Project Details
Projekt
Temporality and Good Life
Applicant
Professor Dr. Holmer Steinfath
Subject Area
Practical Philosophy
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424883170
The sub-project constitutes a philosophical reflection on the basic concepts of the FOR. It is aimed at gaining general insights into the time structure of human life and the temporal conditions of leading an individually good life. These insights shall enable a better understanding of the consequences that medical innovations have for how individuals deal with their lifetimes. At the same time, these insights shall also benefit from observing the three medical scenarios that the FOR engages with, by being sharpened, modified and possibly revised.Systematically, the sub-project pursues three ends: First, to articulate – by drawing on a fruitful exchange with the other sub-projects – a philosophical understanding of the good life which is both on a level with the philosophical literature and can be tailored to suit the topics of the other sub-projects. Unlike in the literature on questions of the good life, reflections on temporal dimensions of human life shall here be included from the start. Second, the sub-project aims at laying out these temporal dimensions in a nuanced way, showing their interconnectedness. The thesis motivating this is that we do not only lead our lives within time, but that leading a life has its very own time structure. Third, the sub-project proposes an understanding of the time structure of a good life. This will be done by formulating theses concerning felicitous ways of dealing with the time in one’s life. The empirical plausibility of these theses will be tested in discussions with the other sub-projects and with respect to new medical possibilities. The proposed understanding of the time structure of a good life is oriented towards the idea of temporal sovereignty in the sense of a productive appropriation of the time in one’s own life.Being in constant exchange with the other more empirically oriented sub-projects is important for the philosophical sub-project because, due to their unavoidable generality, philosophical conceptions tend to carry implicit assumptions of normality which can prove dubious in the light of far-reaching medical innovations and processes of social change. The fragility of conceptions of normality, especially of temporal ones, is right now dramatically brought to the fore by the Corona-Pandemic.
DFG Programme
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