Tiresias, or Our Knowledge of Future Events

Rhythmical coordination of performers and audience in partner dance: delineating improvised and choreographed interaction

“…While clapping in time, or leading and following partnered movements in a social dance, participants draw on their "stock of knowledge at hand in forming anticipations of future events" (Schütz, 1976). Participants display their confidence by moving in time with the structure of a familiar tune, anticipating a conventional phrase ending, or effortlessly performing a 'set piece' move that all Lindy hop dancers have learned and practised.…”

Introduction to the Handbook of Behavioural Change and Public Policy

“…They initiate a complex interaction and back-and-forth movement between system 1 and system 2. This might have larger conceptual consequences, because it signifies a shift from focusing on behaviour as a more or less unconscious and automatic pattern on the individual level to action as an anticipation of how both one's own behaviour and the behaviour of others materialize and have social consequences in the future (Schütz 1959). Turning from behaviour to action might help behavioural approaches to overcome unnecessary dichotomies and open up interdisciplinary venues of combining cognitive and behavioural sciences with social theories of action (Elster 2015;Giddens 1984).…”

Knowing the Future: Theories of Time in Policy Analysis

“…How can we know the future? In his seminal article “Tiresias, or our knowledge of future events” Schütz (1959) introduces us to the intricacies of this question. Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes, is able to predict the things to come with great certainty.…”