Futurité

Futurité is a term used in some French-language philosophical and critical-theory discourses to describe a quality or orientation that centers on the future. It denotes the idea that time should be considered with a focus on future possibilities, consequences, and responsibilities rather than exclusively on the present or the past.

The word derives from futur, meaning future, with the suffix -ité to indicate a state or condition. It has appeared chiefly in Francophone academic writing since the late 20th century and has been employed in discussions of temporality, ethics, and social imagination. In some contexts, futurité is used to analyze how texts, policies, or institutions project and privilege future outcomes.

In philosophy and political theory, futurité often signals a stance of responsibility toward future generations and long-term implications of actions, including environmental, technological, and social consequences. In literary and cultural studies, it can describe narrative or rhetorical strategies that foreground future states as shaping present meaning. In discourse analysis and linguistics, futurité may refer to how language or discourse projects future events and their anticipated status.

Critics of the term argue that futurité can be vague or normative, risking overgeneralization about time or ethics. Proponents counter that it provides a useful lens for examining anticipatory governance, sustainability, risk, and the politics of time.

See also: temporality, futurism, anticipation, time orientation, ethics of the future, long-termism.