[Sokrates] Reminder: Announcement: Marcus Willaschek lecture next Wednesday, 29.05.

[<philos@zedat.fu-berlin.de>]

Dear Colleagues,

Please join us for the first Institutskolloquium lecture of the semester on the morning of Wed., May 29! Please share this announcement with your students and colleagues at other institutions as well.

 

Prof. Dr. Marcus Willaschek (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

"Future Without Bias. Asymmetrical Attitudes Towards Past and Future"

May 29, 10:00 c.t.

Institut für Philosophie, „alte Bibliothek“ im Souterrain,
Habelschwerdter Allee 30

 

The talk will be in English.

 

Abstract:

When the painful dental treatment finally has ended, Arthur thinks: ‘Thank goodness, it’s over!’ – Most of us can sympathize. But many philosophers, psychologists and economists take reactions like this to show that we are biased towards the future, in the sense, roughly, that we prefer painful experiences to be past rather than future and pleasurable experiences to be future rather than past. The growing literature on what is often simply called ‘future bias’ largely takes for granted that most people show an asymmetrical pattern of preferences towards past and future. Contrary to these and many similar views, I argue that although many of our preferences and evaluations give special weight to the future, there is no such thing as future bias. In particular, the reactions and evaluations taken to show that we are future biased are best described by saying that people, far from preferring that pain is in the past, only prefer that there is no pain in the future. In the talk, I will present an argument for this claim and located it in the context of a project about death and the finitude of our lives.

 

No registration is necessary, but questions can be directed to Caleb Ward at caleb.ward@fu-berlin.de.

 

 

 

 

 

~~

Dr. Caleb Ward

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Institut für Philosophie

Freie Universität Berlin

https://www.calebward.xyz/