New Books Network: Santiago Zabala — "Signs from the Future: Philosophy of Warnings"

Release Date: September 4, 2025
Host: Stephen Dozeman
Guest: Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Stephen Dozeman interviews philosopher Santiago Zabala about his latest book, Signs from the Future: Philosophy of Warnings. The conversation centers on the concept of warnings—not as mere predictions but as urgent calls to interpret the present and take alternative action. Drawing on continental philosophy (Heidegger, Arendt, Beauvoir), the book and discussion traverse issues of science, gender, politics, climate change, technology, and existential engagement. Zabala argues for a more radical, hermeneutic approach to warnings, urging listeners to reconsider the complacency of the status quo and seek meaningful alternatives.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to Zabala and Hermeneutics

[02:37-03:15]

• Zabala introduces himself as a continental philosopher focused on hermeneutics.
• Quote: “I'm a hardcore continental philosopher who is not afraid to challenge the analytic dominion.” (Santiago Zabala, 02:52)

Art as an Embodiment of Warning

[03:15–05:50]

• The book’s cover features Graham Caldwell’s mirror sculpture—a metaphor for warnings.
• The mirrors, like car rear-view mirrors, demand active interpretation; they don’t merely reflect but destabilize and require involvement.
• Quote: “Warnings are signs for the future. They're signs that we are invited to interpret and to...get involved with them. And just like the rear mirrors in our cars, it's...we also supposed to get involved with them, and we actually have a sort of responsibility.” (Santiago Zabala, 05:05)

Warnings vs. Predictions

[05:50–09:08]

• Distinction: Predictions simply state what will happen, offering no alternatives. Warnings, by contrast, propose possibilities and demand agency.
• Example: A doctor’s caution about drinking is a warning (“You can choose to change”), not a prediction.
• In philosophy, warnings create alternative futures and encourage reconsideration—seen as the discipline's essential task.
• Quote: “Warnings do not tell us the truth, right? Warnings imply that there is a different future for us waiting for us, and we can become involved in that... Philosophy has a lot to do with warning because that's basically what we do.” (Santiago Zabala, 08:20)

Heidegger, Science, and the Limits of Calculation

[09:08–13:08]

• Heidegger’s notion: Science “does not think”—it calculates, but true thinking involves openness to what is not yet present.
• Science is essential, but its warnings (e.g., about climate change) are not always heeded; truth alone is insufficient.
• Academic structures often preclude genuine novelty, as projects must predict results to secure funding.
• Quote: “Truth alone is not enough to warn us. That's not going to do the job…otherwise we would have solved the climate emergency decades ago.” (Santiago Zabala, 12:15)

Gender, Translation, and Existential Becoming (Simone de Beauvoir)

[13:08–16:50]

• Close reading of Beauvoir’s “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” shows that translation choices (inclusion/exclusion of the article ‘a’) deeply affect interpretation and existential meaning.
• Properly understood, Beauvoir’s phrase is a warning against fixed gender identities—gender is a becoming, a reaction, not a biological fate.
• Quote: “Her warning is basically meant to overcome that dualism that we feel in which we still live in some way.” (Santiago Zabala, 16:34)

The Far Right & the Politics of Hermeneutic Closure

[16:50–19:46]

• Contemporary right-wing movements resist the interpretive (hermeneutic) freedom of gender, seeking to re-impose rigid definitions.
• The anxiety over gender fluidity is linked to broader anxieties about nationalism, economics, and control.
• Far-right populism often targets those who challenge fixed categories as threats to their worldview.
• Quote: “Gender ideology for them is basically a threat...but it's a threat to the freedom that they in some way connect to neoliberalism.” (Santiago Zabala, 18:28)

Extremism as Reductive Hermeneutics

[19:46–23:29]

• Far-right and fundamentalist groups practice a hermeneutics of closure—limiting their horizons and denying the possibility of being wrong.
• True hermeneutics, per Gadamer, involves the possibility of misunderstanding and the responsibility to expand one’s horizon—qualities these groups lack.
• Social media exacerbates this narrowing.
• Quote: “You listen to a warning if you have a certain horizon, because a warning is not telling you what to do. A warning is telling you what might happen.” (Santiago Zabala, 21:24)

Arendt’s Banality of Evil as a Warning

[23:29–26:39]

• Arendt’s “banality of evil” warns about the normalization of atrocity.
• Current events (e.g., genocide in Palestine) show society becoming desensitized to evil.
• Warnings are meant to disrupt this normalization and provoke moral urgency.
• Quote: “Her call to be warned about the banality of evil is that evil can become banner very quickly and we have to be very, very careful.” (Santiago Zabala, 24:49)

Technology, Military AI, and Mechanization

[26:39–29:54]

• Current uses of AI in warfare exemplify longstanding warnings about technological domination (Heidegger, Arendt).
• Technology now “possesses us”; we risk submission as it structures our world and options.
• AI is itself a warning—one that elicits more fear than hope.
• Quote: “We have constructed or we are even better submitted to a technology that in some way forces us to become submitted to it. In other words, we are not in possession of the technology. The technology is actually in possession of us.” (Santiago Zabala, 27:45)

Welcoming Anxiety and Alternative Horizons

[29:54–34:45]

• Warnings, as opposed to signals and predictions, generate anxiety—productive existential openness.
• Zabala contrasts Heidegger (living past), Derrida (future-to-come), and Eco (signs) to show the multiplicity of horizon in authentic warning.
• A responsible stance means taking risks, seeking broader horizons, and accepting anxiety as the spur to action.
• Quote: “Warnings require from us an existential stance, an existential posture that is not easy...it's actually a responsible position that we have to in some way become involved with, and we have to become involved with, not only for us, but also for all the others around.” (Santiago Zabala, 31:48)

Radical Listening: Lessons from Medicine

[34:45–39:36]

• Through the story of Rita Charon, Zabala advocates for “radical listening”—an active, empathetic openness to others, vital for true warnings to be heard.
• True listening is more than repetition; it involves attention to what is unsaid and existential involvement.
• Difference between dialogue (truth presupposed) and conversation (truth emergent).
• Quote: “In order to listen properly, you have to engage with the person, right? You have to be open to it. And you also have to have a different horizon of understanding. All of this is vital to listen to warning.” (Santiago Zabala, 38:03)

Hermeneutic Struggles in Climate Policy

[39:36–42:03]

• Climate negotiations illustrate constant “battles of interpretation” over key definitional terms like “energy system.”
• More than data or truth, interpretation is existential and shapes policymaking.
• Zabala criticizes “new realist” philosophies for reducing issues to objectivity, undermining existential engagement with warnings.
• Quote: “Interpretation is a sort of, it's also a whole worldview, also horizon of understanding...it's an existential issue, right?” (Santiago Zabala, 40:42)

Greta Thunberg: Embodying the Warning

[42:03–46:05]

• Thunberg moves climate facts from the realm of abstraction to existential urgency; her activism embodies the warning, compelling a new horizon of understanding.
• Her refusal to “return to normal” is mirrored in post-pandemic politics; normalization perpetuates crises.
• Quote: “Greta Thunberg...really incarnate this idea of warning, right?...she is someone that has decided that, well, we need a different horizon of understanding.” (Santiago Zabala, 43:31)

The Pandemic and “Return to Normal”

[46:05–50:21]

• The urge to return to pre-pandemic normality reveals a failure to interpret disruptive events as warnings.
• Zabala recounts translation issues—example of Giorgio Agamben’s book on the pandemic, where "warning" became "foreword" in translation, symbolizing misrecognition of crisis as warning.
• Post-pandemic, societies are perhaps less prepared for crisis due to unheeded warnings.
• Quote: “Warnings are meant to create disruptions. Warnings are meant to create change...which is specifically something that has not occurred since the pandemic.” (Santiago Zabala, 47:20)
• Quote: “Learning to listening to warnings is probably something that we should be doing. And I hope that this book will in some way point out how philosophers have already been doing that for a while and maybe how we can start to listen to warnings now in the future.” (Santiago Zabala, 49:36)

Closing: Zabala’s Next Projects

[50:21–51:03]

• Upcoming books: “Aesthetic Signatures: How to Create in the Age of Alternative Facts” and “Horizon Less Society,” an account of society’s current loss of future and horizon.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Warnings vs. Predictions:
  “Warnings imply that there is an alternative. A warning implies that you can do something to change the present. Predictions...tell you what the present would be. Now, from a philosophical perspective...philosophy is a warning.” (08:01)

• On Hermeneutic Freedom and Conservatism:
  “To listen to a warning, you actually have to be educated in some way, Right. Or even better educated in a different way.” (21:58)

• On The Banality of Evil:
  “The problem is that when evil becomes something banal, something normal, something that we shouldn't really be too concerned about...And this is happening now.” (24:21)

• On Technology and AI:
  “We have constructed or we are even better submitted to a technology that in some way forces us to become submitted to it. In other words, we are not in possession of the technology. The technology is actually in possession of us.” (27:45)

• On Greta Thunberg’s Impact:
  “Her importance is not in scientific facts, which we had more than enough of before she was even born to act accordingly, but instead that she has embodied that scientific knowledge in a way that gives it a certain existential weight, trying to overcome the hermeneutic inertia of the status quo.” (44:03)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction to the Book/Philosopher: [02:37–03:15]
• Art as Warning Metaphor: [03:15–05:50]
• Warnings vs. Predictions: [05:50–09:08]
• Heidegger and Science's Limits: [09:08–13:08]
• Simone de Beauvoir and Gender: [13:08–16:50]
• Far Right and Hermeneutic Politics: [16:50–19:46]
• Extremism and Closure: [19:46–23:29]
• Arendt and Evil: [23:29–26:39]
• AI and Technology’s Dangers: [26:39–29:54]
• Existential Engagement & Anxiety: [29:54–34:45]
• Radical Listening in Medicine: [34:45–39:36]
• Climate Policy and Interpretation: [39:36–42:03]
• Greta Thunberg and Embodied Warning: [42:03–46:05]
• Pandemic & “Return to Normal” as Failure to Heed Warning: [46:05–50:21]
• Zabala’s Upcoming Work: [50:21–51:03]

Summary

Santiago Zabala’s “Signs from the Future” explores how warnings differ crucially from predictions. Warnings, drawing on hermeneutics, demand interpretation, existential engagement, and a readiness to embrace anxiety and alternative futures. Traversing philosophy, politics, gender, climate change, and technology, Zabala advocates for radical listening, broader horizons, and responsibility in the face of pressing, often unheeded, warnings. The episode offers a powerful call to rethink how we respond to crises—moving beyond data and truth toward active, transformative involvement.