Webbläsaren som du använder stöds inte av denna webbplats. Alla versioner av Internet Explorer stöds inte längre, av oss eller Microsoft (läs mer här: * https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Var god och använd en modern webbläsare för att ta del av denna webbplats, som t.ex. nyaste versioner av Edge, Chrome, Firefox eller Safari osv.

Foto på Tobias Olofsson.

Tobias Olofsson

Postdoc

Foto på Tobias Olofsson.

The present is a knife’s edge : St. Augustine’s philosophical presentism and the politics of expectation

Författare

  • Tobias Olofsson

Summary, in English

The ways in which expectations for the future shape how actors and organizations make sense of the present has received growing interest and attention among science and technology scholars – with particular attention being paid to the role of expectations and prediction making in technology and finance. Nevertheless, while the imaginaries involved in the futures described by tech-entrepreneurs and financial market actors are new, their promissory work has ancient precursors; and so does the scholarly enterprise of studying how futures are made to matter in the present.

This paper highlights the relevance of the philosophical presentism of 5th century philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo for present day science and technology studies of the future as a socio-technical entity. Drawing on examples from three empirical studies into the production and use of predictions in mineral exploration, literary publishing, and pandemic management the paper explores how the future’s non-existence – a central tenet of presentism – play into the politics of the present and how actors and organizations use projections of possible futures to make sense of and shape the room for action in the present.

Avdelning/ar

  • Sociologiska institutionen

Publiceringsår

2022-07

Språk

Engelska

Dokumenttyp

Konferensbidrag: abstract

Ämne

  • Sociology

Conference name

EASST 2022

Conference date

2022-07-06 - 2022-07-09

Conference place

Madrid, Spain

Aktiv

Published

Projekt

  • Show & Tell: Scientific representation, algorithmically generated visualizations, and evidence across epistemic cultures