An exploration of the relation between the concepts of 'community' and 'future' in philosophy

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This scoping study and research review has examined a range of contemporary and historical philosophical approaches to understanding the relation between the concepts of 'community' and 'future'. In two lines of research an overview of six theoretical strands was produced, including virtue ethics, philosophical liberalism, the capabilities-approach, recognition theory, the philosophy of G. Agamben (strand 1) and E. Bloch (strand 2).It emerged that futurity and future-orientation, although implicitly present, are marginalised as explicit objects of an ontological enquiry in most theories. As a result, philosophers, whilst dealing with ethical relations between present and future community, do so without a sufficient ontological foundation of the relations in question. The 'not yet' of the future is ontologically complex, as is its impact on the nature of community.To investigate it deeper, the linearity and uni-directionality of future orientation needs to be contested. The future as future needs to be acknowledged as a pool of potentialities and not merely as present reality in waiting. This warrants an exploration of qualitative and relationalaspects of future and future orientation. At the same time the relation between the complex notyet and the constitutive factors of community needs to be articulated.