THEME

So much human emotion, thought, and action is orientated to the future. Hopes and fears, plans and strategies, promises and interventions, derive their meaning from future intentions. However, as philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger have pointed out, the future is that which is not yet. The future does not exist, tomorrow never comes. Therefore, the question arises as to how we should understand the future. Is the future simply non-being at the limits of the present? If so, does the present have any real connection with a putative future that does not yet exist? The founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, in tackling such questions stressed the future as an aspect of the present. In his terms, each present consciousness is characterized by protention, in other words, the anticipation of a future not as actively planned or envisaged but as passively expected. The present is not an abstract moment but a flow of past and future intentional directions.

This conference seeks to contribute to understanding the future as a present concern both with respect to the underlying issues of temporal orientation and the pressing questions of today as we face into an increasingly uncertain future. Paper topics explore, for instance:

> Actions in the present, to the extent to which they have lasting effects, will serve to mould the world of future generations. But are we responsible with respect to future people who have not yet been born? If so, what is the basis of that responsibility? And, if it can be shown that we have such a responsibility, to which people or peoples is this responsibility directed?

> In the background of much of the political debate regarding immigration is the question as to whether present actions should secure the future of a particular society to be more or less identical with the present in terms of cultural, religious, linguistic make-up. Contributions that tackle questions of territoriality, migration, and democratic structures would be welcome.

> While certain forms of orientation towards the future stress continuity, there is a long history of messianic, utopian, and revolutionary thinking and action that is premised on the hope or expectation that the future will be / should be qualitatively different from the present. Is there any basis to the claims to novelty, that human action can bring about new and presumably better worlds or in the end is it more true to say that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’?

> At a time of unprecedented technological innovation, there is a growing sense of inertia when it comes to decision making particularly in the face of ecological and economic crises. Robust growth seems to go hand in hand with a sense of collapse. It would seem that the orientation toward the future differs in different domains for reasons which may be contingent but which may be analysable in structural terms. How do technological development, and environmental and social challenges form the anticipatory horizon of current and future activity in different fields? Contributions could explore how practitioners in different fields face up to the future.

Conference theme set by Prof. Felix Ó Murchadha, Professor of Philosophy, School of History and Philosophy, College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Celtic Studies, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland; and one of the directors of and part of the conference committee for ‘The Future as a Present Concern’ 2021.