Etymologically, precognition is simply the Latin equivalent of foreknowledge. But it has come to have a more specialized meaning as a semitechnical term for one of the phenomena or putative phenomena of parapsychology (psychical research). This entry touches on the wider issues of foreknowledge only insofar as they appear in a rather special form in the narrower context of parapsychology. Again, since the philosophical problems centering on some of the other concepts of parapsychology are examined at length elsewhere, telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis are mentioned here only when necessary to the main goal of becoming clearer about the logical geography of parapsychological precognition. Nor will there be any discussion of what the facts actually are. We shall be concerned only with theoretical questions of implication and explanation.

Precognition is one of a group of terms that also includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and—more peripherally—psychokinesis (PK). Telepathy is thought...