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The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination
When we fail to achieve our goals, procrastination is often the culprit. But how exactly is procrastination to be understood? It has been described as imprudent, irrational, inconsistent, and even immoral, but there has been no sustained philosophical debate concerning the topic.
This edited volume starts in on the task of integrating the problem of procrastination into philosophical inquiry. The focus is on exploring procrastination in relation to agency, rationality, and ethics-topics that philosophy is well-suited to address. Theoretically and empirically informed analyses are developed and applied with the aim of shedding light on a vexing practical problem that generates a great deal of frustration, regret, and harm. Some of the key questions that are addressed include the How can we analyze procrastination in a way that does justice to both its voluntary and its self-defeating dimensions? What kind of practical failing is procrastination? Is it a form of weakness of will? Is it the product of fragmented agency? Is it a vice? Given the nature of procrastination, what are the most promising coping strategies?
This edited volume starts in on the task of integrating the problem of procrastination into philosophical inquiry. The focus is on exploring procrastination in relation to agency, rationality, and ethics-topics that philosophy is well-suited to address. Theoretically and empirically informed analyses are developed and applied with the aim of shedding light on a vexing practical problem that generates a great deal of frustration, regret, and harm. Some of the key questions that are addressed include the How can we analyze procrastination in a way that does justice to both its voluntary and its self-defeating dimensions? What kind of practical failing is procrastination? Is it a form of weakness of will? Is it the product of fragmented agency? Is it a vice? Given the nature of procrastination, what are the most promising coping strategies?
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Chrisoula Andreou
5 booksChrisoula Andreou is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Utah and an Executive Editor of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 16, 2022
I think I want to read this, some day. It looks like it would be good for me. I might order it next week. There are two other 'people' in my family besides Procrastination. There's also Ennui and Inertia. Inertia and Procrastination are best friends, neither ever do anything which is why Ennui is bored. With that lot, it's surprising I ever get anything done at all. I am supposed to be getting ready for work now. I have a lunch to go to and then rare books to unpack. But here I am with a cup of coffee, playing on GR because I can't be bothered to shift myself. I will soon. When I finish this non-review probably, I don't want to miss lunch.
I've found another book, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination. It does sound like it could do the trick. Lot of action. Perhaps too much. I'm not sure that I could take all that on board. Easy steps you know.
Not sure which book to get. I'll have to think about it. Sometimes it's so hard to decide.
It's seven years later now, I've just found this review. It had a lot of typos because I didn't reread it but I meant to. I never did get the books, I couldn't make up my mind which would be the best one. I can't remember if I went to the lunch, probably not. Easier not to do anything except play on GR. than actually do something, and probably by the time I'd made my mind up the moment had passed and I would have been very late, so I just didn't bother.
I wish there was a vaccine against procrastination. I know if there was I would seriously consider getting it, I think.
I never get anywhere because I never get anything done because I can't make my mind up what the best course of action is, and so it is always inaction. Bit like my cats. I wonder if a cup of coffee, the kick of caffeine might help. No, probably not. I'm wondering how and when to end this review, perhaps it will just run out of juice and do it by itself, things do sometimes, thankfully.
Typos corrected and totally rewritten July 2022. That only took about 7 years to think through the review properly. I might even catch up with my 130+ reviews-to-come someday if I go on like this. Best be an optimist about it.
I've found another book, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination. It does sound like it could do the trick. Lot of action. Perhaps too much. I'm not sure that I could take all that on board. Easy steps you know.
Not sure which book to get. I'll have to think about it. Sometimes it's so hard to decide.
It's seven years later now, I've just found this review. It had a lot of typos because I didn't reread it but I meant to. I never did get the books, I couldn't make up my mind which would be the best one. I can't remember if I went to the lunch, probably not. Easier not to do anything except play on GR. than actually do something, and probably by the time I'd made my mind up the moment had passed and I would have been very late, so I just didn't bother.
I wish there was a vaccine against procrastination. I know if there was I would seriously consider getting it, I think.
I never get anywhere because I never get anything done because I can't make my mind up what the best course of action is, and so it is always inaction. Bit like my cats. I wonder if a cup of coffee, the kick of caffeine might help. No, probably not. I'm wondering how and when to end this review, perhaps it will just run out of juice and do it by itself, things do sometimes, thankfully.
Typos corrected and totally rewritten July 2022. That only took about 7 years to think through the review properly. I might even catch up with my 130+ reviews-to-come someday if I go on like this. Best be an optimist about it.
Want to read
January 27, 2011it's hilarious that 69 people have marked this book 'to read' and not one has yet read and reviewed it.
Read
July 28, 2019I read one chapter and I'm currently procrastinating reading the rest of this book on procrastination. Perhaps I should read more of it to understand why... maybe later.
March 16, 2014
Procrastination is not simply “putting something off”. Nor is it just failing to do something: to write a masterpiece or knock out a Karate opponent. Lack of talent or bad luck is enough to frustrate these endeavours. And procrastination can’t simply be weakness of will, as this requires an unrealised judgement or intention, and sometimes we procrastinate by never really judging or intending at all. After a cringe-worthy party, we say we’re going to tell our friend her lover’s a pretentious whiner, but we don't really mean to tell her. The plan was vague, weak or just no plan at all. Procrastination is hard to define, despite its familiarity. What is this chronic bugbear? How can we to avoid it?
These are the central questions of The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination, edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White. Divided into three parts – the nature and causes of procrastination; its relationship to vice; and ways of overcoming it – the volume is the first to give a dedicated philosophical treatment of the problem. The contributors are chiefly philosophers, though essays like George Ainslie’s “Procrastination: The Basic Impulse” and Don Ross’ “Economic Models of Procrastination” give economic analyses.
What does The Thief of Time offer the general reader? A few essays are highly technical, and general readers may be unfamiliar with the terminology and scholarly background. When Don Ross writes of modelling “picoeconomic accounts of molar-scale intertemporal preference,” I admit to bafflement – but my ignorance is to blame, not his vocabulary.
Nonetheless, The Thief of Time is an interesting and important book. It deals in fresh ways with well-known philosophical problems: will and rationality and their weaknesses, vice and virtue, identity, the nature of lived time. And more importantly, Andreou and White’s collection often weds these questions to ordinary struggles and anxieties – lucidly and sometimes enjoyably.
- from The Philosopher's Magazine #51
These are the central questions of The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination, edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White. Divided into three parts – the nature and causes of procrastination; its relationship to vice; and ways of overcoming it – the volume is the first to give a dedicated philosophical treatment of the problem. The contributors are chiefly philosophers, though essays like George Ainslie’s “Procrastination: The Basic Impulse” and Don Ross’ “Economic Models of Procrastination” give economic analyses.
What does The Thief of Time offer the general reader? A few essays are highly technical, and general readers may be unfamiliar with the terminology and scholarly background. When Don Ross writes of modelling “picoeconomic accounts of molar-scale intertemporal preference,” I admit to bafflement – but my ignorance is to blame, not his vocabulary.
Nonetheless, The Thief of Time is an interesting and important book. It deals in fresh ways with well-known philosophical problems: will and rationality and their weaknesses, vice and virtue, identity, the nature of lived time. And more importantly, Andreou and White’s collection often weds these questions to ordinary struggles and anxieties – lucidly and sometimes enjoyably.
- from The Philosopher's Magazine #51
January 29, 2011
Some interesting approaches to thinking about procrastination -- it's a collecton of essays from economics, psychology, philosophy/logic. Fun to think about something that's so pervasive, unavoidable, sometimes even central, in this way.
August 12, 2011
Much too technical, with lots of jargon. I had read an excellent review in the New Yorker last winter, which contained everything useful to me. Sorry I can't recall the date.
I read only a few pages.
I read only a few pages.
March 1, 2013
This collection of essays, while dense material, tackles some exceptionally fascinating material. Exactly what is procrastination? You might think that the answer to that question is simple, but it won't take more than a couple of essays for you to see that it's anything but.
Want to read
October 7, 2010Mentioned in an article on procrastination called later.
December 15, 2015
a good read, even practical if you skim through a lot of the chapters in the middle. The philosophy is, well, full of jargon and models which are not necessarily all that interesting
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews