented
uncertainties” (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 77).
The tendency toward higher degrees of uncertainty experienced by contemporary society
is further strengthened by the interplay between abstract futures and the role of information
and communication technologies. Not only has communication become instantaneous but
is has also networked across space to cover almost the entire planet. As a consequence,
the usual, primarily local, order of causal dependences recedes into the background and

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 contributes less and less to sense-making efforts. Again, the net result arising from abstract
futures and globally networked instantaneous communications is the rise of uncertainty
(Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 55).
Disturbingly, as uncertainty increases, the capacity to anticipate real, i.e. concrete, futures
decreases (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 35). The more our activities generate outcomes
extending into the deep future, the more our explicit anticipatory capacities diminish.
Leaving abstract futures aside, two main kinds of concrete futures can be distinguished:
pre-given futures and futures in the making. The former are the futures resulting from
relevant pasts, the futures resulting from given structures, from individual embodiment and
social embedding in networks of social relations. These futures are primarily past-driven
and common sense-based. On the other hand, futures in the making are growing, possibly
latent, futures. Adam and Groves distinguish them, respectively, as “present future” and
“future present”. Present futures are “futures that are imagined, planned, projected, and
produced in and for the present” (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 28). Economic and scientific
forecasts are cases in point. They colonize the future from the present (Miller, 2007).
Present futures are continuations of the past through the present. Future presents, on the
other hand, are futures “that can be known, “seen” and anticipated”. As far as future
presents are concerned, they are the futures that are used in the present, the futures that
enter into and shape the present.
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The distinction between “present future” and “future present” was initially introduced by
Luhmann (1982), p. 281. According to Luhmann, while present futures are utopian, future
presents are technologically biased. Adam and Grove develop a different understanding of
these two expressions based on the difference between “pre-given futures” and “futures in
the making”. I am suggesting that they add a more explicitly active component to their
description indicated by the expression “using the future” – a distinctive feature of
anticipation.
To return for a moment to present futures, the value of a given present future is calculated
against its alternative present futures. The present future generating the largest profit is the
future with the highest value. “In this way, the future as such becomes tradable: one future
outcome is tradable for another, on the basis of its estimated returns” (Adam and Groves,
2007, p. 73).
Adam and Groves call the future in the making “latent”. A latent future is a future “on the
way” that still has to surface and become visible. Even if a latent future is hidden and
invisible in the present, it is nevertheless an actual component of the present: it is a future
“living within the present” (on latents, see Section 3 and also Poli (2011b)).
As we have seen, the invention of abstract futures is one of the sources of the rising level
of uncertainty in contemporary society. The idea of developing strategies intended to
reverse the order of dependency between abstract and concrete futures presents itself as
the natural option to consider.
If we construe abstract or calculable futures as pertaining to the domain of “risk” and
concrete or non-calculable futures as characterizing “uncertainty”, the concept of “fictional
expectation” recently introduced by Beckert may offer us the conceptual tool required to
reverse the connections between abstract and concrete futures. Despite the true
uncalculability of the future, actors must develop expectations:
[. . .] among other things, with regard to technological development, consumer preferences,
prices, availability of raw materials, the strategies of competitors, the demand of labor, the
trustworthiness of promises, the state of the natural environment, political regulations, and the
interdependencies among these factors (Beckert, 2013, pp. 221-222).

Hence, expectations are real fictions – there is no chance of seeing them through the
opposition between truth and falsehood; the proper opposition will be based on the
difference between convincing as opposed to unconvincing expectations. Moreover,

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 expectations are more than “mere fantasies” because actors develop plans that are based
on and include them. Fictional expectations work on an “as if” base:
[. . .] fictional expectations represent future events as if they were true, making actors capable
of acting purposefully with reference to an uncertain future, even though this future is indeed
unknown, unpredictable, and therefore only pretended in the fictional expectations (Beckert,
2013, p. 226).

The difference between calculable risks and incalculable uncertainty reverberates on the
difference between closed futures – closed because calculable – and open futures. While
there is only one way to be closed, there are many ways to be open. There are also many
different ways to open a closed system, which implies that the process of opening a system
is not generic.
The difference between risk and uncertainty becomes even clearer as soon as one realizes
the different strategies implied by them:
 whenever one does not have enough information to address any given risk, the guiding
imperative is to collect more information; and
 whenever one does not have enough information to address uncertainty – that is
something that is not calculable – collecting more information makes little sense.
In this latter case, the best strategy is to explore possible futures, to become aware of the
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constraints shaping our perspective points and eventually reframe them.

3. Annex – on the theoretical background of futures studies

The distinction in Section 2 aforementioned between abstract and concrete futures
mentioned “latents” and “futures in the making” – two categories that may require some
explaining.
In this paper, I shall refrain from reconstructing the history of the concept of “latent” in
sociology or other social sciences. My purpose here is far more modest, being limited to a
short reconstruction of the emergence of latents within futures studies (Poli, 2011b).
Bertrand de Jouvenel’s (1967) The Art of Conjecture introduced the distinction between
facta and futura. He noted that science deals with facts, it can extrapolate from facts,
and it is able to develop subsequent predictions. On the other hand, futura proper, what
are still to happen, do not pertain to science. There is consequently no science of
futura. When one speaks of futura, one does not speak of facts, but rather of cognitive
constructs, ideas, expectations, hopes or fears. De Jouvenel forcefully defended the
deep divide separating facta and futura and repeatedly claimed that there is no science
of futura.
The difference between the strength of facta and the evanescence of futura, explicitly
raises the question of the scientific status of futures studies. How is it possible to
seriously study something that lies outside the boundaries of science? Well, it cannot be
done. “Knowledge of the future is a contradiction in terms”, writes (de Jouvenel, 1967,
p. 5). The best that one can do is develop specific techniques – analogous to the path
already opened for example by architecture or medicine – or ad hoc practices –
following the path opened by the art of advertising or counseling (Poli, 2013c). The title
itself of de Jouvenel’s book – The Art of Conjecture – explicitly signals that its subject
topic cannot be captured by science – that is, knowledge – but instead can be explored
by a way of knowing that appears to be more closely connected with a kind of intuitive
vision.
The field of futures studies is grounded on these premises – as it has been for 50 years –
it is not surprising that most of those active in the field have no other choice than to adopt
an overtly pragmatic point of view. However, to establish the future as a proper research

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 topic, more work needs to be done and, fortunately, many scholars with many different
backgrounds are actively contributing to the effort. At minimum:
[. . .] we need to avoid the conclusion, which arises from the distinction between facta and futura
[. . .] that there is no pre-figured future to be known, nothing to be foretold beyond the “factual”
patterns, cycles and rates of change that continue from the past (Adam and Groves, 2007,
p. 32).

De Jouvenel’s clear distinction between facta and futura became less clear when Bell
(2003, p. 76) introduced the notion of dispositions. Bell’s move was a major leap forward
because dispositions are far from being cognitive artifacts. Dispositions are facts with an
anchor in the future; they are facts that can happen if the relevant triggers are activated. A
disposition is the capacity of sugar to melt in water or the capacity of glass to break when
it falls on the floor. It may well happen that a given pinch of sugar will never come in contact
with water or that the glass will never fall to the floor. The possibility, however, that the sugar
will be mixed with water, or that the glass will fall, is always there because it is a possibility
structurally embedded in the nature (i.e. in these cases, the chemical composition) of sugar
and glass. Interpreted in this way, these futura are a specific category of facts: those that
might be realized even if they are not presently so. More than physical-based dispositions,
the dispositions most relevant to futures study are those connected to the capacity of
individuals, groups and entire societies to change, to become different. What matters most
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for our purposes here is that these capacities can be considered effective components of
real entities, whether they are in a state of active, explicit manifestation or whether they are
in a state of latency, present beneath the surface of things and ready to manifest
themselves if the appropriate circumstances intervene to trigger them (Poli, 2011b).
Bell’s introduction of dispositions shows that the past, present and future are reciprocally
linked together, that there are structures connecting them and that these structures are
present even when they have not been explicitly activated. Not everything real is fully
displayed in front of us. There are reals that are there even if they are in a dormant mode.
Apart from dispositions as latent structures waiting to be activated, one should also
consider what Adam and Groves (2007) call “futures in the making”. These are futures
whose conditions, supporting structures and possible outcomes are still maturing. I shall
distinguish two different classes of futures in the making:

1. Those related to maturing conditions.

2. Those related to maturing outcomes.
So as to grasp the idea of futures in the making better, the limitations of the distinction
between facta and future should be further analyzed (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 35). In
short:
[. . .] this distinction is a crude and static simplification whose specific framing of the issue
brackets and thus bypasses the temporal complexity of the contemporary condition on a
number of counts.

Hence, the facta/futura opposition is unable to consider “the ‘factuality’ of past futures that
are in progress, futures already under way in our present, set in motion but not visible
because they have not yet materialized into empirically accessible phenomena”, such as
“the long-term effects of radiation, chemical pollution and global warming, that is, of
processes already in progress that have not yet materialized into facta in the conventional
sense” (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 36). Moreover, “it fails to differentiate between efforts
to know future presents and present futures. Both pertain to futura rather than facta”. While
“the scientific mode of inquiry has no tools with which to engage with future presents [. . .]
future studies, in contrast, might have appropriate tools, such as scenario planning, horizon
scanning or back-casting, all of which place the investigator’s object of inquiry in the future
present” (Adam and Groves, 2007, p. 36).

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 The problem with futures studies as usually practiced is that their futures are often seen as
only imaginings. Both Adam and Groves and myself are instead saying that this is too
simplified as an account of futures because at least some futures are definitely more than
imaginings in the sense that they are real processes in a state of latency (Adam and
Groves, 2007, p. 37; Poli, 2013c, 2011b, 2011a; Poli, 2006).
The main consequence arising from the introduction of latents is that attention shifts to the
present and its structures. Latents are seeds of the future in the present (Poli, 2013a). The
past few years have seen a variety of proposals centered on the idea that a variety of futura
are included in the present as latents.
Richard Slaughter and Sohail Inayatullah have classified future studies according to their
levels of depth. According to Slaughter, analyses of the future range from the utter
superficiality of pop futurism, through problem-oriented studies broadly anchored in the
work of sociologists and economists, to critical or activist proposals (Slaughter, 2004).
Subsequent works by Slaughter prefer to reconstruct the depth of futures exercises from
the point of view of the four-quadrant framework – the idea being that only exercises are
able to address all the quadrants which are adequate (Slaughter, 2010). The guiding idea
of Inayatullah’s (2004) framework, called CLA –, is that the present is characterized by
phenomena working at different levels of depth, duration and visibility. The most superficial
phenomena are also the ones most easily visible and short-lived. Deeper-lying phenomena
are less immediately visible and have greater temporal inertia; they usually last longer.
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Inayatullah distinguishes four levels of phenomena, respectively, called “litanies”, “social

causes”, “worldviews” and “myths”. Fashionable behaviors, styles and, in general, the most
variable social phenomena, pertain to the level of litanies. By contrast, myths concern those
aspects of social reality that behave as constantly active forces and raise the greatest
resistance to modification. Litanies are superficial, short-lived and visible. Myths are
deep-lying, almost permanent and they tend to be invisible. Between the two extreme
cases of litanies and myths, Inayatullah (2004) places social phenomena and worldviews.
The former are structural phenomena, governed by forms of social causality, while the latter
are general Weltanschauungen, close to ideologies.

4. The three levels of futures studies

Tuomi (2013), a background study for the European Forum on Forward-Looking Activities
(EFFLA), a working group of the European Commission, distinguishes among what can
perhaps be called “forecasting”, “foresight 1.0” and “foresight 2.0”. This is also called
“next-generation or design-based foresight” and fully includes the main ideas underlying
anticipation, such as futures literacy and complexity (Miller et al., 2014).
The first layer (forecasting) is the properly predictive (“calculable”) component of futures
studies. Its models tend to adopt either a very short – as with econometric models – or a
very long – as with climate change models – temporal window. It is often quantitative, even
point-based, and starts from an underlying assumption of continuity: the system under this
study will continue to work more or less as it has been working so far because its structure
remains essentially the same or the laws governing it remain the same. The relevant futures
are all past-based, as happen for time-series extrapolations.
Foresight 1.0 includes most traditional futures studies. It is not predictive, and for this
reason, the main output of a Foresight 1.0 exercise is the production of a variety of possible
futures. This first layer of foresight is often qualitative; moreover, it includes and even
focuses on discontinuities. As practiced, Foresight 1.0 shows a limited acceptation of
complexity.
Foresight 2.0 or design-based foresight shares some of the features of Foresight 1.0,
namely, that it is non-predictive, qualitative and focused on discontinuity. The
distinguishing features of Foresight 2.0 are those that are coming to be known as “futures
literacy” (Miller, 2006, 2007; Miller et al., 2014), together with a full acceptation of

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 complexity. The two main components of futures literacy are a classification of the types of
futures and a classification of the modes of using the future (see Sections 3.1 and 3.2). All
together, these components provide the minimal framework needed to deal with
uncertainty, the main issue underlying Foresight 2.0 and which gives rise to what Tuomi
calls “the articulation problem”.

4.1 Types of future

During the first half of the twentieth century, attitudes toward the future were developed
following an essentially schizophrenic attitude according to which the future was, at the
same time, both positive and negative (or, by going to the extreme, as both utopian and
dystopian). The most likely explanation is the power of technology, which is seen as
simultaneously able, remarkably to improve any aspect of life and prone to generate new
unbearable problems. During the second part of the century, the utopian side of the
equation slowly receded into the background and the dystopian component took center
stage. Today, the social capacity to see the future is apparently so poor that it is unable to
foster either utopian or dystopian visions, which are possibly replaced by visions of empty
spaces.
Like any other visions, the vision of the future as an empty space has its roots in given social
practices. The vision of an empty space implies the substitution of concrete futures with
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abstract futures; that is, with futures that can be freely traded (see Section 2 above).
Provided that this connection is correct, the consequence is important; the social capacity
to develop a concrete sense of the future requires that at least some futures which are not
tradable. Economics may thus have to reconsider the balance between “free trade” as
developed by abstractly rational agents and “situated trades” as developed by real,
concretely rational, agents.
However, as far as the problem of classifying the main types of futures is concerned, the
classic typology is the one initially introduced by Amara (1981) among possible, plausible,
probable and preferred futures. The first three types are descriptive, while the fourth is
normative. Possible futures are the futures that we can imagine, including both those
relying on available knowledge and those that may depend on knowledge that is not
presently available but may be developed as time progresses (the “warp drive” of the Star
Trek universe, Voros (2001), or President Kennedy’s Apollo moon landing). Plausible
futures are the futures that we can imagine, given the presently available knowledge.
Probable futures are the futures linked to known trends. While it is admitted that trends can
deflect and change direction and that new trends can arise and old ones vanish, probable
futures are, nevertheless, seen as extensions of the present. These three families of futures
are organized in such a way that probable futures are a subset of plausible futures, which
are a subset of possible futures. Finally, preferable futures are different from the previous
three cases, in the sense that they are normative. Preferable futures are the futures in which
we would like to live. While preferable futures are a subset of possible futures, they may or
may not be a subset of either plausible or probable futures.
This classification of futures is time dependent, in the sense that a future may change class
as time proceeds. The following quote from (Voros, 2001) well explains what I mean:
The Apollo Moon Landing was a preferred future of President Kennedy which began as merely
possible but not yet plausible (from the perspective of 1961) because the knowledge did not yet
exist at that time to achieve the goal. The requisite knowledge was created during the decade
of the 1960s until the idea of actually achieving the landing in the desired time-frame moved into
the realm of the plausible, then the probable, and was finally actualized as reality in 1969.

Despite the intuitive appeal of this classification of futures, I fear that the result of its
inclusion-based logic gives a possibly unintended priority to continuity over disruption. In
this regard, Guyer’s (2007) analysis of near futures may serve as a partial antidote. Before
providing a short reconstruction of Guyer’s idea, it is worth mentioning that her paper has

VOL. 23 NO. 2 2015 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 91

 ignited, for the first time, a debate on anthropology and the future. Previous efforts to call
attention to the future from within anthropology, such as Munn (1992) or Wallman (1991),
had little impact.
Guyer’s analysis is based on the concept of “near future”. The question that she raises is
whether the near future includes “a gap, a space, a rupture in time”. If indeed the near
future includes a temporal rupture, this implies that previous frameworks providing
temporal coherence have been substituted by a series of new frameworks “entailing
continual temporal arbitrage to stay afloat” (Han, 2004; Guyer, 2007). Otherwise stated,
while it is granted that the far future will include major discontinuities, the issue is whether
the opposition between continuity and discontinuity characterizes also the future in the
present or the near future.

4.2 Ways to use the future

There are many ways to use the future. The simplest distinction is between explicit and
implicit anticipations. Concerning explicit anticipation, Miller (2007) distinguishes three
main uses: optimization, contingency and novelty. Optimization futures are used to
“colonize” the future on the basis of closed anticipatory assumptions that inform
extrapolation; contingent futures are used to prepare for anticipated surprises, but as
preparation they cannot, almost by definition, take into account unknowable novelty; novel
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futures are used to make sense of differences that are not just unpredictable or random but
fundamentally unknowable in advance (Miller, 2012, p. 41).
The point of distinguishing these three categories is to help meet the challenge of linking
specific tasks to specific methods or approaches for both thinking about and shaping the
future. Because optimization actively attempts to impose patterns from the past on the
future, it privileges causal–predictive methods, often implemented through formal (usually
algorithmic) models running historical data. Contingency planning is how we try to prepare
for already recognized possible surprises (often to “survive” or continue without systemic
disruption). Using novel futures to discover new ways to make sense of the emergent
present is one way to take advantage of the unknowable as it starts to become knowable,
enhancing the capacity to discover the present. Novelty includes objects and processes
emerging from our activities and the subsequent actions that we perform upon and with
them.
These three ways of using the future can be further clarified by making the constructions
that they explicitly exploit. People using the future as optimized knowledge understand
reality as determined and completely formalizable – “completely” in the sense of “as far as
the problems that are relevant to us are concerned”. The closed system approach, system
dynamics, trend extrapolation – all components of forecasting – are some of the preferred
tools. The contingency planning approach is more flexible in the sense that it must
somehow combine qualitative and quantitative methods (such as Delphi and forecasting).
This framework relies on continuous revision based on both closed and open systems.
Finally, the appreciation of novelty depends even more on the reframing, or questioning of
existing sense-making; it requires an even greater capacity to invent and explore openness
in all its forms. One of the striking aspects of the emergence of anticipation as a research
field is that it addresses precisely the needs and resources that pull and push the capacity
to embrace novelty.
The distinction among the three ways to use the future is meant to be analytical. It does not
imply that at any given time people, communities or institutions individually use only one of
them. Indeed, all the ways of using the future are usually used together in different
proportions. The analytic distinction into three main types is a conceptual tool with which to
better classify and understand the way in which communities and other relevant subjects
use the future.

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 All three uses of anticipation can serve human intention and volition, including the desire to
assure individual, organizational and species resilience. By providing distinct categories
and methods for integrating the future into the present, the practice of anticipation can
enhance the capacity of people, communities and organizations to manage and take
advantage of the stress and excitement generated by the only certainty that we know –
constant change.

4.3 Futures literacy

The current situation is one where the capacity to understand anticipation is becoming both
more operationally doable and desirable. The emergence of this capacity – in a way that
may be compared to the push and pull of the emergence of the universal ability to read and
write during the Industrial Revolution – has been called Futures Literacy (Miller, 2007; Miller,
2012; Miller et al., 2014). As with reading and writing, futures literacy entails the capacity to
decipher and categorize, as well as to produce, explicit processes of anticipatory
knowledge creation as a necessary and ordinary skill. Futures literacy, like language
literacy, involves the acquisition of the know-how required to classify and use the future
appropriately; it is a familiarity with anticipatory processes. The two previous sections are,
therefore, the main components of futures literacy.
The two components of futures literacy above summarized – the distinction of futures into
different types and the analytic differentiation among different ways of using the future –
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can be further refined. As to the latter component, there is room for both structural
clarifications and further, analytic distinctions along the following lines.
From a structural point of view, optimization sees the future as separated from the present
and selects one specific future. Its underlying motto is “I am going towards the future”.
Analytically, the focus may be addressed to the next step (incremental innovation) or the
final result (planning).
In its turn, contingency as well sees the future as separated from the present. Differently
from optimization, contingency naturally considers a variety of different futures. Its motto is
“The future is coming upon me” (from either a detectable or not detectable direction). As
a consequence, the focus may be directed at selected, visible, perceived directions or at
vague, unfocused, indeterminate directions.
The different futures recognized by contingency are not linearly arranged; otherwise,
contingency becomes optimization. The optimization of contingency requires a decision, a
choice or a change of attitude.
Finally, novelty sees that the future is in the present and, therefore, not as separated from
the present itself. This is precisely the structural dominant note of novelty. Analytically, the
focus may be more on ideas (concepts, values) or on practices (behaviors, learning).
Novelty is such that one may be capable of making sense of it only afterward. Anyway,
while a complete, full-fledged sense-making may follow only afterwards, at least a partial
sense-making, potentially able to unfold in different ways, should be present as the early
inceptions of the events.
In the same way in which one sees room for some interplay between optimization and
contingency (however, connected to decisions or shifts of attitude), one should similarly
acknowledge some other form of interplay between novelty and contingency as well (which
again may imply a shift of attitude). The connection between novelty and the present means
that novelty includes both futures and pasts, as both of them are constitutive components
of the (thick) present. Differently nuanced novelties result from different mixtures among
their past and future components.
While it is patent that futures literacy is in its first stages of development, it is already clear
that futures literacy will dramatically enhance the social capacity to “see” the future – in the
same way in which the capacity to read and write has dramatically improved people’s

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 capacities. More than “knowing the future”, therefore, the development of futures literacy
may help individuals, organizations and communities develop a more sophisticated
capacity to choose explicitly among different possible futures – provided that the
constraints resulting from the Foresight 2.0 full capacity to deal with complexity are not
forgotten (Miller et al., 2014).

4.4 Complexity
One last step is needed to lay down the route toward the discipline of anticipation, namely,
complexity. Complexity, however, has been defined in many different ways. More than that
the question about which acceptation of complexity naturally fits anticipation is far from
being a trivial issue.
During the past 60 years, complexity has been defined in many different ways that the term
risks becoming meaningless. Furthermore, complexity is one of those issues that quickly
veers into difficult technicalities. One of the simplest ways to start grasping complexity is by
distinguishing “complex” from “complicated” problems and systems. Complicated
problems originate from causes that can be individually distinguished; can be addressed
piece-by-piece; for each input to the system, there is a proportionate output; and the
relevant systems can be controlled and the problems they present admit permanent
solutions. On the other hand, complex problems and systems result from networks of
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multiple interacting causes that cannot be individually distinguished; must be addressed

as entire systems, that is, they cannot be addressed in a piecemeal way; they are such that
small inputs may result in disproportionate effects; the problems they present cannot be
solved once and for ever but require to be systematically managed, and typically any
intervention merges into new problems as the result of the interventions to deal with them;
and the relevant systems cannot be controlled – the best one can do is to influence them,
learn to “dance with them” as Meadows (1999) aptly said, on these issues see also Poli
(2012, 2013b).
The traditional, bureaucratic structure adopted by organizations and institutions derives
from an understanding of systems and problems that precedes the discovery of
complexity. These structures are tailored to addressing “complicated” – not “complex” –
systems and problems: they work as if problems could be addressed individually and in a
piecemeal way; with outputs systematically proportionate to relevant inputs, they aim at
managing and controlling the underlying systems. Furthermore, if we expand our
consideration of change to incorporate novelty – discontinuity that is unknowable in
advance – there is the challenge of being in two (or more) frames at once. How to develop
the capacity to see and act in ways that take into account incompatible systems? These are
situations where taking the point-of-view of one system not only renders the other invisible
but often expresses an existential conflict with the new system. The problem that surfaces
here is dramatically urgent: while we well know how to build up a bureaucratic structure
meant to act within the existing framework of agency – how to use the future for optimization
and contingency – we still are in the deepest fog about how to build up anticipatory
structures able to organically deal with complex problems and systems.
The idea we are pursuing is to link complexity and uncertainty (as differentiated from risk).
This implies that a complex system always comprises at least one non-simulable model.
Relational biology – after Rashevsky, Rosen and Louie – offers a promising strategy by
distinguishing between what a system is made of (structure) and what a system is made for
(function). The former attitude is isolative; the latter is relational. An exemplification may
help. Consider a given company. To survive and develop, it should perform a variety of
different functional activities, including the design of new products, producing, storing and
circulating them, managing employees and workers, etc. Any of these activities may be
performed by a specialized unit, or it may be split among a variety of units in many different
ways. Companies make different choices in this regard. All the possibly different structural

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 choices notwithstanding, the functions to be performed are analogous. Structures divide,
functions unify.
One of the major differences between analysis via structures and analysis via functions is
the following: given a system S, there is only one maximal set of component elements, while
there are many ways to decompose the system S into functional subsystems, both at
different hierarchical levels and from different perspective points. This difference underlies
Rosen’s claim that “there are many ways of being complex, only one of being simple”
(Rosen, 2012a, p. 386). To compound the problem, the functional perspective is not limited
to the subsystem–system relation. The system itself enters into functional relations with its
environment, or, better, with other systems in its environment. And, as the case may be, it
can establish different functional relations with different systems. Moreover, different
functional subsystems can develop different functional relations among themselves. The
social realm offers as many relevant exemplifications as one may wish: one may consider
functional subsystems such as the economic, political, legal, scientific, etc. ones, and the
network of their functional interdependencies (Poli, 2010a).
An awkward and often misunderstood issue emerges here. The problem is the difference
between “doing” something and “making sense” of what is done. Aside from the difference
between “ex ante” and “ex post” sense-making, i.e. between the sense of an action before
it is performed and the different sense that it may acquire after it has been performed, all
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the systems’ interactions depend on, and can be performed only through their material
structures. What a system does depends on its structure, what a system means depends
on its functional interconnections.
Note that the very distinction between structural and functional organization is an outcome
of the interaction with our scientific and technological capacities. Apparently, nature does
not distinguish them in the same way as we do. Consider, for instance, an airplane and a
bird. The airplane distinguishes the engine (power) and the lift mechanisms (the airfoil) and
segregates them into separate “organs”. The bird, instead, unifies the propeller and the
airfoil into a single organ, the wing. As Rosen notes, “there is no physical mechanism which
can dissect the bird wing apart in such a way that the functions are separated” (Rosen,
2012b, p. 51). Interestingly, Rosen notes, holograms are the only artifacts similar to natural
organs.
The following two exemplifications reveal something more of the tangled network
resulting from the interactions among system, subsystem and structure. In the case of
the “vertical” relation exemplified by the subsystem–system situation, the relevant
structure automatically pertains to both of them. Even if what the structure does can be
(and usually is) interpreted differently because the system and the subsystem may
adopt different models, the presence of a shared structural unit forces a level of mutual
adjustment. On the other hand, the “horizontal” relation between systems (or
subsystems) is much more subject to misunderstanding, in the sense that more
translations are required:
 the communication from S1 to S2 includes the translation from S1 to the structure Str1
of S1 that should interact with a corresponding structure Str2 of S2;
 the translation between Str1 and Str2; and
 finally the translation between Str2 and S2.
Not only may each of these translations go awry, but the selection itself of the structures that
materially open a channel between the two systems is a source of possible mistakes.
Therefore, commuting S1 ¡ S2 into S1 ¡ Str1 ¡ Str2 ¡ S2 is far from being a trivial affair.
It is even more complex when one realizes that – as far as social systems in particular are
concerned – the usual situation is rarely of the type S1 ¡ Str1, often being instead of the
type S1 ¡ (Str1 [. . .], Strn).

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 5. The future and the human and social sciences
Human and social scientists are asking themselves whether they should turn their sciences
upside down and reshape them from primarily past-oriented sciences to primarily
future-oriented ones (Poli, 2014a, 2014b). To mention but a few recent developments,
Seligman et al. (2013), Beckert (2013), Appadurai (2013), Wright (2010), Tavory and
Eliasoph (2013) deserve especial mention.
Here I limit myself to a quick summary of the contributions by Seligman and Appadurai only
(some aspects of Beckert’s papers have been mentioned in Section 2; for more details see
Poli (2014a)).
Past President of the American Psychological Association, Seligman’s recently proposed
“incipient science of prospection” aims at changing psychology by overturning the entire
discipline from a primarily past-oriented field to a primarily future-oriented one. While
prospection is a ubiquitous feature of the human mind, much psychological theory and
practice has understood human action as determined by the past. On the other hand,
“prospection [. . .] is guidance not by the future itself but by present, evaluative
representations of possible future states” (Seligman et al., 2013). While it is understandable
that a primary past-orientation may have been necessary to establish psychology as a
scientific field:
[. . .] accumulating evidence in a wide range of areas of research suggests a shift in framework,
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in which navigation into the future is seen as a core organizing principle of animal and human
behavior (Seligman et al., 2013).

If the future indeed becomes a core organizing principle of the mind, the past will have to
recede from being a force driving needs and goals to a resource from which agents
“selectively extract information about the prospects they face. These prospects can include
not only possibilities that have occurred before but also possibilities that have never
occurred” (Seligman et al., 2013, p. 119). Moreover:
[. . .] the success or failure of an act in living up to its prospect will lead not simply to satisfaction
or frustration but to maintaining or revising the evaluative representation that will guide the next
act (Seligman et al., 2013, p. 120).

By shifting the focus from the past to the future, the entire conceptual framework of
psychology changes. In fact:
[. . .] at any given moment, an organism’s ability to improve its chances for survival and
reproduction lies in the future, not the past [. . .] learning and memory, too, should be designed
for action. These capacities actively orient the organism toward what might lie ahead and what
information is most vital for estimating this (Seligman et al., 2013, p. 120).

Moreover, the focus on expectations helps in reconsidering the role of past experience,
which ceases to be seen as a force directly molding behavior and becomes information
about possible futures. “Choice now makes sense” (Seligman et al., 2013, p. 124). There is
more than opportunistic improvisation, however: namely the “active, selective seeking of
information (“exploration”)” (Seligman et al., 2013, p. 124). Furthermore, there is no need to
see expectations as limited to conscious processes alone. Indeed, “generating simulations
of the future can be conscious, but it is typically an implicit process [. . .] often not
accessible to introspection, and apparently occurring spontaneously and continuously”
(Seligman et al., 2013, p. 126).
Arjun Appadurai, one of the most distinguished contemporary anthropologists, asks how
societies – past and recent – construe the future as a cultural fact (Appadurai, 2013). To
develop “a general point of view about humans as future-makers and of futures as cultural
facts” – continues Apparudai:
[. . .] we need to construct an understanding of the future by examining the interactions between
three notable human preoccupations that shape the future as a cultural fact, (namely) [. . .]
imagination, anticipation and aspiration,

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 even if “we have not yet found ways to articulate how anticipation, imagination, and
aspiration come together in the work of future-making” (Appadurai, 2013, p. 298).
Under different denominations, all the aforementioned scholars recognize the importance
of and need for an anticipatory attitude. The summaries above show that different human
and social sciences (including psychology, economics, anthropology and sociology) are
rethinking the significance of the future in human behavior. Unfortunately, they seem only
dimly aware of the accumulated experience and the methods developed by futures
studies. Indeed, none of the works that I have quoted includes any single reference to
futures studies. It is well known that part of the problem of futures studies is that it has not
been connected to mainstream social science: while futures studies has partially borrowed
from it, it has not given much back, conceptually or practically. It now seems that social
sciences are turning to the future without any awareness of the huge body of work in futures
studies. A case of almost perfect mutual disavowal (Poli, 2013c).
From within futures studies, the very recent endeavor to establish a full-fledged “Discipline
of Anticipation” may begin to link the two camps, helping future practitioners to acquire a
deeper understanding of social sciences and social scientists better to grasp the value of
the experience accumulated by futurists (Miller et al., 2014). In this regard, anticipation is
not displacing either forecast or what has been called Foresight 1.0, although perhaps
putting them in their place (Tuomi, 2013). The accompanying development of what is
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becoming known as futures literacy (Miller, 2006, 2007; Miller et al., 2014) provides the
framework needed to face uncertainty, which is possibly one of the main issues underlying
the present situation. All together, this series of signs seems something more than a feeble
collection of weak signals.
An anticipatory behavior is a behavior that “uses” the future in its actual decisional process
(Rosen, 2012b). In this sense, behavior is primarily anticipatory, and reactive behavior is
only a secondary – albeit important – component of behavior. A system behaving in an
anticipatory way – an anticipatory system – takes its decisions in the present according to
“anticipations” about something that may eventually happen in the future. While anticipation
violates neither the ontological order of time nor causation, the explicit consideration of
anticipation as a legitimate topic of research opens new scientific perspectives (Louie,
2009; Louie and Poli, 2011; Poli, 2013b; Rosen, 1991).
While anticipation has been widely studied within a number of different disciplines –
including biology, cognitive and social sciences – and, under different names, in fields
such as anthropology, futures studies, management, political science, cultural studies, and
philosophy, to date there have been few systematic attempts to build a thorough
understanding of different types of anticipation and their uses (Nadin, 2010; Poli, 2010b).
Research based on anticipation is undergoing development, but it is fragmented.
Our understanding of anticipation is still cursory, and the novelty of the perspective may
conceal the difficulty implied by this otherwise refreshingly new vision. The theory is at such
an early phase of development that it still lacks a unified conceptual language for theorizing
and operationalizing anticipation to facilitate cross-disciplinary conversations. A better and
more complete understanding of anticipation and its effects will improve theories and
models of individual and collective human behavior and its consequences. The ability to
anticipate in complex environments may improve the resilience of societies under threat
from a global proliferation of agents and forces by articulating insecurities through
anticipatory processes. However, to achieve this end, the joint expertise and theoretical
awareness of both the futurists and the human and social scientists is needed. The mutual
isolation in which the human and social sciences, on the one hand, and futures studies, on
the other, develop is increasingly unjustifiable. Both camps suffer from this self-inflicted
isolation. Joint efforts to overcome this divide are needed, and they will pay dividends (Poli,
2013c).

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About the author

Professor Roberto Poli, PhD, is based in the Department of Sociology and Social Research,
University of Trento. Poli is a Professor of Philosophy of Science, the Director of the
Master program in Social foresight, UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems, a Fellow of
WAAS World Academy of Art and Science, a Fellow of STIAS Stellenbosch Institute for
Advanced Study, and Editor-in-chief of Axiomathes. Roberto Poli can be contacted at:
roberto.poli@unitn.it

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