Hope and the Kantian Legacy

New Contributions to the History of Optimism

Katerina Mihaylova, Anna Ezekiel, Katerina Mihaylova, Anna Ezekiel

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781350238084
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350238107
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

Hope is understood to be a significant part of human experience, including for motivating behaviour, promoting happiness, and justifying a conception of the self as having agency. Yet substantial gaps remain regarding the development of the concept of hope in the history of philosophy. This collection addresses this gap by reconstructing and analysing a variety of approaches to hope in late 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy.

In 1781, Kant's idea of a "rational hope" shifted the terms of discussion about hope and its role for human self-understanding. In the 19th century, a wide-ranging debate over the meaning and function of hope emerged in response to his work. Drawing on expertise from a diverse group of contributors, this collection explores perspectives on hope from Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, J. S. Beck, J. C. Hoffbauer, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Kierkegaard and others. Chapters consider different aspects of the concept of hope, including the rationality of hope, appropriate and inappropriate applications of hope and the function of hope in relation to religion and society.

The result is a valuable collection covering a century of the role of hope in shaping cognitive attitudes and constructing social, political and moral communities. As an overview of philosophical approaches to hope during this period, including by philosophers who are seldom studied today, the collection constitutes a valuable resource for exploring the development of this important concept in post-Kantian German philosophy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Between Need and Permission: The Role of Hope in Kant’s Critical Foundation of Moral Faith
• 2 Hopeful Pessimism: The Kantian Mind at the End of All Things
• 3 Circulus Volitionis: The Hope for Divine Aid in Kant’s Religion
• 4 Kant, Beck, and the Highest Good
• 5 Between Faith and Reason: Is J. H. Tieftrunk’s Concept of Hope a Postulate?
• 6 Fichte on Optimism and Pessimism
• 7 The Autonomy of the Heart: Forberg on Action Without Belief
• 8 Mind Subverted to Madness: The Psychological Force of Hope as Affect in Kant and J. C. Hoffbauer
• 9 “What May I Hope?” Schleiermacher’s Answer to Kant’s Third Question
• 10 C. A. Eschenmayer: History as the Realm of Freedom and Moral Development
• 11 Undirected Directionality: Jakob Friedrich Fries on Hope, Faith, and Comprehensive Feelings
• 12 Humboldt, Bildung, Language, and Hope
• 13 In The Hope of a Philosopher of Nature
• 14 Knowledge, Faith, and Ambiguity: Hope in the Work of Novalis and Karoline von Günderrode
• 15 Friedrich Creuzer and the Claims of the Symbolic
• 16 “When My Heart Says So …” Hope as Delusion in Schopenhauer’s Philosophy
• 17 Hope And Faith: Kierkegaard’s Call for the Self to Develop its Relationship to Itself
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Copyright