Positioning: Future Philosophical Pills

The chapter introduces a speculative–pragmatic framework that merges philosophy and design to enhance futures literacy. Conceived as a deck of forty “Pills,” each representing a philosophical concept, and paired with forty “Prompts,” the project invites designers and learners to critically and imaginatively engage with uncertainty, speculation, and world-making. Rooted in process philosophy and transdisciplinary practice, the Pills act as diagnostic and generative tools to challenge assumptions about the future. They promote “philosophy-in-action,” where theory and practice intertwine to foster open, creative inquiry rather than fixed solutions. Drawing on the metaphor of the pharmakon—both cure and poison—the Pills embrace the productive tension between clarity and disruption, using uncertainty as material for design and reflection. Through chance-based methods, participants co-create meaning, countering deterministic, risk-averse, and neoliberal approaches to the future. The Pills encourage a shift from problem-solving to problem-finding, positioning design as a speculative and ethical practice of questioning and imagining alternatives. Ultimately, the Future Philosophical Pills constitute a pedagogical and methodological experiment in post-qualitative inquiry—transforming uncertainty into a catalyst for invention, fostering critical reflection, and enabling transdisciplinary, imaginative engagement with futures as open, plural, and continually emerging.