Institut Ramon LLull

For some time now, Garcés has established herself as a thinker of international reach. Translated into ten languages, her books are read both at university and in the street. This is a philosophy which diagnoses our contemporary malaise and spurs on readers to act. In this latest book, she takes the concept of promise to delve deeper into the project of the Enlightenment, that is, emancipation, temporality, and the possibility of imagining the future. We live in a society that shakes terrified under the shadow of tomorrow, obsessed with predicting, controlling, and planning. Yet, who dares, nowadays, to promise anything? Garcés examines promise-making’s historical, philosophical, and literary representation and its current fragility. The act of promising, or so Garcés defends, vindicates the power of words and specifies the link between oneself, others, and the world. Giving our word is a way of reminding ourselves that, despite everything, the future is what we make of it.