Multilayeredness of Anticipation

Abstract

In the paper I argue for the multilayeredness of anticipation. After presenting what multilayeredness is and how it may be understood, I analyse three main axes of multilayeredness of anticipation. These are short- versus long-term perspective, then existence versus non-existence, and, finally, first- versus second-order anticipation. The three axes concern, respectively, lifetime, existence understood as extending beyond the death of an individual and awareness of anticipation. They involve the tension between, respectively, short-distanced and long-distanced futures, the inward and the outward and anticipating and meta-anticipating. I conclude that these characteristics may be accepted as formal criteria for distinguishing the different ways in which anticipation may be viewed.