The nature of hope

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Both traditional accounts of hope and some of their recent critics analyze hope exclusively in terms of attitudes that a hoper bears towards a hoped-for prospect, such as desire and probability assignment. I argue that all of these accounts misidentify cases of despair as cases of hope, and so misconstrue the nature of hope. I show that a more satisfactory view is arrived at by noticing that in addition to the aforementioned attitudes, hope involves a characteristic attitude towards an external factor, on whose operation the hoper takes the prospect's realization to depend causally.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)216-233
Number of pages18
JournalRatio
Volume22
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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