Abstract
Helga Nowotny is author and coauthor of an impressive number of significant contributions to understanding our contemporary late-modern condition with respect to knowledge, science, and technology. She has always emphasized the importance of research-based knowledge, while acknowledging that science is both tentative and fragile. In her latest book, she explicitly deals with the many different ways in which we encounter and engage with uncertainty. The main argument is that uncertainty is inherent to modern society and should be seen as a resource, not a problem, for learning about, exploring and dealing with the present and future.
Using the notion of the ‘cunning of uncertainty’ Nowotny implies that we can and should learn from situations characterized by ambiguity, provisional knowledge, the unexpected, undecidedness, and so on. ‘Cunning’ according to the Oxford English Dictionary means ‘having or showing skill in achieving one’s ends by deceit or evasion’. Nowotny uses the more archaic meaning of cunning: skilful, resourceful, opportune, even wise. Building on a series of richly described case stories from the world of contemporary research and innovation, Nowotny argues that the notion of uncertainty has much more in store for us than just, well, uncertainty. Since uncertainty appears to be fundamental to the way we live today, we should seek to maintain and qualify our deliberation on uncertain issues: ‘embracing uncertainty’ as Nowotny puts it.
The way we understand uncertainty clearly has an impact on public understanding of science, although Nowotny does not address this issue head on. There is a long tradition trying to explain different kinds of scientific uncertainty, such as the uncertainty involved in risk assessments, to non-scientists. Rather than focusing on scientific uncertainty alone, even though this clearly is important, Nowotny challenges us to think about the many kinds of uncertainty that are ‘written into the script of life’.
Her book is a welcome reminder that even we as humans crave for certainty, uncertainty is fundamental to our modern way of living and to science, and we need to find ways in which to cope with it. Nowotny ends by endorsing political scientist Charles Lindblom’s incrementalism, or ‘muddling through’, as a humble, reflective approach to understanding and managing the delicate and dynamic balance between ‘what we know and do not yet know about the world and about ourselves’.