[PHILOS-L] PRISM Talk Series | 08 | Rafael Ziegler – Foresight as Consolation: Kant on the Capability of Future Making | Online, 04 Feb 2026

[Seraphin Frimmer]

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Dear colleagues,

Join us on 04 February 2026 at 7:00 p.m. CET (UTC+01:00) 

for Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rafael Ziegler’s online lecture, "Foresight as Consolation: Kant on the Capability of Future Making," 

the 8th installment in the PRISM Talk Series — Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries on Society and Mind.

This lecture series is organised in cooperation with the Munich School of Philosophy.

Speaker

Dr. Rafael Ziegler is Associate Professor of Management at HEC Montréal and director of the Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins International Institute for Cooperatives. 

His work lies at the intersection of environmental philosophy, sustainability science, and innovation studies, with a particular focus on social innovation. 

In 2022, his teaching on sustainability was recognized with the "Pédagogies pour une société durable" award at the Trophées Francophones des Campus Responsables. 

His publications include Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (2019, with Alex Nicholls) and Innovation, Ethics and Our Common Futures (2020). 

Ziegler also serves as associate editor of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities  and the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.

Abstract

His talk addresses the renewed interest in "future making." It illustrates this interest with current examples of the uses of foresight and "backcasting" – a method that reasons backward from envisioned futures to possible pathways for achieving desirable outcomes – in research on sustainability transitions. While these discussions often refer to Immanuel Kant, his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is usually not in focus. The talk seeks to fill this gap by sketching the contours of Kantian foresight in this work. It characterizes Kantian future making as "consolatory foresight," a philosophical version of "backcasting" avant la lettre that is critical of conceiving foresight as mere empirical anticipation. The talk closes with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this philosophical approach to foresight in research and education.

To attend, please register free of charge via Pretix here: https://pretix.eu/prismtalkseries/prism-talk-8/c/iDUL8c0vd/
After registering via Pretix, you will receive a confirmation email containing a link to complete a Zoom registration. Once that is done, Zoom will send you your personal join link to the event.

Please feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested.

Recordings of earlier lectures in the PRISM Talk Series can be found on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PRISMTalkSeries

Subscribe and turn on notifications to get an alert whenever a new talk is uploaded.

With best regards,

Seraphin Frimmer

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Seraphin Frimmer, M.A. (he/him)

PRISM Talk Series – Producer & Host

Munich School of Philosophy – PhD Candidate

Email (series): prismta...@hfph.de

Registration: https://pretix.eu/prismtalkseries/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PRISMTalkSeries

Email (personal): seraphin...@gmail.com

Profile: https://mwn.academia.edu/SeraphinFrimmer

The PRISM Talk Series is organised in cooperation with the Munich School of Philosophy.

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