Definition:
(1) Foreseeing and forestalling objections in various ways.
(2) Figurative device by which a future event is presumed to have already occurred.
Adjective: proleptic.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "preconception, anticipation"Examples:
- "In 1963, Nobel Prize-winning economist William Vickrey suggested that [automobile] insurance be included in the purchase of tires. Anticipating the objection that this might lead people to drive on bald tires, Vickrey said drivers should get credit for the remaining tread when they turn in a tire. Andrew Tobias proposed a variation on this scheme in which insurance would be included in the price of gasoline. That would have the added benefit of solving the problem of uninsured motorists (roughly 28% of California drivers). As Tobias points out, you can drive a car without insurance, but you can't drive it without gasoline."
(Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff, "Would You Buy Car Insurance by the Mile?" Forbes, 2005) - Michael Moore continues his book Dude, Where's My Country? with a dream he had one night which took him several years into the future. It is a time when the world has run out of oil and the wars started by Bush have brought an end to America as we know it. Moore is having a conversation with his granddaughter, who wants to know how Americans could have been so blind to the truth and so wasteful.
Pronunciation: pro-LEP-sis
