Намерения и обещания в политиката
Intentions and promises in politics

Summary/Abstract: My interest focuses on three different types of human approaches towards the future: predicting, intending, and promising. I try to formulate explicit understandings of predicting, intending, and promising. By predicting, we form an idea of the events we expect to happen. Insofar as predicting involves events that have not yet occurred and cannot be described, all predictions about them are uncertain. When the occurrence of particular events depends on how we ourselves will act, we develop a peculiar readiness to act in a particular way. Intention consists in this readiness to perform a given action. The only way others can learn that someone intends to perform a particular action is if the person declares this intention. Declaration of an intention for action entails no obligation to perform the action. Such an obligation arises only if one makes an utterance of another type, namely if one makes a promise. There is not merely an intention to perform a particular action but also a stance that this intention is so serious that the promiser is ready to suffer possible sanctions if he or she fails to perform as promised. Promises play an important role in democratic politics on at least three different levels – constitutions, programs of political parties and election programs. Finally, I examine the effects of the unfulfi lled promises in politics.

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