Senses of the Future (PDF)

The future has become a problem for the present. Almost every critical issue is now understood and experienced through the prism of the future since this is the primary focus for the playing out of crises.

Senses of the Future offers a wide-ranging discussion of theories of the future. It covers the main ideas of the future in modern thought and explores how we should view the future today in light of a plurality of very different and conflicting visions. The key contribution of this book is to bring together the different approaches with an account that is grounded in sociological and philosophical analysis as opposed to visions of the future that are inspired by extreme visions of catastrophe or approaches that see the future as only the continuation of the present. Given a revival of apocalyptical visions of the 'end times' and dystopian views of the future of human societies, there is urgent need for a new approach on how we should imagine the future. The author explores the future as a field of tensions that is revealed in narratives, utopian desires, hope, imaginaries, and social struggles concerning the potential possibilities of the present: the future does not just arrive; it has to be fought for.

This book is an important contribution to a critical sociology of the future. It is both a work of reconstruction and critique grounded in a historical and philosophical hermeneutics of the future.

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Introduction: Conflicting Visions of the Future
Contested Visions of the Future Today
Return to the Future
Outline of the Chapters
References

Chapter Two
When is the Future? The Problem of Time and the Human Condition
Time in the Physical World: Lessons from Physics
Has the Future already Begun? Time and History
Time, Life, and the Human Condition: Biology, Evolution, and Culture
Conclusion
References

Chapter Three
Lessons from the Past: What Does the Past Tell Us about the Future?
The Future in the Past
Failed Societies and Civilizational Collapse
Catastrophes and History
Conclusion
References

Chapter Four
Modernity and the Concept of the Future: Utopia, Progress, and Prophecy
The Future as Expectation
The Future as an Imaginary and the Emergence of Utopianism
The Future as Possibility
The Future as Experience
Conclusion
References

Chapter Five
Ideas of the Future in the Twentieth Century: Futurism, Modernism, Sociology, and Political Theory
New Political Ideas of the Future after 1945
Responses to the Future: From Fear of the Future to Futurology
Sociological Theory and the Future
Conclusion: The New Sociology of the Future
References

Chapter Six
Critical Theory and the Future: The Sources of Transcendence
The Intellectual Origins of Critical Theory: A Brief Outline
The Idea of the Future in the Critical Theory of the Early Frankfurt School
Habermas and the Communication Paradigm
The Responsibility Paradigm and Cosmopolitanism: Jonas and Apel
Critical Cosmopolitanism and the Idea of the Future
Conclusion: Cultural Models and the Future as Possibility
References

Chapter Seven
Conclusion: In The Shadow of the Future
Do We Need a Theory of the Future?
Are we already in a New Historical Era?
AI and a Posthuman Future
Struggles for the Future
References

Index

Gerard Delanty Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Sussex University. His recent books include (with Neal Harris) Capitalism and its Critics (Routledge, 2022) and Critical Theory and Social Transformation (Routledge 2020).