PhiloWikiConceptsPhilosophersBooksInteractive graph

Concept

Prediction

Prediction
Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain · source

Overview

A prediction (from Latin prae- 'before' and dictum 'something said') or forecast is a statement about a future event or about future data. Predictions are often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge of forecasters. There is no universal agreement about the exact difference between "prediction" and "estimation"; different authors and disciplines ascribe different connotations.

Future events are necessarily uncertain, so guaranteed accurate information about the future is impossible. Prediction can be useful to assist in making plans about possible developments.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

  1. The strongest and principal cause of all these events exists in the ecliptical conjunctions of the Sun and Moon, and in the several transits made by the planets during those conjunctions. One part of the observations, required in forming predictions in cases of this nature, relates to the locality of the event, and points out the cities or countries liable to be influenced by particular eclipses, or by occasional…

    Ptolemy, Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos

    The chapter “MODE OF PARTICULAR PREDICTION IN ECLIPSES” is titled for Prediction; names Prediction twice.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

  2. (2) Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial and natural: whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by argument, concluding upon signs and tokens; natural is, when the mind hath a presention by an internal power, without the inducement of a sign. Artificial is of two sorts: either when the argument is coupled with a derivation of causes, which is rational; or when it is only…

    Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning

    Names Prediction several times; opens on Prediction.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

  3. And of a third who, to all appearance, cannot recover, to predict that he will get well, but that his toes will blacken and putrefy. Similar predictions are related under this class. Another mode of prediction is to prophecy to buyers and traders, to one death, to another madness, and to the rest diseases, and that from what is now occurring, or has occurred before, and all the predictions to turn out true.

    Hippocrates, The genuine works of Hippocrates, Vol. 1

    Names Prediction several times; states what Prediction is.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Prediction

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition

Part of Determinism.

Explore Prediction in the interactive graph →