Title: Depression and the Open Future

Abstract: We intuitively think that the past is fixed or closed whereas the future is open. In a phenomenological description of depression, however, depressed subjects often report that the future is closed. Our naïve view of the open future thus seems to be impaired. What makes the depressed subjects to represent the future to be closed? I argue that depressed subject come to have a psychological orientation towards certain ontological views related to the openness of the future. To argue this, I examine four candidate ontological views: presentism, the growing block theory, the block theory, and the branch theory. I argue that the seeming lack of asymmetry is caused by depressed subjects’ psychological orientation towards either presentism, the growing block theory, or the block theory. This tells us, when we represent the future to be open, we are implicitly committed to the branch theory.