Two kinds of uncertainty in respect to any human act: 1. Will the agent be able to complete the act successfully? E.g., will the fruit farmer in southwestern michigan in 1939 be able to achieve a large strawberry crop? Will the climber reach the top of the mountain?
2. Will successful completion of the act achieve the purpose of the act? E.g., Will 300 crates of strawberries packed in one day answer the grower's purpose? That is, the act was successful. But on that particular day, after about 6 hours sitting in the open air market in Benton Harbor, my uncle brought the 300 crates home and dumped them to the hogs. The highest price he had been offered was $0.05 less than the cost of the packaging. The first kind of uncertainty is always with us, and will be with us in the future. The second kind of uncertainty became a _major_ concern only with the rise of capitalism. And then there is Shakespeare's farmer who hanged himself in the expectation of plenty. Carrol
