Types of uncertainty: Cities from a post-pandemic perspective

Almost all decisions occur under conditions of uncertainty. Understanding uncertainty is thus an essential prerequisite for effective decision-making. In this chapter, we started by recalling the classic distinction between probabilistic risk and severe uncertainty. We ground our analysis in Hansson’s recent classification of eight types of uncertainty: factual uncertainty, possibilistic uncertainty, metadoxastic uncertainty, agential uncertainty, interactive uncertainty, value uncertainty, structural uncertainty, and linguistic uncertainty. Based on this classification, we investigate and demarcate some of the determinants of each type of uncertainty by taking into account their different sources and scales. Finally, we apply our analysis of these determinants to urban decisions that might occur in a post-pandemic context and propose future lines of research.