You note in your full paper Setiya's use of the terms "telic" and "atelic" and Hacker and Landau's 'regulatory ends' (I might add Kauppinen's 'telic perfectionism'). You use the terms "completable" and "non-completable". Would you say that "telic" and "completable" are [near-]synonyms? Same for atelic/non-completable? Telic and atelic don't exactly roll off the tongue; nor are they commonly understood. I'm interested in these concepts (in the context of the philosophy of retirement).
I found your paper interesting, as retirement is another angle on "post-work". Thanks.
Philosophy of retirement sounds fascinating! Any good reading recommendations (perhaps something you've written)?
Yes, I think my non/completable distinction largely maps onto Setiya's a/telic one :) I avoided his terminolog for the reasons you mention – I think 'completable' and its negation are much more friendly for people approaching this stuff brand-new.
Still a student, but my current WIP is to expand on a recent paper which argues that "cliff-edge" retirements, where one stops work completely vs the gradual tapering off of work responsibilities, are ill-formed ground projects (using B. Williams as you did for the definition of ground projects). I was pointed to Setiya's Midlife and his reference to a/telic activities in relation to the topic, more when I was heading towards it being about well-roundedness. I ended up focusing on Hurka and Kauppinen's perfectionisms. The question that lingers in my mind is the contrasting views of a career as more atelic/non-completable, as the employee themself might see it, or more telic/completable, as the employer might view it (hence the preponderance of cliff-edge retirements). Your thoughts? A lot of what you said about "post-work" could be said for retirement. While I agree with you that AI/automation is having, and will increasingly have, an impact on our work lives, each day 10,000 employees are retiring from full-time work in the U.S. and this has been going on for years (other countries are experiencing different yet still high rates of retirements, perhaps related to laws around mandatory retirements, which are largely illegal in the U.S.). I think our work in this area is (in your case) or could be (in my case) important and timely. Thanks for replying back.
I'm not sure that cliff-edge vs. phased retirement tracks the a/telic distinction, though. This is because whether some activity is telic or not cannot be entirely determined by its temporal character (how long it goes on, whether it stops abruptly, etc.). After all, I might end my stroll (an atelic or non-completable activity) abruptly or even gradually phase out of it – perhaps it slowly transforms into a telic activity as I mull over, and gradually come to decide to, go to the store to buy some groceries and then head home.
It's not the temporal character of the activity per se that determines whether it is atelic or telic, but its teleological character: whether it is directed toward an end that, once achieved, terminates the activity. (If yes, telic/completable; if not, atelic/noncompletable.) So an employer would view her employee's career as telic/completable if she views it as directed toward a termination point like that – e.g., if she views her employee's career as entirely a matter of selling 10,000,000€ worth of paper. (When the employee succeeds – sells 10M€ worth of paper – she does not just stop, she is *done*, as far as her employer is concerned!) It would be weird if the employer viewed *a specific age* as the terminating point (in the telic sense, rather than the temporal sense) of her employee's career, though, which seems like what you'd need to straightforwardly explain cliff-edge retirement. That looks like it would require viewing someone's career as, say, 'working until the age of 65', rather than 'selling paper'. We don't usually think about careers this way.
It might be helpful to think further about not just how activities might be telic or not, but how they might be brought to a close in a more or less meaningful way. One problem with cliff-edge retirement might be that it frustrates success in important telic activities we're in the middle of – the employee does not get to see the matter through to its completion. It might also frustrate atelic activities we're in the middle of, not by preventing our success in them per se, but rather by preventing our success in the various (subsidiary) telic activities whereby we do these atelic activities. (E.g., my cliff-edge retirement might frustrate my doing philosophy because it interrupts the book I'm trying to finish writing, where my writing this book is how I am (for now) doing philosophy.) Here, the cliff-edge retirement does not necessarily foreclose on success in the atelic activity, though, so there's a real puzzle here as to why that would be a bad thing. So it sounds like an interesting issue to explore!
You note in your full paper Setiya's use of the terms "telic" and "atelic" and Hacker and Landau's 'regulatory ends' (I might add Kauppinen's 'telic perfectionism'). You use the terms "completable" and "non-completable". Would you say that "telic" and "completable" are [near-]synonyms? Same for atelic/non-completable? Telic and atelic don't exactly roll off the tongue; nor are they commonly understood. I'm interested in these concepts (in the context of the philosophy of retirement).
I found your paper interesting, as retirement is another angle on "post-work". Thanks.
Philosophy of retirement sounds fascinating! Any good reading recommendations (perhaps something you've written)?
Yes, I think my non/completable distinction largely maps onto Setiya's a/telic one :) I avoided his terminolog for the reasons you mention – I think 'completable' and its negation are much more friendly for people approaching this stuff brand-new.
Still a student, but my current WIP is to expand on a recent paper which argues that "cliff-edge" retirements, where one stops work completely vs the gradual tapering off of work responsibilities, are ill-formed ground projects (using B. Williams as you did for the definition of ground projects). I was pointed to Setiya's Midlife and his reference to a/telic activities in relation to the topic, more when I was heading towards it being about well-roundedness. I ended up focusing on Hurka and Kauppinen's perfectionisms. The question that lingers in my mind is the contrasting views of a career as more atelic/non-completable, as the employee themself might see it, or more telic/completable, as the employer might view it (hence the preponderance of cliff-edge retirements). Your thoughts? A lot of what you said about "post-work" could be said for retirement. While I agree with you that AI/automation is having, and will increasingly have, an impact on our work lives, each day 10,000 employees are retiring from full-time work in the U.S. and this has been going on for years (other countries are experiencing different yet still high rates of retirements, perhaps related to laws around mandatory retirements, which are largely illegal in the U.S.). I think our work in this area is (in your case) or could be (in my case) important and timely. Thanks for replying back.
I'm not sure that cliff-edge vs. phased retirement tracks the a/telic distinction, though. This is because whether some activity is telic or not cannot be entirely determined by its temporal character (how long it goes on, whether it stops abruptly, etc.). After all, I might end my stroll (an atelic or non-completable activity) abruptly or even gradually phase out of it – perhaps it slowly transforms into a telic activity as I mull over, and gradually come to decide to, go to the store to buy some groceries and then head home.
It's not the temporal character of the activity per se that determines whether it is atelic or telic, but its teleological character: whether it is directed toward an end that, once achieved, terminates the activity. (If yes, telic/completable; if not, atelic/noncompletable.) So an employer would view her employee's career as telic/completable if she views it as directed toward a termination point like that – e.g., if she views her employee's career as entirely a matter of selling 10,000,000€ worth of paper. (When the employee succeeds – sells 10M€ worth of paper – she does not just stop, she is *done*, as far as her employer is concerned!) It would be weird if the employer viewed *a specific age* as the terminating point (in the telic sense, rather than the temporal sense) of her employee's career, though, which seems like what you'd need to straightforwardly explain cliff-edge retirement. That looks like it would require viewing someone's career as, say, 'working until the age of 65', rather than 'selling paper'. We don't usually think about careers this way.
It might be helpful to think further about not just how activities might be telic or not, but how they might be brought to a close in a more or less meaningful way. One problem with cliff-edge retirement might be that it frustrates success in important telic activities we're in the middle of – the employee does not get to see the matter through to its completion. It might also frustrate atelic activities we're in the middle of, not by preventing our success in them per se, but rather by preventing our success in the various (subsidiary) telic activities whereby we do these atelic activities. (E.g., my cliff-edge retirement might frustrate my doing philosophy because it interrupts the book I'm trying to finish writing, where my writing this book is how I am (for now) doing philosophy.) Here, the cliff-edge retirement does not necessarily foreclose on success in the atelic activity, though, so there's a real puzzle here as to why that would be a bad thing. So it sounds like an interesting issue to explore!
Right. good points about how temporality does or doesn't fit. Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. I'll ponder some more.