Futurality: The Primacy of the Future in the Philosophy of Time ? Synopsis
This book proposes a philosophy of time that takes the future as ontologically primary, shifting the gravitational center of thinking about time from the past to the future. Its core thesis is: the future is not the not-yet-arrived present, but the primary dimension of time itself; the real movement of time is not pushed by the past, but drawn by the future. The author names this principle "Futurality," and defines its ontological structure through three negative determinations?non-actuality, non-recurrence, and non-conformity.
On this basis, the book establishes four axioms of the unbounded structure of time: no origin, no end, uniqueness of the past, and future branching. Around these axioms, the author proposes a variational principle that explains how actual history unfolds between two constraints?"non-conflict with the decisiveness of the past" and "non-closure of future possibilities"?and thereby explains the mechanism by which irreversible solidification arises.
The book advances from ontology to existential ontology, using a projection functor to show how Futurality is projected as the "Ad-futurality" of finite Dasein, and unfolds at the existential level into negative determinations such as non-following, non-detachment, and non-possession. The core mechanisms?traction and pull-elevation, traversing, the sense of incompleteness, and futural surplus?are used to provide a unified account of the driving force of action, the generation of decision, and the accumulation of meaning.
In terms of theoretical contribution, the book systematically addresses three classical difficulties: it dissolves McTaggart's paradox through dynamic truth-value semantics, unifies physical time and experiential time through a stratified projection scheme, and grounds freedom and creativity in a non-deterministic ontology via final causality. At the same time, the book engages in critical dialogue with philosophers such as Heidegger, Whitehead, Bergson, Nietzsche, Schelling, Derrida, and Deleuze, and undertakes a formal exploration of Absolute Negative Logic, making logic the logic of time itself rather than a static truth-preserving calculus.
The book presents itself in the posture of a tentative scheme, not claiming to be ultimate truth, but inviting readers from philosophy, physics, logic, and beyond to jointly test, revise, and advance this futural turn.
The book is intended for philosophers, physicists, logicians, and other interdisciplinary readers interested in the nature of time, ontology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. It is especially suited to those working in phenomenology, process philosophy, existential philosophy, the philosophy of physics, and the study of free will and determinism. Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in the humanities, natural sciences, and cognitive studies will all find in this book a new framework for rethinking time, freedom, and creativity. General readers with a serious interest in the future, temporality, and the foundations of reality are also warmly invited to join this exploration.