A longitudinal study of 308 white-collar U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and gratitude increase concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, employees with stronger hope and gratitude were found to have a greater sense of responsibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly, employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. These findings offer an extension of research by Giacalone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz (2005, Journal of Business Ethics, 58, 295-305).

One of the paradoxes of the Culture War is that opposites conspire with each other against the rest of us. We are offered an impoverished, narrow conception of reason and knowledge, proposing a stark choice to the rest of us: approach life’s important questions through science, or turn to religion. This was a false choice two hundred years ago, and it remains so today.

According to Kant, there are limits to possible hope. For example, hope for a contradiction is obviously not a logically possible hope. However, Kant goes much further and restricts possible hope to what can be possibly experienced. The line between what can and cannot be constructed as an image in space and time limits what can be thought rather than what can be merely mentioned. The apparently modern distinction between use and mention (generally attributed to Frege) is used by Kant (...) to distinguish phenomena and noumena as well as real and fictitious concepts. I propose a definition of hope that is consistent with Kant’s concept of reasonable and unreasonable hopes. I then consider some applications of this definition to Kant’s view of world peace, grace, and miracles. Despite notions of secondorder hope and transcendental hope, all possible hope lies within the limits of possible experience. (shrink)

This paper will argue that many survivors’ ability to take up their existence hopefully is rooted in the deeply visceral and unintegrable memory of “living the existence of a walking corpse” (Niederland 1968b, 12) that constitutes the ontic basis for their most fundamental presence to self, others, and God. I will show, secondly, that Karl Rahner’s theological formulation of witness as “an act of self transcendence in which the subject reaches up to the unsurpassable and sovereign Mystery which we call (...) God” (TI 13, 155-6) does indeed provide the basis for some survivors’ hopeful decision about and disposal of the self in relation to God to the extent that hope inscribed in the memory of “living the existence of a walking corpse” does become expressed as the “one, unifying ‘outwards from the self’ attitude into God as the absolutely uncontrollable” (TI 10, 250) by sustaining the commitment to witness. However I will also argue, finally, that the unintegrable nature of such memory prevents survivor hope-as-witness to be completely reconciled with the theological sense of witness that Rahner proposes because his vision of witness has not taken adequately into account this unintegrable memory and its long-term effects. (shrink)

Present Hope is a compelling exploration of how we think philosophically about the present. Andrew Benjamin considers examples in philosophy, architecture and poetry to illustrate crucial themes of loss, memory, tragedy, hope and modernity. The book uses the work of Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger to illustrate the ways the notion of hope was weaved into their philosophies. Andrew Benjamin maintains that hope is a vital part of the present, rather than an expression only of the future. Present Hope shows (...) how Judaism and philosophy interact; how the Holocaust provides an important link between modernity and the present. Benjamin's writings on the significance of the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the poetry of Paul Celan unite toward understanding the present. (shrink)

We have now had some two decades of Levinas commentary. What remains to be said? Certainly one thing we have learned since Otherwise than Being is that Levinas’s philosophy and his talmudic and confessional writings nourish each other so profoundly that to approach Levinas without understanding the historyof Jewish philosophy — in its confrontations with neo-Platonism, Aristotle, Kant — is to risk misunderstanding Levinas. Insights into the interrelationships between Jewish thought and Levinas’s other humanism have been provided by thinkers like (...) Robert Gibbs, Claire Katz, Catherine Chalier, Shmuel Trigano, and Gérard Bensussan, to name but a few. But if one is not well versed in Jewish thought, will one be liable to abandon Levinas’s thought as an existentialized confessionalism? Perhaps. But I think the loss to philosophy would be considerable. (shrink)

In 2008, Peter Felten, the founding director of Elon's Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, asked me to coordinate an inaugural two-year teaching and learning seminar for faculty, to focus on some element of engaged learning (Elon University's pedagogical focus). We titled the project the Elon Research Seminar on Engaged Undergraduate Learning. As a philosopher who works at the intersections of political philosophy and the scholarship of teaching and learning and as one interested in the relationships among democracy, (...) responsibility, and progressive social justice activism, I decided to ask Elizabeth Minnich, senior scholar for the Association of American Colleges and Universities Office of .. (shrink)

This article on mystery and hope at the boundary of reason in the postmodern situation responds to the challenge of postmodern thinking to philosophyby a recourse to the works of Gabriel Marcel and his best disciple, Paul Ricoeur. It develops along the lines of their interpretation of hope as a central phenomenon in human experience and existence, thus shedding light on the philosophical enterprise for the future. It is our purpose to dwell briefly on this postmodern challenge and then, incorporating (...) its positive contribution, to present theirs as an alternative philosophy at the boundary of reason. (shrink)

Hope obeys Aristotle's doctrine of the mean: one should neither hope too much, nor too little. But what determines what constitutes too much and what constitutes too little for a particular person at a particular time? The sceptic presents an argument to the effect that it is never rational to hope. An attempt to answer the sceptic leads us in different directions. Decision-theoretic and preference-theoretic arguments support the instrumental value of hope. An investigation into the nature of hope permits us (...) to assess the intrinsic value of hope. However, it must be granted to the sceptic that there is a tension between hope and epistemic rationality. I conclude with some reflections about the relationship between hope and character features that are constitutive of inner strength. (shrink)

This paper assesses the extent to which the category of hope assists in preserving and redefining the vestiges of utopian thought in critical social theory. Hope has never had a systematic position among the categories of critical social theory, although it has sometimes acquired considerable prominence. It will be argued that the current philosophical and everyday interest in social hope can be traced to the limited capacity of liberal conceptions of freedom to articulate a vision of social transformation apposite to (...) contemporary suffering and indignity. The background to these experiences is the structural changes associated with the injustices of globalisation, the mobilisation of the capitalist imaginary and the uncertainties of the risk society. The category of hope could assist in sustaining the utopianism of critical theory through conjoining normative principles with a temporal orientation. Yet, the paradoxes of the current phase of capitalist modernisation have further denuded notions of progress. Since the theological background to the category of hope constitutes a major limitation, the utopian orientation of critique is clarified in relation to the antinomies of the turn to social hope and the potential of Habermas' discourse theory of democracy, law and morality. Despite Castoriadis' profound critique of the category of hope, its present usage in social analyses will be seen to have affinities with Honneth's conception of the struggle for recognition. (shrink)

One way to enter this morass is offered by the June 11 issue of the New York Review of Books. The frontcover headline reads "How to Deal With the Crisis"; the issue features a symposium of specialists on how to do so. It is very much worth reading, but with attention to the definite article. For the West the phrase "the crisis" has a clear enough meaning: the financial crisis that hit the rich countries with great impact, and is therefore (...) of supreme importance. But even for the rich and privileged that is by no means the only crisis, nor even the most severe. And others see the world quite differently. For example, in the October 26, 2008 edition of the Bangladeshi newspaper The New Nation, we read. (shrink)

Far from having overcome the human, all too human essence of knowledge the West has replaced its modern objectifying subjectivity by what may be called a postmodern subjectifying subjectivity. The modern will to power and its drive for controlling the Other has given way to a postmodern form of 'unavailability', a key concept in the ethical reflections of the Christian Socratic philosopher Gabriel Marcel. This paper attempts to highlight the degree to which fundamental features of Postmodernity, from instrumental technology to (...) fragmented temporality and decentered subjectivity are infiltrating our existential condition. It is argued that one of the most striking symptoms of such a phenomenon is unavailability, especially in the artistic sphere. (shrink)

The characteristic focus, intensity and hopefulness of Chomsky’s political writings, however, reflect a set of more fundamental views about human nature, justice and social order that are not simple matters of fact. This article explores these more fundamental ideas, the central elements in Chomsky’s social thought. We begin (section i) by sketching the relevant features of Chomsky’s conception of human nature. We then examine his libertarian social ideals (section ii), and views on social stability and social evolution (section iii), both (...) of which are animated by this conception of our nature. (shrink)

The dormancy of American pragmatism is over. At least, this is what numerous articles and books have unequivocally stated in the decades since Richard Rorty gave up his belief in orthodox analytical epistemology and settled into his own brand of John Dewey's antifoundational epistemology. Even though Rorty's interpretation and manipulation of Dewey have been controversial, we are all the better for the revival of discourse around what pragmatism was, is, and will be. Robert Westbrook's Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics (...) of Truth (2005), a recent contribution to this revival, clearly demonstrates the value of a vibrant and robust tradition of pragmatism to American intellectual and public life. The depth of knowledge and passion for the subject matter that made Westbrook's magnum opus, John Dewey and American Democracy (1991), a landmark study are on display in this text as well. In both works, what makes... (shrink)

In articulating a theological account of Christian hope faithful to its objective character, Pope Benedict XVI summons the authority of Thomas Aquinas, citing his comments on faith and hope as those terms occur in Hebrews 11:1. Benedict sets off Aquinas's understanding of hope-filled faith's objectivity by placing it in contrast with Luther's apparently more subjective interpretation of faith in Hebrews 11:1 as conviction. Closer analysis of both Aquinas and Luther, however, suggests a greater overlap in their exegetical conclusions, opening the (...) way for a more nuanced appreciation of a virtue whose living possession and exercise, as the rest of Spe Salvi confirms, involves both objective and subjective dimensions. (shrink)

Objects of Hope brings ranging scholarship and refreshing candor to bear on the knotty issue of what can and cannot be achieved in the course of psychoanalytic therapy. It will be valued not only as an exemplary exercise in comparative psychoanaly.

Intentionality is the mind’s capacity to direct itself on things. Mental states like thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes (and others) exhibit intentionality in the sense that they are always directed on, or at, something: if you hope, believe or desire, you must hope, believe or desire something. Hope, belief, desire and any other mental state which is directed at something, are known as intentional states. Intentionality in this sense has only a peripheral connection to the ordinary ideas of intention and intending. (...) An intention to do something is an intentional state, since one cannot intend without intending something; but intentions are only one of many kinds of intentional mental states. The terminology of intentionality derives from the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, and was revived by Brentano in 1874. Brentano characterized intentionality in terms of the mind’s direction upon an object, and emphasized that the object need not exist. He also claimed that it is the intentionality of mental phenomena that distinguishes them from physical phenomena. These ideas of Brentano’s provide the background to twentieth-century discussions of intentionality, in both the phenomenological and analytic traditions. Among these discussions, we can distinguish two general projects. The first is to characterize the essential features of intentionality. For example, is intentionality a relation? If it is, what does it relate, if the object of an intentional state need not exist in order to be thought about? The second is to explain how intentionality can occur in the natural world. How can.. (shrink)

The Last Best Hope Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s11007-012-9221-1 Authors Steven Crowell, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842.

Initial demarcations i This study is an exercise in political philosophy. Though no concise, comprehensive definition of political philosophy is readily ...

In the early 1970’s, the research submarine, Alvin explored a system of volcanic vents on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and biologists were surprised to see a variety of organisms living near the vents in total darkness and at enormous pressures thereby hinting that life on Earth is not restricted to the near surface only. The discovery that microbes dwell deep in apparently solid rock gives credence to the theory that life can be transported between planets inside material blasted (...) into space by big impacts. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical, socio-political, analysis of the problem of democratic despair and the possibility of finding hope in the midst of it. The analysis spring boards from a dialectical discussion on the state of Black America between Harry Belafonte, Minister Louis Farrakhan, and Cornel West, to an examination of the reasons for believing this house called America is on fire. The paper then moves to two possible responses for African Americans to the burning house: separatism (physical or psychological), (...) and radical cultural pluralism grounded in a transformative deep democracy. The paper opts for the latter, concludes by offering a new cultural pluralistic democracy as a model for hope, and suggests the basic tools necessary for building such a transformative democracy. (shrink)

In a memorable scene from the movie The Graduate , Dustin Hoffman’s parents throw him a party to celebrate his graduation from college. The parents’ friends are all there congratulating him and offering advice. What should Hoffman do with his life? One particularly solicitous guest is eager to set him straight. He takes Hoffman aside and utters a single word-- plastics!

This article attempts to respond to Simon Critchley's claim in a recent debate with Richard Rorty, that the latter, by not fully recognizing its indebtedness to Levinas, misunderstands the political import of the work of Jacques Derrida. I maintain, pace Critchley, that trying to push the Derrida-Levinas connection too far will not only further compound Rorty's view of Derrida as a thinker devoid of political efficacy, but that it will moreover serve to obscure the significant differences which exist between (...) Levinas and Derrida - differences which cannot be overlooked in any serious discussion of the two thinkers in question. In the second half, I try to convince Critchley that what separates Derrida from Levinas is precisely what hooks him up with Rorty at a political level. Both, I argue, are committed to a civic religion of social hope. In so doing, I try to convince Rorty that his caricature of Derrida as a private writer without political consequence, ought now to be seriously reconsidered. Key Words: community • Critchley • democracy • Derrida • ethics • justice • law • Levinas • politics • religion • Rorty • sentiment • singularity • social hope. (shrink)

Cultural devastation, and the proper response to it, is the central concern of "Radical Hope". I address an uncertainty in Lear's book, reflected in a wavering over the difference between a culture's way of life becoming impossible and its way of life becoming unintelligible. At his best, Lear asks the radical ontological question: when the cultural collapse is such that the old way of life has become not only impossible but retroactively unimaginable,—when nothing one can do (or did) makes sense (...) anymore,—how can one go on? In raising this question, Lear's book is a remarkable breakthrough; it comes close to raising the crucial ontological question of how to deal with the total collapse of a culture, and it may well become a classic by starting a conversation on the question: How should we live when our own culture is in the process of actually collapsing? Lear suggests that [w]hat would be required... would be a new Crow poet: one who could take up the Crow past and—rather than use it for nostalgia or ersatz mimesis—project it into vibrant new ways for the Crow to live and to be. (p. 51) Later Heidegger had a similar suggestion for us and I try to spell it out briefly. (shrink)

The standard foil for recent theories of hope is the belief-desire analysis advocated by Hobbes, Day, Downie, and others. According to this analysis, to hope for S is no more and no less than to desire S while believing S is possible but not certain. Opponents of the belief-desire analysis argue that it fails to capture one or another distinctive feature or function of hope: that hope helps one resist the temptation to despair;2 that hope engages the sophisticated capacities of (...) human agency, such as planning;3 or that hope involves the imagination in ways desire need not.4 Here, I focus on the role of imagination in hope, and discuss its implications for hope’s relation to practical commitment or end-setting. (shrink)

The students and colleagues of Roderick Chisholm admired and respected Chisholm. Many were filled not only with admiration, but with affection and gratitude for Chisholm throughout the time we knew him. Even now that he is dead, we continue to wish him well. Under the circumstances, many of us probably think that that wish amounts to no more than this: we hope that things went well for him when he lived; we hope that he had a good life.

We are in the midst of a global ecological crisis. And yet, like Nero, we fiddle while Rome burns. Global warming is happening. Human population is growing. Land and water supplies are used and depleted at an ever-expanding rate. Species and habitats are destroyed and biodiversity is lost. Pollution and toxic waste pile up. Despite several decades of acute awareness of these ecological problems, we have made little progress toward sustainable solutions.This points us to a somewhat paradoxical feature of political (...) action that I will call the problem of Nero's Fiddle.1 We are in the midst of a crisis of millennial proportions and yet we waste time and pursue our own self-interests, fiddling while Rome burns.2 What .. (shrink)

Publisher's Foreword As the present book is reissued, The American Mental Health Foundation celebrates its 86th anniversary. Organized in 1924, AMHF is ...

This essay follows Richard Schaeffler in identifying Kant’s moral philosophy as a possible framework for a Catholic theology of hope. Whereas Ernst Bloch criticized Kant for failing to sever his theory of hope from its religious ties, Jürgen Moltmann criticizes Kant for failing to appreciate the true meaning of Christian hope for the kingdom of God. The present essay argues that Moltmann neglects, as much as Bloch did, the significance of God to Kant’s account of the kingdom. A Catholic theology (...) of hope would have to lie somewhere in-between the atheist utopianism of Bloch and the evangelical certainty of Moltmann, and that is precisely what Kant’s concept of hope does. (shrink)

Sustaining hope in patients is an important element of health care, allowing improvement in patient welfare and quality of life. However in the palliative care context, with patients who are terminally ill, it might seem that in order to maintain hope the palliative care practitioner would sometimes have to deceive the patient about the full nature or prospects of their condition by providing a ‘false hope’. This possibility creates an ethical tension in palliative practice, where the beneficent desire to improve (...) patient welfare through sustaining hope appears to be in conflict with an autonomy-based requirement not to deceive patients about their condition. In order to resolve this ethical tension, we provide an analysis of the concept of hope and argue that there is at least one conception – the ‘absolute’ conception of hope – which when properly understood allows practitioners to foster hope in terminally-ill patients while avoiding any need to deceive them about their condition. Practitioners therefore do not need to shy away from using the language of hope in the palliative setting, as on this understanding of hope it can be used in a way that both promotes patient welfare and respects patient autonomy. (shrink)

The article seeks to consider the relationship between hope and utopianism by looking at the ancient Greek myth of Pandora's Box, with its enigmatic figure of hope. It begins by considering Hesiod's influential formulation of the myth, before examining a range of modern interpretations in which diverse conceptions of hope are to be found. Using the work of Spinoza, Hume and Day an alternative conception of hope is proposed that conjoins hope with fear. This is followed by an exploration of (...) the utopian, using this time another figure associated with the myth, Prometheus. An attempt is then made to differentiate the frequently conflated concepts of hope and the utopian. Finally, in the spirit of recent post-secularism, the two concepts are brought to bear on the nature of religion. (shrink)

Hope is a precious resource. But, deluded, not based on a sober appraisal of the relevant realities, hope can also be lethal. One kind of hope is utopian hope. It does not exhaust what social hope is, or should be, about. The hope of remedying the most terrible injustices makes an urgent call on our attention. The world has travelled some way from the time when tyrannical governments could act with impunity in dealing with those under their jurisdiction. But it (...) has not travelled far enough. There remain a number of deficits in the system of international law: "thresholds of inhumanity". (shrink)

Research on positive psychology demonstrates that specific individual dispositions are associated with more desirable outcomes. The relationship of positive psychological constructs, however, has not been applied to the areas of business ethics and social responsibility. Using four constructs in two independent studies (hope and gratitude in Study 1, spirituality and generativity in Study 2), the relationship of these constructs to sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSCSP) were assessed. Results indicate that all four constructs significantly predicted CSCSP, though only hope and (...) gratitude interacted to impact CSCSP. Discussion focuses upon these findings, limitations of the study, and future avenues for research. (shrink)