Combining two a central topics in philosophy in the 20th Century, this book considers the ethics and impact of decision-making alongside the philosophy of time.
When we make simple decisions, like the decision to wake up at 8 a.m. tomorrow, we make use of a linear model of the future.
But when we make open-ended decisions, like the decision to get fitter, or more involved in politics, we presuppose a much more complex model of the future.
We project a variety of virtual futures.
We can carry out a decision in many different ways at once, which may converge and diverge at different points in time.
Using a phenomenological approach, The Many Futures of a Decision explores what we learn about the structure of the future specifically from decision-making. Most theories of decision concentrate on the rationality: the evidence and value assessments that build up grounds for a rational decision. Instead, this book innovatively engages with the nature of the future as a multi-layered decisions project. Through interpretations of the theories of decision in philosophers like Husserl and Heidegger, Schmitt and Habermas, Derrida and Deleuze, along with other decision theories, Lampert develops an original theory of multiple futures.
By:
Associate Professor Jay Lampert (Duquesne University USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
Weight: 438g
ISBN: 9781350047792
ISBN 10: 1350047791
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 28 June 2018
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction to Concepts – What is the temporal referent of a decision? 1. Sartre – Can a decision be binding on the future? The future without continuity 2. Husserl – Decision-options and temporal overlap 3. Heidegger – The original decision to decide. Continuity without a future 4. Kierkegaard – Decision as promise: Decisionism in religion. Plus: Kant’s moral postulate of hope and Pascal’s wager of infinite time 5. Schmitt – Decisionism in politics: the sovereign moment and its authoritarian follow-up 6. Habermas – Steering procedures and the term limits of a decision 7. Decision-Theory – Economics, seriality, and retrospective effects 8. Branching Futures in Tense Logic; Possible worlds, possible futures, alternative worlds 9. Derrida – Indecision-theory and the future to-come 10. Deleuze – Decision in the future = X Conclusion — Many overlapping real futures Bibliography Index
Jay Lampert is Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, USA. His previous books include Simultaneity and Delay: A Dialectical Theory of Staggered Time (Continuum, 2012) and Deleuze and Guattari's Philosophy of History (Continuum, 2006).
Reviews for The Many Futures of a Decision
Jay Lampert has written a provocative book on the temporality of decisions. He intertwines the book's innovative insight with a masterly and clear treatment of major continental and analytic thinkers as well as with discussions of temporal logic, decision theory, quantum physics, and the Chinese game of Go. Lampert also considers the vital implications of his thesis for ethical responsibility, especially for an age in which fundamentalisms strive to crowd out more judicious and imaginative thought. It's a must read for scholars and theoreticians working on the relation between decision and time and will be of great interest to those concerned more generally with contemporary continental philosophy. -- Fred Evans, Professor of Philosophy, Duquesne University, USA
