Skip to main content Accessibility help
×

We are experiencing issues with the responsiveness of Cambridge Core and the Cambridge Aspire website. Users may experience website error pages or timeout error pages. Our teams are working to resolve the issues. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-wlffp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-01T17:08:32.653Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Coming soon

The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought

Expected online publication date:  02 January 2026

Thomas Moynihan
Affiliation:
Cambridge University

Summary

The future is contingent. It can unfold differently, hinging on chance or choice within the present. This Element tells the story of how these twin concepts have developed across human history. Arcing from our earliest ancestors, through al-Ghazālī, to S. J. Gould, the Element demonstrates how humans realised the future is an undecided, contingent place – at scales leading beyond the biographical, up to the planetary, and beyond. It pinpoints this realisation as an ongoing and unfinished intellectual revolution. Just as the telescope revealed Deep Space in the 1600s, and the geologists' hammer revealed Deep Time in the 1800s, contemporary developments in science are revealing what I call Deep Possibility. This is the realisation that there is far more possible than will ever be actual. It is this that makes history matter, and gives contingency its bite, insofar as it forces acknowledgement that not all outcomes will come to pass regardless.

Information

Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009358767
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this Element is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×