‘Towards a Critical Social Theory of the Idea of the Future’: A response to Richard Swedberg’s ‘On the Future as Possibilities’: A review of Gerard Delanty’s Senses of the Future: Conflicting Ideas of the Future in the World Today (Berlin: De Gruyter,2024)

Abstract

This essay is a short reply to Richard Swedberg’s review of my book, Senses of the Future: Conflicting Ideas of the Future in the World Today (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024). The main points are addressed. In addition I sum up the rationale and aims of the book.

The kind invitation of the editors of the Journal of Classical Sociology to me to write a Reply to Richard Swedberg’s review of my book provides me with an opportunity to clarify some of the arguments made in the book as well as to respond to the points he made in his review.

I begin with a comment he made that, on reading the book, there was more literature on the future than he had imagined. This, indeed, was my own view when I embarked on working on this topic and when I began to conceive of the idea of the book. I discovered that there was considerably more literature to engaged with than I had assumed. The background to the book was an earlier book on critical theory, Critical Theory and Social Transformation, which concluded with a short chapter exploring the idea of the future in critical theory (Delanty, 2020; cf. Outhwaite, 2006). My guiding idea was that this tradition of thought – from Benjamin and Adorno to Marcuse and Habermas – had something important to say on the idea of the future and that there was a need for dialogue with some of the main positions on the notion of the future, as reflected in the very diverse work of de Jouvenel (2017 [1964/1967]), Koselleck (2004) and Luhmann (1976) – to mention only the most obvious interlocutors (and between these positions there was also a need for greater dialogue). Researching the field, it became clear that, especially within sociology, there was a revival of interest in the future and that this was largely reflected in phenomenological approaches. I say ‘revival’ because in the 1970s the future was a concern of sociology, as represented in a famous work by Wendell Bell and James Mau (1971), The Sociology of the Future (cf. Daniel Bell, 1996), as well as Daniel Bell’s (1999 [1973]) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting and, as mentioned, work by Niklas Luhmann. This older preoccupation with the future appears to have come to an end in the 1980s, with the possible exception of Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society (where the future was conceived in terms of risk). I speculated that one reason was the rise of postmodern theory and cultural theory, which – arguably – led to new critical histories of the past. Under the influence of Foucault, the concern with the future receded in favour of memory and history (see also Susen, 2015). We get a glimpse of a dystopian vision of the future in Mike Davis’s classic work of 1990, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (Davis1990/2018).

In recent years, sociologists have returned to the future, some examples being John Urry’s (2016) last work, What is the Future? and Future Matters by Adam and Groves (2007). ¹ Any engagement with the topic of the future, however, involves going beyond the comfort zone of sociological theory with its typical concern with the social construction of reality, social action and culture to deal with the problem of time. This makes any attempt to advance a social theory of the future a significant challenge. Mainstream sociological approaches broadly addressed to the future have simply reduced the temporal category of the future to what is, in effect, an extension of the present – that is, the next thirty years or so, and to see it as a product of the creativity of social action or social imaginaries. There was, of course, the older tradition of scholarship established by Rheinhart Koselleck on historical semantics and especially the emergence of the modern idea of the future in the eighteenth century. But this tradition, which did not seem to penetrate sociology, remained on the level of historical semantics, much like the phenomenological concepts of the future that have gained popularity in sociology and which are also based on the category of experience and social action (see Beckert, 2016; Mische, 2007; Tavory and Eliasoph, 2013). In re-visiting the sociology and philosophy of time, it has become clear to me that an adequate conception of the notion of the future will need to address insights from a wider variety of theories than those on which sociologists tend to rely (cf Assmann, 2020). Although I think critical theory has much to offer, it is also not itself sufficient.

Before I clarify the theoretical framework that I have tried to advance in the book, I will respond to the three main points of criticism in Richard Swedberg’s review, which I find generous and appreciative of my aims. First, concerning his point about problems in writing the history of an idea, it should already be clear that I do not see my endeavour to be a history of an idea. My concern is, rather, with a critical social theory of the future. Now, obviously this cannot be undertaken without a consideration of some historical ideas and older theories of the future. It is true that my book, to an extent, does seek to reconstruct some of the major ideas of the future since the advent of modernity. The book, while roughly organised historically, is so only for heuristic purposes to identify the main historical and contemporary debates on the idea of the future. A good historical study probably could only be undertaken for a more specific time period – as, for example, in Jenny Andersson’s study of cold-war debates on the idea of the future, a work that is in the tradition of Kosellek’s conceptual history (Anderson, 2018). Nonetheless, it is a pertinent question and cannot be entirely evaded by claiming the aim is a critical theory of the future. I am conscious of at least three considerations in my reconstruction of the idea of the future.

One is the fairly obvious relationship between rupture and continuity. This first arises with the emergence of the modern idea of the future, which must be seen in terms of a rupture from medieval and ancient concepts of the future, while at the same time the modern idea of the future retains some of the older notions – as, for example, the concern with transcendence, which, I claim, first arose with the Axial Age break-through as theorized originally by Jaspers (2021 [1953/1949]). Then, there are the major historical turning points of the twentieth century, 1918 and 1945, when new ways of thinking about the future emerged. One of my main themes is the rupture today with all modern ideas of the future, which, I posit, were mostly based on visions of the promise of better times and the view that the future can be known and therefore controlled (cf. Rosa, 2020 [2018]). If it can be agreed, as I have argued, that there is a major rupture today, the question is more how great it is and to what extent the older ideas – including the idea of progress, the idea of sustainability, notions of utopia – have come to an end (cf. Allen, 2016). The direction of my analysis is not (prematurely) to announce the end of something and to be critical of such announcements that see moments of major change only in terms of rupture without continuity. In this context, I would see the continuation of the older ideas (as, for example, utopianism) in terms of re-interpretation, for the older ideas were not simply handed down unchanged, but were continuously re-interpreted.

Second, as a critical reconstruction, as opposed to a history or even a genealogy in Foucault’s sense of the term, my concern is to seek out what remains relevant from older ideas for the present. So, for example, I am interested in Kant’s writings on the future, which – in my view – are particularly interesting. In this context, in reconstructing the modern idea of the future, it strikes me that to do this adequately requires going beyond the actual idea of the future itself. One obvious proxy candidate is the notion of progress, which has been much analysed (see, e.g., Wagner, 2016; see also Allen, 2016). While Kant is normally seen as a champion of this idea, his work is equally interesting for a theory of the future for other reasons. He figures hugely in the philosophy of hope, which is now seen as an important dimension of Kant’s conception of the future and his political philosophy more generally (Goldman, 2023; Peters, 1993). The Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, 1970 [1787]) closes with three perpetual questions that define the human mind, the third being ‘For what can I hope? The possibility of hope is a condition of the very possibility of the future (cf. Bloch, 1995 [1938–1947]). Then, there is Kant’s concern with how things end, as in ‘The End of all Things’ (see for a very interesting account, Ware, 2024). Perhaps more fundamentally is Kant’s transcendental philosophy, which was concerned with the conditions of the possibility of knowledge – conditions that are prior to experience and include the fact of possibility as an a priori pre-condition that establishes the formal conditions of experience. The philosophical case he made for the centrality of the concept of possibility is one of the most important aspects of the very idea of the future. There are other relevant ideas of the future, such as prophecy and utopia, that also need to be addressed in an assessment of ideas of the future.

I would, finally, comment that another dimension of my reconstructive approach is a consideration of multiple temporal trajectories that unfold across the vast canvass of deep history to the deep future. This includes the history and future of human societies, life, and the planetary history of the earth. Such a perspective partly accounts for the argument I made for the importance of going beyond the human and social sciences to take into account perspectives in the earth sciences and the life sciences. There are indeed major challenges in doing this, and I do not claim to have entirely succeeded.

This brings me to the second critical point raised in Swedberg’s review of my book. A major dimension of human experience is connected to life itself and the fundamental reality of finitude. Swedberg finds it odd that I associate Heidegger with this position because, in his view, the key issue is not death but propagation – expressed in the notion that humans have an ‘inborn tendency to propagate the species’. I do not deny that this is the case and that it is a relevant feature of the human condition that gives to it a future orientation. Although I have not discussed this particular argument, I have done so indirectly in discussing in detail the theory of evolution, which can be seen as a future directed process based on propagation. Some qualifications are in place. All species eventually become extinct when they cease to reproduce themselves – and this applies to humans, too. According to some accounts, there is an advancing ‘spermageddon,’ with declining worldwide sperm counts (Swan, 2022). Additionally, although human extinction may not be threatened by the relatively new phenomenon of 'anti-natalism’ (that is, the conscious desire not to have children), it does question the existential thesis of propagation to be fundamental to human nature. Be that as it may, I think nonetheless that Heidegger (1996 [1927]) is particularly interesting on the existential nature of human life as ‘future-oriented’ [zukunftsorientiert]. In this context, I also referred to the idea of ‘waiting’, as in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play, Waiting for Godot, which can be seen as a reflection on this fact of human existence. Also relevant on this theme is the notion of ‘mourning’, as explored by Freud, where the emphasis is less on the anticipation of death and more on the mourning of the death of others.

The third point Swedberg raises, perhaps less as a criticism than as a perspective that might have merited more attention, is where I stand in relation to the implications of the vision of the future in the sociological theories of Durkheim and Weber. He is undoubtedly correct in saying that more interesting than their visions of the future are their theoretical concepts, especially Weber’s analytical tools. I agree that the notion of ‘social integration’, which is central to Durkheim’s sociology, can be seen as a societal logic with normative significance. Barbara Adam has also made a similar comment in relation to Weber’s theory of action as ‘future-oriented’ (Adam, 2024). Moreover, Swedberg is correct in emphasizing, as I have, the interpretative dimension in that the idea of the future becomes a reality when it is rendered intelligible, which is to say it becomes culturally constructed. My approach, however, departs from classical sociology for several reasons. First, in my view, which may be sacrilege to many, Durkheim and Weber have been too much elevated to sainthood in sociological theory. My scepticism is not due to the pieties of contemporary cultural politics but simply because they produced unfinished works. Both died young: Durkheim died disillusioned at the age of 59 in 1917 and Weber at the age of 56 in 1920. Had they lived longer, one can speculate they would have seen the world in a different light. Weber, as Joachim Radkau in his biography of Weber has remarked, ‘was given to gloomy scenarios of the future’ (Radkau, 2009: 451). Second, more importantly, their own vision of the future cannot be entirely ignored. Both tended towards pessimism due to the circumstances of the Great War. As I mentioned in Chapter Five, Durkheim wrote a short piece on the future, but confined it to the question of postwar economic recovery (Durkheim, 2009 [1917]). Weber’s central motif of the ‘iron cage’ suggested a bleak vision of the future of society as instrumental rationalization and a very limited model of parliamentary democracy. Third, notwithstanding my preceding comment about Weber’s theoretical tools, there are problems with adherence to this approach when it comes to the idea of the future. I argue that the idea of the future can be reduced neither to social action nor to cultural interpretations. The tendency in sociological theory is to do just that; while this may work for many problems, it does not work for everything. It certainly does not offer a perspective on the idea of the future, as opposed to an assessment of future trends.

Difficult as it is to pin down the concept of ‘the future’, it is not primarily (or exclusively) a cultural category; and it is not exhausted by what (individual and/or collective) actors make of it when they pursue various (individual and/or collective) future-oriented goals. I have argued for a conception of the future that recognises the fundamental quality of transcendence. The future is an idea of transcendence. As such, it is an idea that is irreducible to any specific form that it may take. The fact that human reason has the capacity to think in terms of the future is in itself an expression of the power of transcendence. It follows from this that the future is underpinned by logics such as possibility and necessity (see Guéguen and Jeanpierre, 2024; Strydom, 2024). These modal concepts do not fit easily with a narrow action frame of reference or with purely cultural analysis, as in the current popularity of imaginaries. Regardless of recent and ongoing debates on (social, historical, and/or genetic) determinism (as for example Sapolsky, 2024), the future is, indeed, open – and can be imagined in diverse ways – but it is also subject to self-limitations, as Esposito (2024) argues, which limit what can result from imaginary projections.

Let me conclude with a brief re-statement of my central argument. There is a profound shift today in the sense of the future such that the premises of the modern ideas of the future have lost much of their significance. In the context of the Anthropocene and numerous intersecting crises (cf. Delanty and Mota, 2017), the future has become a prism through which the present views itself. The new narratives and ideas of the future reveal considerable anxiety and uncertainty. One of the challenges for social theory is to offer a conceptual analysis of what it means to invoke the notion of the future. I have put forward a conceptual framework for seeing the idea of the future in terms of four main dimensions: as an existential condition, as temporality, as spatiality and as an epistemic category. Underlining this multidimensional conception of the idea of the future is the orientation towards transcendence, which can be seen in terms of logics such as potentiality, possibility and necessity.

I would finally like to thank Richard Swedberg for his careful and largely sympathetic review of my book and Simon Susen for inviting me to respond and well as for his helpful feedback on the first draft.