Hope

Reviews concepts of hope, despair, and depression. Hope is viewed as the belief and expectation that one has some control over life and the future, that unpleasant events are products of both personal perspective and fate, and that problems will be mastered or will fade.

Regards an orientation toward success (i.e., winning the approval of others) as an obstacle to hope. Moods and expectations unrelieved by hope can degenerate into a compulsive idea that life is a process of losing and dying without any compensatory gains. The prime source of deepened hope is to move toward the experience of presence with another. Acknowledging the dialectic nature of hope is itself also a source of hope. Affirming life and love enables one to face their opposites—death and (...) suffering. (shrink)

Discusses the relationship between commitment (pledging or binding oneself to certain acts), hope (anticipating that positive events will occur), despondency (anticipating negative events), and fatalism (believing that there is nothing one can do to affect the future). Factors contributing to despondency in the US include an emphasis on self and emotionality that gives the illusion of increased intimacy but avoids real caring and commitment toward others; experiences of alienation and aloneness; the high crime rate; and a loss of trust in (...) leaders. Diminished privacy and a dehumanizing bureaucracy can lead to fatalism. Research is reviewed on factors enhancing commitment and on the enhancement of beliefs after overt actions. It is concluded that changing despondency and fatalism into constructive hope requires prior active behavior or involvement, which raises the probability of further action. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Suppose that, in most domains of belief, our basic commitments are warranted not evidentially but pragmatically. Is that good news for efforts to warrant theistic commitment? Not obviously, I argue by way of a critique of several recent existential arguments for theism. It’s unclear that theistic commitment is a necessary, or even viable, means of gaining supernatural goods like cosmic meaning or a happy afterlife. And it’s unclear that this-worldly (putative) goods it arguably underpins—in particular, a specific sort of optimism—are (...) sufficiently valuable to generate pragmatic warrant. I suggest in conclusion that, while pragmatic moral arguments avoid some of these difficulties, it’s challenging to maintain both that an aim is morally required and that theistic faith is necessary for its realization. Prospects for a strong pragmatic warrant for theistic commitment thus remain uncertain at best. (shrink)

Imagine that your lover or close friend has embraced a difficult long-term goal, such as advancing environmental justice, breaking a bad habit, or striving to become a better person. Which stance should you adopt toward their prospects for success? Does supporting our significant others in the pursuit of valuable goals require ignoring part of our evidence? I argue that we have special reasons – reasons grounded in friendship – to hope that our loved ones succeed in their difficult goals. I (...) further propose that hope is an attitude governed by distinctive norms of epistemic rationality. It has a unique impact on motivation and rational action and a special capacity to be met with uptake in hope. Owing to these features, hope is the central attitudinal dimension of truly amiable support based on “just vision”. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to show that a familiar hermeneutical movement from suspicion to affirmation of rational meaning, as a reader reflects on a narrative, is, in part, grounded in the narrative's rhythmic structure which mediates a sonorous condition of being appropriated by the reader. This hermeneutical process involves the reader in appropriating the temporal perspective which creates a 'space' for reflection in which a provisional conceptual unity is made possible, but subject to continuing movement from suspicion to (...) affirmation. It is shown that this relationship between Self and Other is dialectical, and mediated by the textual modes of metaphor and narrative. Particular examples of poetry and prose are examined, and the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in the 'Authorised Version' of the Bible is analyzed in detail in an attempt to show how the reader, imaginatively inhabiting the world of the text, is involved in a process in which there is an 'instant' of letting go Self reflection; and there is affirmation of reasonable hope that the narrative may be rationally understood. In an attempt to address the critical issue of validation of rational meaning to show that affirmation may be given reasonable hope, the analogy of juridical legality is examined, particularly with respect to Aristotle's notion of phronesis. The analysis draws upon the hermeneutical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur with particular regard to his theories of metaphor and narrative, and the role of the creative imagination. It also makes use of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the lived body in terms of a dialectical relationship between its material objectivity and its phenomenological aspects, especially, with respect to sonorous being and corporeal intentionality. From the discipline of literary criticism, Northrop Frye's notion of prose rhythm in his Anatomy of Criticism is employed to identity this key mediatory characteristic. (shrink)

Suggests that the form of violence, its direction and purpose, and the conditions that start and end it, are determined mainly by the degree of hope or hopelessness giving rise to it. Violence is defined as an action whose intent is to harm another person. "Emotional violence" is an effort to reduce anxiety, which if successful arouses hope. "Instrumental violence" is directed at a specific goal in a more dispassionate manner. Societies should find moral equivalents to these 2 forms of (...) violence; social changes that decrease the effectiveness of instrumental violence may reduce emotional violence. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of gratitude tends to emphasize the way in which the emotion is responsive to manifestations of benevolence (or good will). In some cases, however, gratitude ‘grows’—or increases in strength— across time, in ways that are intuitively fitting but unaccounted for by gratitude’s sensitivity to benevolence. To make sense of this kind of gratitude-growth, I argue that there are conditions in which manifestations of benevolence— particularly, benevolent hopes—can rationally accommodate the unforeseen and unintended outcomes to which they give rise, (...) rendering fitting a greater degree of gratitude than was fitting in response to the original manifestation of benevolence. (shrink)

Christian communities are often discussed as communities of faith. In this article I consider how they are also communities of hope. Hope is highly relevant to communal flourishing as the theological virtue of hope aims at one’s ultimate postmortem well-being. Yet, authors such as Augustine and Aquinas have described the theological virtue of hope as being for one’s own eternal flourishing. Thus, theological hope can appear to be too solipsistic and otherworldly to contribute to communal flourishing in this world; however, (...) I argue that theological hope can overcome these two difficulties. First, I show how theological hope is inherently interpersonal and social given its reliance on God. I then explain how hope contributes to the flourishing of Christians and Christian communities in this life. While much could be said about the benefits of hope, I only argue for two such benefits: 1). Hope helps us strike the balance of appropriate human agency in relation to God and others, avoiding prideful and slothful presumption and,2) hope encourages us to strive for greater flourishing through the virtue of magnanimity. In short, I argue that Christians and Christian communities go further in flourishing when they hope together. (shrink)

Il presente lavoro di ricerca apre il pensiero e l’agire dell’aver cura della vita e della salute all’analitica della relazione fondamentale tra essere e speranza nella dimensione della cura. Attraverso l’analisi del rapporto tra “cura”, “limite” e “speranza” nel tempo della tecnica, si sono ricercate le condizioni ermeneutiche di uno sguardo rinnovato verso l’essere della cura, orientato dalla possibilità della speranza. A partire dal confronto con la concettualizzazione heideggeriana dell’ “aver cura”, dalla ricomprensione della nozione jaspersiana di “situazione limite” e (...) dalla possibilità dell’ “apertura” marceliana alla speranza nelle pratiche concrete della cura, la ricerca si è indirizzata verso la valutazione di un’analitica della cura alla luce della speranza e l’indicazione della trascendenza valoriale della cura. La speranza emerge infatti quale «fondamento originario e originante della cura», radice di un con-essere curante comunionale proteso «tra situazionalità limite dell’esistenza e apertura trascendente della speranza». In tale orizzonte si sono scorti gli apporti alla filosofia ed etica della cura, alla luce della speranza di bene che apre e illumina «la dimensione ontologica, esistenziale e trascendente della cura». (shrink)

This chapter examines a range of ancient Greek and Roman views regarding hope, developing themes drawn from philosophical sources—including Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoic and Epicurean schools—and discussing approaches and applications in the narratives of Thucydides and in ancient Greek medicine. Selected references to Greek and Roman literature and cultural practices are also included. Together, these ancient sources reveal complex human attitudes about the future, and the chapter considers various criteria used to make judgments about the value of hope. Themes (...) include the relationships of hope to fear and courage, rationality and memory, emotion and pleasure, and human agency and well-being. Throughout, connections are made with current philosophical literature on hope, in the belief that familiarity with the variety and nuance of ancient attitudes can promote a deeper understanding of our own notions of hope. (shrink)

The paper argues for God as the rational object of our desire and action, with respect to help-seeking. I begin by characterizing the desperate situation as one that is very bad in ways that are beyond one’s control. Knowing that one’s situation is desperate, it is rational to feel desperation about it. Desperation, I argue, involves an impulse to seek help; to find and entreat a helper. So, feeling and expressing that impulse in a desperate situation is rational. The human (...) condition itself seems to be desperate, due to things like our mortality, fragile well-being, and philosophical ignorance. So, it is rational to feel desperate about the human condition and to seek help regarding it. I argue that God is the best target of that impulse, arguing from common consent, by showing that God best satisfies the criteria for a helper, and from a Neo-Platonic conception of God as the cause of all help. (shrink)

This paper surveys the epistemology of two attitudes: faith and hope. First, I examine descriptive questions about faith and hope. Faith and hope are resilient attitudes with unique cognitive and conative components; while related, they are also distinct, notably in that hope’s cognitive component is weaker than faith’s. I then turn to faith and hope's epistemic (ir)rationality, and discuss various ways that faith and hope can be rational and irrational. Finally, I discuss the relationship between faith, hope, and knowledge: while (...) it’s controversial whether faith is compatible with knowledge, hope is not compatible with knowledge. (shrink)

Fear is a preventer, sometimes robustly so. When fear robustly prevents, it changes or diminishes what an agent is able to do. Various popular conceptions of fear focus on its negative role: fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we should, as in certain cases of akrasia. But by the same token, fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we shouldn’t, as in certain other cases of inverse akrasia. We end with a plea on behalf of fear, both in light (...) of its preventing role and its broader connection to other ways we express concern, in particular, to hope. (shrink)

This mixed-methods study used a participatory action approach to develop and test a culturally grounded measure of hope among adolescents. Nineteen adult community leaders participated in interviews and a youth advisory board provided their perspectives on hope in the southeastern U.S. This information was used to develop the Adolescent Hope Scale. Psychometric testing was conducted using data from an online panel of 311 youth participants (66.2% male; Mage = 12.62; 62.1% White American, 32.8% Black or African American) and their parents (...) or legal guardians in the U.S. The newly developed Adolescent Hope Scale functioned equally well across gender and ethnicity. It was uniquely predictive of physical and relational aggression, conduct problems, and prosocial behavior. Promoting hope is a potential intervention target to reduce problem behaviors. (shrink)

Given the current and future suffering associated with human-made climate change and the lack of political action in response to it, it seems only natural to feel despair. However, despair has a bad reputation among climate ethicists and in the wider public. In this paper, we will push back against this view and argue that there is considerable value in climate despair. More specifically, we shall maintain that climate despair can be valuable in two respects. First, it is epistemically valuable (...) because it constitutes a particularly apt way of recognizing the severity of what has already happened and is likely to happen because of human-made climate change, and because it can provide a “reflective break” that allows us to rearrange our values and find new strategies to tackle climate change. Second, climate despair can have various valuable expressive and signaling functions. Most importantly, perhaps, it can send the message that the despairing person cares about important moral values and norms, and remind us all of how big a moral problem climate change, in fact, is. (shrink)

Since Case and Deaton (2015) coined the term ‘deaths of despair,’ there has been significant empirical work and public interest in the topic. Yet social scientists studying this topic lament the absence of a clear theory of despair. Philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of hope has begun to fill this gap, with despair often cited as the opposite of hope. The assumption that hope and despair are opposites has helped to motivate two central tasks in the literature: how (...) a theory of hope can make sense of the difference between hope and despair, and how hope might prevent people from falling into despair. Yet the focus of inquiry has been principally on hope. This paper builds on the existing literature to offer a theory of despair. We argue that despair is a mode of sadness whereby one experiences the loss of reasons to take seriously that which one desires. Our account of despair captures a set of desiderata that any theory of despair should explain, and it offers useful conceptual resources to social scientists studying deaths of despair. (shrink)

Although doubt (Tvivl) and despair (Fortvivlelse) are widely recognized as two central and closely associated concepts in Kierkegaard’s authorship, their precise relationship remains opaque in the extant interpretive literature. To shed light on their relationship, this paper develops a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the connection between despair and our agency over our beliefs, and its significance for Kierkegaard’s ethics of belief. First, I show that an important yet largely overlooked form of Kierkegaardian despair involves either failing to take (...) ethico-religious responsibility for one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs, or misusing one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs by refusing to recognize or comply with externally given ethico-religious norms governing belief. Second, I argue that Kierkegaard takes properly exercising one’s agency over one’s beliefs to matter because beliefs are partly constitutive of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) that Kierkegaard regards as the cure for despair. (shrink)

The Oxford Compendium of Hope presents an authoritative and comprehensive guide to hope with five main aims: provide a historical context for the interdisciplinary study of hope, condense and organize seminal writings on hope, document the state of research on hope across 12 scholarly areas, prioritize scholarship with generative power and cross-disciplinary potential, and anchor itself in a unifying, philosophical meta-perspective on hope. Central to the volume's purpose is the editor's "third culture" approach to the study of hope, encompassing both (...) a scientific and a humanities-based examination. Chapter authors hailing from psychology, philosophy, health studies, anthropology, and other disciplines examine hope from their unique vantage points. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of a metaphysical event theory that incorporates the concept of hope as a disposition. Hope is interp- reted as an expectation regarding future events while representing certain manifestations expected to occur in certain future events. In this sense, for ontologies that deny change or claim that its degree is purely fundamental, hope is a redundant concept in a metaphysical context. Additionally, in a world governed by fatalism or theological determinism it is meaningless to hope for (...) an alternative result. These two interpretations are compatible with a form of Stoicism as they depict a world where hope is redundant. To make hope more meaningful within the framework of event theory, we can propose an alternative view in which hope is considered not merely a psychological pheno- menon but also related and more active to metaphysical events. To strengthen this relation, we will change our perspective on our feature ontology and argue that what is hoped for can exist as a dispositional property that is realized as a particular consequence of an event, when it encounters certain stimuli. In examining the relationship between hope and event theory from different ontological perspectives, the first two view hope as a redundant concept for event theories. In contrast, the third perspective reinterprets hope as a disposition, making it more significant for a fundamental ontology. (shrink)

The notion of hope is of central importance to Kant’s conception of human reason, in particular to his account of the highest good and the related ‘postulates’ of God and immortality. This becomes most obvious when, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously summarizes ‘all interest’ of human reason in three questions: ‘What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?’ (A805/B833). This contribution concentrates on Kant’s answer to the question ‘What may I hope?’ and (...) thus the role of hope in Kant’s account of human reason. After giving a brief account of what hope is, according to Kant, and what exactly he means by the question ‘What may I hope?’ in §2, the chapter turns to Kant’s answer in §3. It clarifies the relation between the highest good and the postulate of God’s existence (3.1) and argues that belief in God is what makes hope for morally deserved happiness rational (3.2). It then provides an account of the psychological role played by hope (3.3) and explains why Kant takes the hope question to be central to the interest of human reason. The chapter closes in §4 by indicating open questions and further lines of research. (shrink)

Darrel Moellendorf’s _Mobilizing Hope_ (2022) is an engaging mixture of philosophy, moral psychology, political theory, empirical reportage, policy recommendation, and call to action. His main goal is to provide a normative framework for thinking about risk, danger, possibility, and intergenerational justice—one that can motivate (or even require) a collective commitment to avoiding “catastrophe.” Individual and collective hope plays a key role in mobilizing that sort of commitment, according to Moellendorf. In this brief exchange I raise some questions about his account (...) of the nature of hope and the motivational role that it plays, especially in the face of complex collective action problems. (shrink)

Chapter 5 is a study of the central attitude of the heart: love. Just as respect is implicit in all reactive attitudes of the will, so also is love implicit in all attitudes of the heart. It has their core feature: opening the heart to another heart in the hope that the other’s heart will be open in response so that they share heartfelt connection. Love will thus be an aspect of all the attitudes of the heart we will discuss, (...) including personal anger. Anger is frequently occasioned by and is a defense against hurt feelings. It is an aggressive heart protection policy. Love is a second-personal attitude of holding, beholding, and upholding. Love and respect are responses to and recognize two different aspects of our intrinsic value. To love someone is to see them as worthy of love. To respect someone, by contrast, is to recognize their dignity. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the fundamental distinction between attitudes of the will and attitudes of the heart. Whereas the former mediate mutual accountability and presuppose that both parties share a fundamental dignity or second-personal authority that entitles both to respect, the latter aim at heartfelt connection and presuppose that both parties have an intrinsic value of a different kind, that both parties are worthy of love. Dignity, in the relevant sense, is that through which we are entitled to “exac[t] respect,” as (...) Kant puts it. The structures of deontic and nondeontic reactive attitudes are identical. Both must assume that their objects are capable of the relevant attitudes, both toward the other and toward themselves. And both must assume that both parties have a kind of value that makes the attitude that recognizes the value fitting to its object. (shrink)

Personal loving relations involve relatings. Their heartfelt quality consists in openings of friends’ and lovers’ hearts in the hope that the other’s will be open to one in return. Heartfelt relating involves not just communication of propositions about feelings, but communication of emotions and feelings themselves, so that through them we are able to feel the other person. Although the communication of feeling need not be in one another’s presence, this is obviously preferable, understanding “presence” sufficiently broadly to include the (...) joy we can hear, for example, in another’s voice over the phone, or the sadness we can see in their eyes on a screen. Chapter 8 investigates what is necessary to be with others in a way that makes one and them emotionally present to one another. What this involves is less spatiotemporal contiguity than mutual openness of hearts. (shrink)

The book provides the first systematic treatment of attitudes that mediate heartfelt connection: second-personal attitudes of the heart. These are instances of what P. F. Strawson called “reactive attitudes,” but they are much less studied than those—guilt, resentment, and blame—that mediate mutual accountability: second-personal attitudes of the will. Both sets of attitudes are held from a “participant” or second-person standpoint, imply address, and call for reciprocation. But whereas the attitudes that mediate accountability, and therefore deontic morality, implicitly demand respect, second-personal (...) attitudes of the heart invite, and hope for, rather than demand or expect, heartfelt connection. Examples include love, gratitude, trust, faith, hope, and a host of others. Although attitudes of both kinds are inevitably involved in human relationship, deontic attitudes of the will mediate our relations to other persons considered simply as one person among others, which is the fundamental relationship of deontic morality. Attitudes of the heart, by contrast, mediate personal relationship in which we share heartfelt connection. By studying both attitudes of the will and attitudes of the heart, the book is able to provide the first general characterization of reactive attitudes. A reactive attitude is any attitude felt from a second-person stance that implicitly calls for the person who is its object to have a reciprocal attitude in return—whether an attitude of the will or an attitude of the heart. (shrink)

Chapter 4 begins to explore these differences with two contrasts between guilt and remorse and between indignation or impartial anger and personal anger (and rage). Guilt is a deontic second-personal attitude of the will; it implicitly acknowledges culpability for a wrong to those to whom one holds oneself accountable, takes responsibility, and sets the will not to do it again. Remorse, by contrast, is a second-personal attitude of the heart. It is a form of sorrow for the harm, hurt, and (...) suffering that one has caused. It extends beyond guilt in opening one’s heart to the other and sharing their hurt empathically in a heartfelt way. Similarly, indignation, or impartial anger, is fundamentally different from personal anger. The former is a form of blame that aims to hold its object accountable. Personal anger also has a second-personal structure, but it insinuates a personal rather than an impersonal or impartial relationship. (shrink)

Chapter 9 concerns the attitude of gratitude. Strawson follows Adam Smith in treating resentment and gratitude as structurally identical. “What gratitude chiefly desires,” Smith says, “is not only to make the benefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but to make him conscious that he meets with this reward on account of his past conduct.” This captures gratitude’s implicitly reciprocating character but makes it more like reciprocal moral esteem than anything heartfelt. Kant provides another point of comparison. Neither of these accounts (...) rings true when we consider the significant role that gratitude plays in a happy life, as is affirmed by the popularity of “gratitude diaries.” This make perfect sense when we view gratitude as an attitude of the heart. Having a heartfelt appreciation of benevolence shown to us out of the goodness of someone’s heart is an occasion for the joy of shared emotional connection. (shrink)

Chapter 6 discusses two closely connected attitudes of the heart: trust and hope. What is basic to all forms of trust is trust’s second-personal character, which sets it apart from mere reliance. There is, however, a kind of trust that is distinctively personal. When personal trust of this kind is unfulfilled, we are more likely to use the language of personal disappointment, sadness, and hurt feelings than of blame and moral indignation. This difference between deontic and personal trust is reflected (...) in the contrast between deontic reactive attitudes—attitudes of the will—and attitudes of the heart quite generally. But although we can expect respect, love, and therefore, trust, hope, and other attitudes of the heart are nothing that can be demanded or expected. Hopes that we place in someone differ from any hope that they will do something or other. (shrink)

The chapter introduces the topic of heartfelt connection and discusses both why it has been ignored by philosophers and its importance in life and its philosophical relevance. It introduces the Strawsonian structure of “reactive attitudes,” which mediate human relationship from a “participant” (second-person) perspective. It also discusses reactive attitudes’ central features. It argues that the metaphorical character of “heart” is no bar to philosophical investigation, since it can easily be interpreted as a syndrome of emotional vulnerabilities and susceptibilities and, is (...) any case, something everyone recognizes in their own experience. It then introduces each of the chapters to follow along with short summaries. (shrink)

Chapter 10 illustrates how the distinction between attitudes of the will and attitudes of the heart can inform debates about ethically appropriate responses to chattel slavery and its legacy that generally go under the heading of “reparations.” Although the focus is on chattel slavery in the United States, the general issues extend internationally throughout the history of racial capitalism, colonialism, and its aftermath. The aim is to illustrate the helpfulness of a distinction between “reparations,” on the one hand, and “repair,” (...) the sense that is in play in the kind of heartfelt forgiveness that Baldwin speaks of, on the other. Only love can heal personal wounds. That is poignantly the case with the horrific harms created by chattel slavery and its legacy institutions and practices. (shrink)

The contrast between second-personal attitudes of the will through which we respect one another as equal mutually accountable persons, on the one hand, and second-personal attitudes through which we connect with one another in a heartfelt, loving way, is reflected in a difference between Frederick Douglass’s famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and James Baldwin’s writings and, most vividly, his participation in the 1965 Cambridge Union Debate with William F. Buckley on the proposition, “The American (...) Dream Has Been at the Expense of the American Negro.” Douglass’s speech respectfully puts forward a demand for respect that gives his audience an experience of his (and their) dignity as persons. Baldwin’s intervention is profoundly different. What is most remarkable is Baldwin’s emotional presence, the way he makes himself vulnerable, opens himself to his audience, and speaks honestly from the heart without expectation or demand, although sometimes with real anger. (shrink)

The role of trust and love in the ethical life is a central theme in the writings of Knud Ejler Løgstrup. Chapter 7 discusses Løgstrup on love and trust along with related ideas of Kierkegaard and Iris Murdoch. Løgstrup’s central claim is that loving and trusting openness is the default human condition. Through trust we naturally put ourselves “in one another’s hands.” An important theme in both Løgstrup and Murdoch is the contrast between the perspectives we occupy when we construct (...) narratives involving ourselves and others to buoy our self-esteem and to defend ourselves against our natural emotional vulnerability. These are what Murdoch calls “self-consoling fantasy” and Løgstrup terms “self-enclos[ing]” “pictures.” Trust involves “a purely personal expectation,” though when it “is not fulfilled by the other, moral accusations flare up.” But this moralizing of trust is no part of trust’s natural openness, but self-enclosing self-defense. “One has laid oneself bare” and has been personally wounded as a consequence. (shrink)

Il lavoro di dottorato condotto apre la ricerca filosofica ed etica, riguardo il pensiero e l’agire dell’aver cura, alla possibilità teoretico-pratica e valutativa di un’analitica della relazione fondamentale, originaria e vivente sussistente tra essere e speranza nella dimensione ontologica, esistenziale e trascendente della cura. Attraverso un’ermeneutica del rapporto contemporaneo tra cura, limite e speranza nel tempo della tecnica, sviluppata a partire dalle riflessioni avanzate su tali questioni da Heidegger, Jaspers e Marcel, si sono venute ad individuare, affrontare e verificare, nella (...) prima parte analitica del lavoro, le condizioni ermeneutiche di uno sguardo rinnovato verso l’essere della cura, orientato dalla possibilità della speranza. A partire dalla possibilità di un necessario confronto con la concettualizzazione della dimensione e del tempo dell’aver cura nell’analitica heideggeriana dell’esserci, dalla ricomprensione della chiarificazione jaspersiana di situazione limite quale orizzonte ermeneutico della cura, così come dalla possibilità dell’apertura marceliana alla speranza nelle situazionalità concrete dell’aver cura, la ricerca ha potuto dunque indirizzarsi, nella seconda parte sintetica, verso la possibilità di un’ontologia esistenziale della speranza; così come verso la messa in luce della trascendenza valoriale propria della dimensione della cura. La possibilità di ricerca di un’ermeneutica ontologico-esistenziale e trascendente della speranza, a partire dalle pratiche ontiche dell’aver cura della vita e della salute, ha permesso così di avanzare, grazie al confronto interdisciplinare intrapreso con le rispettive e integrative riflessioni di Heidegger, Jaspers e Marcel sulle questioni della cura, del limite e della speranza e l’ermeneutica teoretico-pratica operata a partire da queste, una valutazione circa la possibilità di un’analitica della dimensione della cura alla luce della speranza. In tale orizzonte ermeneutico si sono manifestati, infine, i possibili apporti ontologico-esistenziali del lavoro ad una filosofia ed etica dell’aver cura che si ricerchi quanto più autentica e omnicomprensiva, alla luce di una speranza aperturale di bene comunionale che si invera quotidianamente e straordinariamente nella dimensione ontologica, esistenziale e trascendente della cura. (shrink)

In the face of widespread structural injustice, many people feel hopeless. Is hope valuable for political activism, or is it naive, impractical, or even counterproductive? Here I focus on collective hope as opposed to individual hope. I argue that collective hope can both sustain us in our political commitments and generate new commitments; it is therefore particularly valuable for activist movements and should be cultivated. Through the contemporary example of the prison abolition movement, I address pessimistic and pragmatic worries about (...) political hope, show how collective hope motivates political action through activities of shared imagination, and introduce the concept of holding hope. In order for collective hope to emerge, some members of a group need to hold hope for the collective by sustaining their individual hope and supporting the capacity of other individuals to hope. (shrink)

This paper examines whether atheists, who believe that God does not exist, can have faith. Of course, atheists have certain kinds of faith: faith in their friends, faith in certain ideals, and faith in themselves. However, the question we’ll examine is whether atheists can have theistic faith: faith that God exists. Philosophers tend to fall on one of two extremes on this question: some, like Dan Howard-Snyder (2019) and Imran Aijaz (2023), say unequivocally no; others, like Robert Whitaker (2019) and (...) Sam Lebens (2023), say unequivocally yes. Here, I take a middle position: I argue that atheists can have action-focused theistic faith (faith in how they act) but not attitude-focused theistic faith (faith in what attitudes they have). (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce has commonly been interpreted as a proponent of an epistemic theory of truth. Such a theory has the apparent advantage of directly undercutting radical skepticism, but the disadvantage of implausibly entailing that there are no truths concerning irretrievably lost facts. Recently Andrew Howat has defended Peirce’s epistemic constraint on truth by recasting Peirce’s claim that all truths would be believed following sufficient inquiry, not as constitutive of truth, but as a Wittgensteinian hinge proposition. I begin with a (...) twofold historical reply to Howat: first, Peirce can at least plausibly be read as claiming that the claim in question is analytic of the concept ; and second, while Peirce did think we must accept without evidence the further claim that there are any truths (so characterized), he regarded this further claim not as a Wittgensteinian hinge but as a reasonable hope. I then substantively defend the latter Peircean proposal, arguing that hopes, as against beliefs, are chiefly warranted pragmatically, and so can be warranted even to a sufficient level to render them properly action-guiding in cases where belief in the same proposition would remain unjustified. I conclude by suggesting, first, that this proposal is superior to Wittgenstein’s own epistemology in evading psychologism, and second, that it attractively vindicates the reasonableness of inquiry on Peircean grounds that don’t require an appeal to an implausible epistemic theory of truth. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that hope is polysemous in that it sometimes refers to hoping and other times to being hopeful. That it has these two distinct senses is reflected in the observation that a person can hope for an outcome without being hopeful that it will occur. Below, I offer a new argument for this distinction. My strategy is to show that accepting this distinction yields a rich account of two distinct ways in which hope can be lost, (...) ways that map onto the two senses of hope: A person can lose hope either by ceasing to hope for an outcome (hopelessness) or by ceasing to be hopeful that it will obtain (despair). Thinking about these negative attitudes in these two ways, I contend, is explanatorily rich and fruitfully reveals how they differ in phenomenology, behavioral differences, and the ways in which a person can escape them. (shrink)

The intent of this book focuses on Australia’s First Nations truth, voice, recognition, diversity, and respect. Hope O’Chin explains that knowledge about Australian First Nations culture and learning can be seen through new conceptual lens, which she refers to as an Ontology of Dreaming Hope for Australians. The book proposes to move from ontological propositions embedded in pedagogies and methodologies that center on the relevance of Indigenous epistemes and ways of doing. O’Chin offers a conceptual framing for engaging with Indigenous (...) peoples, and forming communities of belongingness and relationality. She offers suggestions for ways in which art and education can act as ‘healing’ and a way forward towards a more inclusive civil society. Reflexive practice, ethnographic principles, and action research is described in a way that methodologies provide an understanding of a sense of Belonging. O'Chin argues that theoretical research, art, and educational practice can add to the value of determining a strategy of Indigenous art investment within Australia, and to address how art and education can be used to validate contemporary expression of Aboriginality within contemporary Australian society. Ultimately, the book is about Indigenous strengths and what Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing can offer, and how one might go about honouring and working in this way respectfully. (shrink)

A moving exploration of the place of hope in the world today, drawing on agrarian principles In this series of meditations, Norman Wirzba recasts hope not as something people have, like a vaccine to prevent pain and trouble, but as something people do. Hope evaporates in conditions of abandonment and abuse. It grows in contexts of nurture and belonging. Hope ignites when people join in what Wendell Berry calls 'love's braided dance'--a commitment to care for one another and our world. (...) Through personal narratives and historical examples, Wirzba explores what sustains hope and why it so often seems absent from our vision of the future. The vitality of hope, he maintains, depends on a collective commitment to care for the physical world (its soils and waters, plants and animals, homes and neighborhoods) and to promote the moral, aesthetic, and spiritual ideals that affirm life as good, beautiful, and sacred. Engaging with such contemporary topics as climate change, AI and social media, and the intensifying refugee crises and drawing on the wisdom of James Baldwin, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Martha Graham, and others, Wirzba offers a powerful argument for hope as a way of life in which people are intimately and practically joined with all the living. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a neglected aspect of the value of hope in Kant’s philosophy. I do so by homing in on Section III of the 1793 essay “On the Common Saying.” In my interpretation, Kant argues that if one recognizes obligations to help future generations while also encountering people who violate these obligations, one is more likely to isolate oneself from society—what Kant calls the hatred of humanity or misanthropy. Thus, the paper argues that hope is valuable for (...) combating misanthropy, especially in the pursuit of intergenerational moral goals. (shrink)

This paper will explore an epistemic aspect of hope, namely hope’s relationship to knowledge. It has been taken for granted that people do not hope for things to occur that they know will occur. I will be giving an argument that hope and knowledge are compatible, and I will defend that argument against one primary objection. More specifically, I will argue that there are instances when an agent knows that p and still hopes that p.

Ce livre voudrait offrir un itinéraire en philosophie, a priori éloigné de l'actualité donc; mais il part malgré tout de nos inquiétudes d'aujourd'hui. Alors que la violence semble s'imposer de nouveau, dans les confrontations géopolitiques, mais aussi dans notre société et même dans les mots de la vie publique, faut-il nous y résigner? Est-ce se bercer d'illusion que de croire qu'un bien peut advenir? La politique et la vie éthique peuvent-ils se fixer pour cap une vie meilleure, une vie heureuse?"--Page (...) 4 of cover. (shrink)

Kant’s third question (“What may I hope?”) is underdiscussed in comparison to the other two, even though he himself took it to be the question that united his efforts in theoretical and practical philosophy. This is largely his own fault: in his discussion of the question he moves quickly from talking about rational hope to discussing the kind of Belief or faith (Glaube) that grounds it. Moreover, the canonical statements of his own moral proof do not seem to give hope (...) any essential role to play. In this chapter I first consider the ways in which pre-Kantian authors muddied the distinction between what we would call “hope” and “expectation.” I then look at how Kant’s views about hope evolve to the point where, by the time of the “End of All Things” essay of 1794, he seems to endorse a kind of hopeful pessimism about our this-worldly situation, at least. I then examine a version of Kant’s moral proof that succeeds in locating a role for hope that is distinct from that of Belief, expectation, optimism, and so on. Finally, I turn to some contemporary work in two very different arenas – Anthropocene scholarship and Christian eschatology – in order to look at how the concepts of hope and optimism are deployed in those contexts. We will see that although some of the recent discourses about the “Good Anthropocene” slip beyond hope into full-blown optimism, most authors working on ecological and environmental topics are careful to keep the attitudes distinct. By contrast, there is a tendency among contemporary theologians to follow earlier Christian authors in slipping beyond mere hope to optimistic faith, and even to full-blown certainty. (shrink)

Kant’s “primacy of the practical” doctrine says that we can form morally justified commitments regarding what exists, even in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. In this paper I critically examine three different varieties of Kant’s “moral proof” that can be found in the critical works. My claim is that the third variety—the “moral-psychological argument” based in the need to sustain moral hope and avoid demoralization—has some intriguing advantages over the other two. It starts with a premise that more clearly (...) coheres with Kant’s mature account of moral motivation, and it invokes plausible empirical-psychological theses to motivate a commitment to the full-blown classical deity—the result Kant clearly wanted. From the point of view of its structure, I think this third variety of moral argument also has the most by way of contemporary interest. (shrink)