Book Launch: Signs from the Future by Santiago Zabala

Join the UCL Warning Research Centre as we host the launch of the latest book by Prof Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona Spain. Titled Signs from the Future. A Philosophy of Warnings, this book explores the philosophy behind warnings, ignoring warnings, and being warned, focusing on why we do not heed warnings - a critical question when considering the effectiveness of warnings. We will hear an overview of the books key points from Santiago followed by a discussion and Q&A that will no doubt be rich and at the edge of our understanding of warnings.

Slavoj Žižek, author of Zero Point states that:

Santiago Zabala achieves in Signs from the Future what only the best thinkers occasionally do: he effortlessly unites the most pressing concerns of our moments (global warming, pandemic, social crises...) with the reflection of "eternal" questions (reality oriented towards future, the nature of thinking). This is why his book is interesting in the most basic sense of the term of "inter-esse": throwing us into the heart of being. It is a book for everybody who has the courage to think today.

Book Overview

We are constantly being warned, but we seldom heed warnings. Cautioned about authoritarian leaders, climate change, technological dystopias, or other catastrophes, we fail to take action or even take them seriously. Too often warnings are dismissed—much like the artists, scientists, environmentalists, and intellectuals who deliver them. Why don’t we listen?

Santiago Zabala asks us to think of philosophy as a warning, a call to heed ominous “signs from the future.” He argues that warnings—as distinct from predictions—invite us to see the possibility of a radical break from the present. Predictions tell us to submit to the inevitable, but warnings ask us to take part in shaping a different future. A philosophy of warnings offers an alternative horizon of understanding beyond “the real” and “the normal,” and a politics of warnings helps us confront hidden emergencies through collective interpretation, listening, and action.

Signs from the Future places thinkers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, de Beauvoir, and Arendt into conversation with present-day politics, art, and culture, drawing our attention to unheeded warnings. This timely and engaging book shows why unresolved crises from the past must be interpreted anew today if we are to imagine an equitable future—or a future at all.

See full book details and listen to a recent podcast now.

Download a flyer, which gives a 20% discount on the book when ordered directly from the publisher.