Abstract
The notion of ultimate hope employed so far in this essay has a major difficulty: it permits a radical pluralism in what it can refer to. Ultimate hope is aimed hope, and includes whatever de facto is most desired and believed possible. This is not to claim that everyone has such hope, nor even that some do; the notion does single out whatever hope “outranks,” predominates, or is accorded priority when hopes can be in conflict. It is now time to recognize how such hopes can be grouped, in order to take systematic account of the contributions of Bloch, Kant, and Marcel, and to forward the reflection of this essay. Initially, the focus is on types of ultimate hope according to their objectives, and of these the two most central for understanding ultimate hope are the notions of reciprocal benefit and relational benefit.
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References
On “parts of” a complex ultimate hope, see chapter 9.
RGV 35–39, RLR 31–33. If virtue in Kant could be an object of hope, then since virtue could never be a means to happiness, so hope for virtue could never play an instrumental role for hope for happiness.
This contrast is derived in part from those of Raymond Aron and William Lynch, to the effect that dissatisfaction with imperfection is not alienation. Lynch quotes Aron’s Progress and Disillusion (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 128, in his Christ and Prometheus: A New Image of the Secular (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), p. 104.
In Perpetual Peace a similar juridical bellicose state is the starting point for Kant’s doctrine of hope.
“Maladaptive optimism” is Erik Erikson’s phrase, and this distinction between cosmic infant hope and mature hope is based upon his epigenetic analysis of human development. Insight and Responsibility, p. 118.
There is an interesting parallel in Ezra Stotland’s notion of higher and lower schemas involved in hoping; cf. Psychology of Hope, p. 49.
Cf. Bloch on “putschism” and mechanism, p. 76.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Godfrey, J.J. (1987). Ultimate Hope and Fundamental Hope: Concluding Position. In: Godfrey, J.J. (eds) A Philosophy of Human Hope. Studies in Philosophy and Religion, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3499-3_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3499-3_14
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