Uncertainty

Bibliographic Data

ID22367604
AuthorsMichael Smithson (0000-0003-4455-2192, Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Pages1-2
Publication date2020-04-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeOTHER
VenueThe Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (JOURNAL)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosu001.pub2
OpenAlexW4229842983
ISBN9781405165518
LanguageEN
References cited13

“Uncertainty” is variously understood as incompleteness or absence of knowledge, but also has been treated as a physical property, a mental state, a moral condition, a public problem, an economic commodity, a strategic production, or a cultural property. Its study lacks an agreed‐upon nomenclature and definitions of fundamental concepts. Only relatively recently has uncertainty been studied systematically from constructivist standpoints, or recognized as having a multifarious nature. Nevertheless, with the publication in 2015 of the Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies , serious scholarship on this topic may be said to have arrived. Research programs have addressed both the intentional and unintended production of uncertainty, the uses that people make of it, and its roles in underpinning various forms of social processes and, indeed, social capital. Emerging research programs are increasingly multidisciplinary, in recognition of the fact that the topic of uncertainty is not exclusive to any one discipline

Economics · Epistemology · Ignorance · Microeconomics · Multidisciplinary approach · Political science · Positive economics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Underpinning · Unintended consequences · Disaster Management and Resilience · Engineering · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Risk Perception and Management

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