kant's philosophy of hope

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Kant s Philosophy of H ope


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American University Studies

Series V

Philosophy

Vol. 103

PETER LANG

New York · San Francisco · Bern · Baltimore

Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Wien · Paris


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Curtis H. Peters

Kant s Philosophy of Hope

PETER LANG

New York · San Francisco · Bern · Baltimore

Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Wien · Paris


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peters, Curtis H.

Kant s philosophy of hope/ C urtis H. Peters.

p.

cm. — (American university studies. Series V, Philosophy; vol.

103)

Includes bibliographical references.

Includes indexes.

1.

Hope. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-18 04— Contributions in philosophy

of hope . I. Title. II. Series.

B2799 .H67P47 1993 193—dc20 90-35439

ISBN 0-8204-1386-0 CIP

ISSN 0739-6392

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of

the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the

Council on Library Resources.

© Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 1993

All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,

xerography, microfiche, microcard, offset strictly prohibited.

Printed in the United States of America.


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TO THE MEMORY

of

ALBERT WILLIAM LEVI

a friend who personified the very best in wisdom and virtue, whose

death deprives this book of its most valued reader.


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The primary inspiration and assistance for this study were offered by a dis

tinguished philosopher, Albert W illiam Levi. He is deserving of special credit for

his insightfulness and for his helpful critique of my work . Steven S chwarzschild

and Carl Wellman also provided generous and invaluable assistance in improving

the analysis and argum entation. Unfortunately, the world has now lost the further

contributions of Drs. Levi and Schwarzschild, and their presence will be sorely

missed.

Several librarians of Indiana University and of Indiana University Southeast

were helpful in enabling me to obtain books and articles.

I wish to thank Juli Crecelius for her very able work in preparing the manu

script, John Finnegan and Wayne Brown for their assistance on computer matters,

and the editors at Peter Lang for their general assistance in improving this work.

Noel Hutchings, a student assistant, helped with some time-consuming details.

Finally, I express my great gratitude to my wife, Pam Peters, for her patient

encouragement as well as for her very capable typing of earlier drafts and for her

work on the index.

The shortcomings of this work would have been far greater without the kind

assistance of all these people.


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Copyright permissions:

Excerpts reprinted with the permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from ON

HISTORY by Imm anuel Kant and edited by Lewis White Beck. Copyright ©1963 by Macmillan

Publishing Company.

Excerpts from Immanuel Kant, ANTHROPOLOGY FROM A PRAGMATIC POINT OF

VIEW, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1974. Reprinted by permission of Kluwer Academic

Publishers.

All

rights reserved.

Excerpts from RELIGIONS W ITHIN THE LIMITS O F REASON A LONE by Immanuel

Kant. Copyright 1934 by Open Court Publishing Company. Copyright © 1960 by Harper and

Brothers. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTE ON REFERENCES

xiii

PREFACE xv

CHAPTER 1 INTROD UCTION 1

Ho pe in the W estern Philosop hical and Theo logical Traditions 1

Hope in the Traditions through the E ighteenth

Century 1

Hope in the Traditions of the Nineteenth and Twentieth

Centuries 6

Issues to be Treated in a Theo ry of Ho pe 12

Preliminary Com ments on Ka nt's Theory of Hope 14

Purp ose of this Study 16

Notes 17

CHAPTER 2 MO RALITY AS THE BASIS FOR HOPE

27

Morality and Hope in the Critique of Pure Reason 27

Hope and Happiness

27

Virtue as the Sufficient and Necessary Condition

for the Hope for Happ iness 28

Retributive Justice as the Basis for the Hope

for Happiness

32

The Idea of a Moral World 33

M orality and Hop e in the Ethical W ritings 40

Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals

40


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Critique of Practical Reason

43

Metaphysics of Morals

46

Conclusion 47

Kant's Three Arguments on the Hope for Happiness 47

Commentary 53

Remaining Difficulties 59

Notes 63

CHAPTER 3 HO PE AND RELIGION 75

Hope and the Natu re of K ant's Philosophy of Religion 75

Hope and the First Attempts at Critical Philosophy

of Religion: The

Critique of Pure Reason

and the

Critique

of Practical Reason

78

Hope and the Developed Philosophy of Religion:

Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone 79

Hope and the Highest Good Reaffirmed: the

'Preface' to the First Edition

81

Hope and a Person's Quest for Virtue: Book I

82

The Ideal of Moral Perfection: Book II

87

The Ideal of an Ethical Comm onwealth: Books III and TV . . . . 92

The

Opus Postumum

97

Conclusion 99

The Argum ents for the Ideals of Mo ral Perfection

and an Ethical Commonwealth

99

Commentary and Remaining Difficulties 103

Notes 107

CHAPTER 4 HOPE AND HISTORY: WHAT MAY MANKIND

HOPE?

115

Th e Concept of Man kind 116

Hope and the Philoso phy of History 117

The Ideal Polity 125


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Conclusion 127

Kant's Position: Philosophy of History as an Analogue

to Individual Hope

127

Commentary and Criticism

130

Notes 136

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 141

A General Description of K ant's Views on Hop e 141

An Evaluation of K an t's Position on Hope 148

Notes 166

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 171

INDEX 185


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NOTE ON REFEREN ES

Quotations are from published English translations of Kant's works unless

none are available. I do not always agree with the translations and in those cases

point this out. Interpretations are based upon the German text. In the footnotes the

page reference to the Akademie edition are given in parentheses following the p age

number of the English translation.

The following abbreviated forms are used in footnotes:

CPR

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Pure Reason,

trans. Norman

Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965).

CPrR

Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Practical Reason,

trans.

Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956).

Foundations

Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of

Morals,

trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1959).

KGS Immanuel Kant, Kant s Gesam melte S chriften, Akademie

Au sgabe , 28 vols. (Berlin: W alter de Gruyter, 1902- ).

Religion Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason

Alone,

trans. Th. Greene and H. G. Hudson (New York:

Harper Row , 1960).


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PREF CE

A person might legitimately wonder whether Kant really did offer a phi-

losophy of

hope.

One of the purposes of this study is to show that it was Kant's

intent to develop such a theory and that his writings do present a completed theory.

His interest in hope and his desire to answer the question, 'What may I hope?' are

relatively easy to document. Our argument that he did complete a philosophy of

hope takes the form first of outlining the issues that a complete theory would have

to address. This is done in chapter 1. Then, in chapters 2 through 5, we show

how Kant's theory speaks to each of these issues in careful and extensive terms

consistent with his critical philosophy as a whole. Indeed, his theory of hope can

be seen as an integral part of his general critical philosophy.

Chapter 1 also introduces the general argument by reviewing some of the

major philosophical and theological perspectives on hope in the Western tradition

to the present. This review is not, however, necessary to the argument of this

book, and the reader could understand K ant's theory without examining this review.

Because Kant developed portions of his philosophy of hope in various parts

of his written works, we have first addressed the features of his theory of hope

which appear in his writings on moral philosophy (chapter 2), then those features

developed in his writings on philosophy of religion (chapter 3) and finally those

presented in his works on political philosophy and philosophy of history (chapter

4).

Chapter summarizes the features and claims of Kant's philosophy of hope.

It also includes a critical assessment of this philosophy as well as responses to

several of his critics.


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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Hope has been a topic of theoretical interest for several prominent Western

philosophers and theologians, and this interest has continued up to the present day.

Most recently, some theologians have developed what is referred to as the theology

of

hope,

and their work

h s

aroused widespread interest.

1

One of the most extensive and profound positions

on

hope that has ever been

developed was created by Immanuel Kant in an age of widespread hopefulness.

Although it has not been generally recognized that Kant had a theory of hope or a

philosophy of hope, this is a shortcoming which the present study is designed to

rectify.

Kant's position on this important topic cut across his moral philosophy, his

philosophy of religion, and his philosophy of history in a way that also provided a

special unity to these diverse areas.

2

In this introductory chapter historical

background is provided through a survey of some of the work which other philos-

ophers and theologians have contributed on the theme of hope. This chapter also

includes a description of the issues which a fully developed theory of hope would

have to address as well as some preliminary remarks on Kant's theory

itself

Hope in the Western Philosophical and Theological Traditions

3

Hope in the Traditions through the ighteenth Century*

Even a brief sampling of representative thinkers reveals that hope has been

described in a wide variety of ways. Some have considered it to be an emotion and

others a rational activity. Some have judged it a virtue but others a weakness or


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2 Kant s Philosophy of Hope

hand icap in mankind. Som e have thought it to be a natural pheno men on and others

a special gift from God.

In the Old and New Testaments hope was understood primarily as reliance

and trust in God to com plete Go d's plan for humanity. Old Testament w riters used

words associated with that concept to mean searching for refuge in God, trusting

confidently in God to fulfill promises of blessing, and waiting patiently on God to

accomplish this.

5

People can and should hope, because God is faithful to the promises

God has made.

The Apostle Paul meant by έ λ π ί ς (hope) waiting patiently, confidently, and

joyfully for the resurrectio n of all believers and for the full adven t of the Kingdom of

God.

6

He emphasized the primary evidence for the Christian's hop e-v iz., Jesus'

resurrection; Go d's activity is itself the source and ground for hope.

7

Luke and Peter

used the term to refer to their expectation of a new life in this world and of

imm ortality in a future realm.

8

Neither Plato nor Aristotle, by contrast, associated έ λ π ί ς with religion, and both

thought that hope could be detrimental. Plato understood it simply to be the

expectation of a future p leasu re. He though t, in fact, that the experience of hop e itself

carries with it a certain d egree of pleasure.

9

But he was chary of hu m ani ty's tendency

to hope. He thought one often ho pes for what will not occur;

10

one of a human's

foolish counselors, he com men ted, is hope easily led astray.

11

In several dialogues

he wrote approvingly, however, of the hope for life after death.

12

Similarly, by

ε λ ιά ς

Aristotle meant the expectation or anticipation of an

appealing future ex perience. He indicated that the human ability to hop e parallels the

capacity to remem ber.

13

He suggested that people are led psychologically to think that

what they hope for is particularly near at hand whereas what they fear is distant or

nonexistent.

14

Aristotle, too, therefore, thought hope can mislead a person.

Philo, Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther all laid great emphasis upon the value

of hope . P eop le's capacity to hope is one of the most important things that distinguish

them from other creatures, according to Philo. On the basis of the Septuagint version

of Genesis

4:26,

he typified Enos (VJ1 ] 8 , a Hebrew word meaning man or human )

as the representative of hope.

15

According to Philo, Eno s received this name because

he placed his hope in God, and he alone is a true man who expects good things and

rests firmly on comfortable [i.e., 'beneficial'] hopes.

16

Philo called ho pe the nearest


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Introduction 3

and dearest possession of the human soul"

17

and the first thing "the creator sowed in

the rich soil of the rational soul."'

8

He characterized hope as a longing for good things

and as that which impels a person to important and worthy deeds; hope, he wrote, is

"the fountainhead of the lives which w e lead."

19

Although hope directed toward such

things as gain, glory, prizes, and happiness was valuable in his eyes since it leads

people to accomplish good things, he maintained that the highest hope is that

exemplified by Eno s~" a hop e and expectation of obtaining good things from the only

bountiful God."

20

"No one," Philo wrote, "should be thought a man at all w ho does

not set his hope on God."

21

Au gustine, too, exalted hope that is directed toward G od. He did not define a

hum an in term s of hop e, but he did think hope is one of the three essential dim ensions

in a godly life—the others being faith and love.

22

He held that Christian hope is

directed toward full bliss in the next life-bliss that will attend being in the presence

of God.

23

It is this hope that enable s a person to endure the sufferings of this life.

24

Since its object is the happiness of a future world, it is unaffected by any ind ication

that life in this world is getting either better or worse.

25

Thom as Aquinas placed a similar importance on religious hope. He called it

a "theological virtue" since it is central to the Christian life and since God is both its

efficient cause and its object.

26

In his view all hope is directed toward happiness, but

religiou s hope is aimed at a supernatu ral happ iness. The ultimate object of religious

hope is the joy of union with God.

27

He distinguished hope from certain related

phenomena on the grounds that its object is good (in contrast to fear), future (as

distinct from joy), difficult (as opposed to desire), and possible (in contrast to

despair).

28

Ho pe itself he characterized as the confident pu rsuit of such an object. He

thought that it can be either appetitive (even animals can have simple hopes) or

cognitive.

29

H op e-re ligi ou s h ope in particular—can lead a person to act in accordance

with virtue and godliness.

30

Luther, too, thought that spiritual hope is of the highest value, but he

emphasized its importance for helping a person to endure patiently the persecution

and tribulation of this life. "To those who believe and have G od 's prom ise," he wrote,

"this life is a wan dering in which they are sustained by the hope of a future and better

life."

31

He defined hop e, in fact, as "spiritual courage."

32

He understood Christian

hope to be directed not simply tow ard heavenly b liss in the sense of pleasu re but more


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4

Kant's Philosophy of Hope

toward the full experience of righteousness and forgiveness in eternity.

33

Hope, he

insisted, is prod uced by God ; it is a gift of mercy.

34

In marked contrast to these religious interpretations of hope, several phi

losophers of the early m odern period, such as Hobbes, Locke, and Hu me, understood

ho pe in more limited, psych ological terms . Hob bes thought that hop e is simply the

com bination of an appetite for a particular object w ith the opinion that the object can

be attained.

35

Lo cke associated hope with a particular kind of pleas ure:

Hope is that pleasure in the mind, which everyone finds in

himself,

upon the thought of a probably future enjoyment of a thing

which is apt to delight him.

36

And Hume described it as one of the passions which arises directly from the expe

rience of pain or pleasure.

37

As the explanation for this emotion, he proposed the

following:

The mind by an original instinct tends to unite itself with the

good, and to avoid the evil, tho' they be conceiv'd merely in idea, and

be consider'd as to exist in any future time.

38

He described hope as the feeling which arises when a person thinks about any pro

spective event that appea rs pleasureful and that is uncertain but not im possible.

39

Desca rtes and Spino za also described hop e in naturalistic, psychological term s,

but Spinoza viewed it as a mo re comp lex phenom enon. Desca rtes held that hope is

aroused when a desire for either the acquisition of

a

good or the remo val of

an

evil is

accompanied by the probability that this can be accomplished.

40

"Hop e," Spinoza

wrote, "is nothing but unsteady joy [i.e., joy mixed with sorrow] arising from the

image of a future or past thing about whose issues we are in doubt."

41

It is always

mixed to som e extent w ith fear—fear that w hat is hoped for will not com e to

pass.

But

since "all things hav e their necessary cause s, and m ust necessarily happ en as they do

happen,"

42

hope is a sign of ignorance and wrong opinion.

43

The person wh o lives by

reason eschews h ope bec ause he or she seeks to live by knowledge and will abide no

doubt.

Althoug h L eibniz devo ted virtually no attention specifically to the concept of

hop e and nev er attempted to define it, he did in one dialogue ind icate its impo rtance,

and he associated it closely with theodicy. He depicted Polidore, a learned man, as


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Introduction

5

indifferent about life because he could see the imperfection in people and the falsity

of the hope for immortality. But Theophile successfully convinced him that this

world, its apparent evil and shortcomings notwithstanding, must be the best of all

wo rlds. As a result Polidore wa s freed from his indifference and despair and becam e

eager to engag e in purposeful activities.

44

Through this dialogue Leibniz suggested

that a perso n w ho desp airs over the evil in this world loses hope as well as the will to

engage in meaningful p ursuits. Without the confidence that everything in this world

is properly ordered by a benev olent G od, there is no reason for a person to wo rk for

good things now or to expect th em in a future life.

In the eighteenth century there were a number of thinkers who, although they

did not offer analyses of the nature of hope, did present elaborate descriptions of the

goals and foundations for the hope for man kin d's developm ent in this world. The

Abbe de Saint Pierre, Anne Robert Turgot, Gotthold Lessing, and Antoine-Nicolas

de Condorcet all proposed optimistic views of humanity's future.

45

Saint-Pierre

proposed several specific plans for reform in government, economics, finance, and

education (the most important being his suggestion that a union of states be formed

in which war would no longer be used to settle disputes), but underlying those

proposals was his view that humanity is making progress in knowledge and govern

ment. He held that the development of mankind pa rallels that of the individual and

that hum anity is only now beginn ing to move beyond its infancy in the use of reason.

In his view the biggest obstacles to progress are wars, superstition, and jealousy

among the leaders of nations.

46

Turgot supported his optimism with an analysis of mankind's peculiar talents.

He held that hum an ability to learn from new experience s coupled w ith the capacity

to transmit knowledge to succeeding generations through language virtually insure

future progress.

47

Less ing proclaimed that hum anity will assuredly progress. M ankind will ad

vance particularly in virtue to the point where people will do what is right merely

becau se it is right. Lessing thou ght that a per son 's reason, educability, and potential

autonomy make this a certainty.

48

He wrote, "N o It will com e it will assuredly

com e the time of perfecting, when m en .. .will do what is right becau se it

is

right."

49

De Condorcet's most important work,

Sketch for a Historical Picture of the

Progress of the Human Mind, appeared in 1794~just one year after Kant's Religion


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6


within the Limits of Reason Alone

(the central work for his views on hope) was

published. De Cond orcet indicated what his particular "hopes" were for human

development:

Our hopes for the future condition of the human race can be

subsumed under three important heads: the abolition of inequality

between nations , the progress of equality within each nation, and the true

perfection of mankind.

50

D e Condo rcet did not think of these goals as mere dreams or wishes; he fully expected

that people would attain them since history reveals how far we have already pro

gressed and since hum an rationality m akes further advancem ent a virtual certainty.

51

D e Condorcet tho ught of ho pe as a confident, rational expectation that is based upon

our experience of the past and our understanding of humanity and the world. It looks

forward to goals which mankind will attain within history.

Hope in the Traditions of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

"Hope" has received attention in the works of many figures o ver the past two

cen turies. Th e selection of peop le wh o are referred to in this section constitutes only

a sam pling, but it does includ e key figures and diverse view points.

Neither Hegel nor Marx described his system in terms of hope, and both crit

icized C hristian ho pe, but they did themselves attempt to show how various forms of

developm ent will occur. Their systems embodied a degree of optimism . According

to Hegel, the dynamic of dialectic allows the contradictions and inadequacies found

in any particular "moment" or stage in the development of consciousness to be

overcome (aufgehoben) through negation thereby making a new , more comprehensive

stage possible. Dialectic enables developmen t and progress to occur. Bu t although

there is a strain of hopefulness which runs throughout h is system, Heg el did severely

criticize one particular type of ho pe -v iz., Christian hope. He considered it to be one

of the forms of the "unhappy consciousn ess." This particular "mom ent" in the

developm ent of consciousness is deeply bifurcated. Although it is a part of the

changeab le, contingent world, yet it focuses upon a supposedly imm utable realm, and

consequently it is divided w ithin itself. This bifurcation can never be overcom e, so

the one wh o hopes cannot find satisfaction. The consciousness remains opposed to

itself and is, therefore, unhappy.

52


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Introduction

7

Marx proposed that dialectical interactions in the economic sphere together

with consequent social conflicts move mankind toward new economic/social

systems—and eventually to a society without class distinctions. An a dequate

understan ding of the dynam ics of history could support this hop e for the future. But,

like Hege l, he endeavored to make his system rigorous and scientific—with no p lace

for dreams of fanciful projections. Thus he, too, was critical of religious hope. Such

hope reveals peo ple's real distress and seeks

to

relieve it, but it presents m ere illusions

about another world. A realistic, scientific approach to human prob lem s, he though t,

require s that the false hope of religion be destroyed: "The abolition of religion a s the

illusory happin ess of the peo ple is required for their real happiness."

53

Several thinkers have grounded hop e in the advances of modern science. Julian

Huxley h as argued that through evolution the biological world has progressed to the

point that one of its products, humanity, can now consciously study and direct this

evolutionary pro cess. "Our destiny," he claimed enthusiastically, "is to be the agent

of the evolutionary process on this planet, the instrument for realizing new pos

sibilities for its future."

54

H e even called for a new religion based on science and

hum anism to bring hum anity to the full realization of its role as evolutionary agent.

55

He view ed the possibilities for further evolutionary p rogress to be virtually unlimited

and therefore looked to the future witfi great hop e.

Peirce argued that hope is actually a necessary prerequisite for the development

of science. Rational inquiry, he thought, requires the prior assumption that the hum an

com mu nity w ill m ove toward success in its intellectual pursuits.

56

He referred t o this

postulation as the "hope in the unlimited continuance of intellectual activity" and

described it as one of the three "sentiments" which are "indispensable requirements

of logic."

57

In calling hop e a "sentiment," he m eant that it is a desire or expectation

that does not have the rational support to be either belief or knowledge.

58

Bu t the

hope for intellectual develo pm ent, although not based upon rational evidence , is the

prerequisite for the use of reason in a scientific com m unity. Th is hope is as m uch die

foundation for knowledge and science as religious hope might be for faith and

religion.

Like P eirce, Mill though t that hope could be beneficial, but he emp hasized its

value for helping the individual to improve himself or herself. He associated hope

with the imagin ation, and he thoug ht that me only way to ju dg e the merit of ideas


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which a person develops in his or her imagination (for example, thoughts about an

afterlife) is by their utility.

59

Although in one essay he wrote that he thought a person

could live the richest and b est of lives without hope,

60

in a later writing h e argued tha t

"the beneficial effect of such hope is far from trifling."

61

It allays the despondence

that sets in when one sees,

.. .the exertions and sacrifices of life culminating in the formation of a

wise and noble mind, only to disappear from the world when the time

has just arrived at which the world seems about to begin reaping the

benefit of it. . . .The gain obtained in the increased inducement to

cultivate the improvement of character up to the end of life is obvious

without being specified.

62

Although their view s differ in important respects, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and

M arcel have described ho pe as an important dimension of being

human.

In two works

which Kierkegaard published under pseudonyms (Either/Or, "edited by Victor Ere-

mita," and

Repe tition

"by Constantine Con stantius"), he seemed to hold a low opinion

of hope . The young aesthete of

Either/Or,

Part I, decried hope as a "faithless

shipmaster" because it dissipates one's attention and thereby keeps a person from

inventiveness and the artistic life-both of which are said to require disciplined

attention.

63

Similarly, in

Repetition

hope is labeled "a charming maid that slips

through the fingers" and "an alluring fruit."

64

It is much better to live fully in the

present than to waste on e's life on daydream s. But Kierkegaard distinguished genuine

religious (Christian) hope from this idle dreaming . The truly religious person does

not simply live in or toward the future. In fact, this pe rso n's ho pe can only arise after

all expectations and dreams for a better future are completely dashed and discarded.

Christian hop e is "hope against hope."

65

It is hope in the eternal and develops only

after a person realizes fully that he or she is finite and will die; it grows out of the

deep anxiety that Kierkegaard described so fully.

66

In hope one relates expectantly

to the possibility of the good—but in the eternal rather than the future, the infinite

rather than the finite.

67

Heidegger emphasized that what is important w ith respect to hope is not to be

found in its object. It is, rather, in what happen s to a person in the act of hoping :

[Hope's] character as a mood lies primarily in hoping as

hoping

for something for oneself (Fiir-sich-erhoffen). He who hopes takes


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Introduction

9

himself w ith him into his hop e, as it were, and brings himself up against

what he hopes for.

68

Hope is one of the existential dimensions of human life which reveals our basic

temporality.

M arcel laid stress on the great value of hop e. He distinguished h ope from

particular wishes, desires, or dream s. He understood it to be , rather, a fundamental

metaphysical perspective:

Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being,

beyond all data, beyond all inventories and calculations, a mysterious

principle which is in connivance with me, which cannot but will that

wh ich I will, if wh at I will deserv es to be willed and is , in fact, w illed by

the whole of my being.

69

M arcel thought m at hope is a basic openn ess to "being" and to its good future. It is

not directed toward particular finite objects or goals, and it is not a shallow

optimism.

70

It is, we m ight say, a basic faith throu gh w hich a person rejects the

temp tation to despair and hold s to the conviction that reality is good.

71

From m, too, described ho pe as one of

the

intrinsic elem ents of the structure of

life (the others being faith an d fortitude). W ithout hope a person begins to die.

72

Ho pe, he wrote, stands between passive w aiting and un realistic activism:

It is like the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the

mo me nt for jum ping has com e. Neither tired reformism nor

pseud o-radical adven turism is an expression of ho pe . T o hope means to

be ready at every moment for mat which is not yet born, and yet not

bec om e desp erate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

73

He distinguished hope from optimism on the grounds that the optimist is not really

engaged in the issues mat face mank ind. But the one who hopes has "faith in m an 's

capacity to extricate himself from what seems the fatal w eb of circum stances that he

has created."

74

The one who hop es takes the critical problem s that confront hum anity

with utmost seriousness and works zealously, rationally, and realistically for their

solution within history.

75

Ho pe is a state of being open and com mitted to life and

growth.

76

On e might expect that other psychologists w ould hav e offered analyses of hope ,


26/205

10


but they have genera lly given it little attention. Freud, Jung , and Skinne r have

disregarded the phenom enon almost entirely. How ever, one figure, Ezra Stotland, has

attempted to develop a comp lete psychological theory governing ho pe. His proposal

differs markedly from F rom m 's humanistic position. Stotland defined hope rather

rigidly as "expectation of attaining a goal" and then, using a behavioristic model, he

considered its nature and effectiveness as a motive.

77

On the basis of his analysis of

a considerable amou nt of psychological research, he determined that increased impor

tance of the goal and increased expectation of goal attainmen t leads to greate r though t

and activity with regard to attaining the goal.

78

It is important to note that Sto tland's

methods allow one to ascribe hope to many animals other than humans.

Hermann C ohen and Martin Buber are among those who w rote of hope in terms

of m ank ind's developm ent toward a better future. Both built upon concepts and ideals

from th e Old Testam ent. According to Cohen, a Kant scholar who se views were very

much influenced by K an t's w ritings, hope has reached its highest developm ent in the

monotheism and advanced ethic of Judaism, for this hope is neither egoistic nor

hedo nistic. It is, rather, a com mitm ent to the Messianic ideal of fulfillment and

salvation for all mankind within history.

79

Messianic hope is directed toward a

thoroughly ethical, human itarian ideal:

The Messianic idea offers man the consolation, confidence, and

guarantee that not m erely the chosen p eople but all nations w ill, at some

future time, exist in harmo ny, as nature does today.

80

This hop e is grounded upon the "idea" of God

81

(as a practical postula te in the Kantian

sense).

Coh en adm itted that there is a place in religion for a "hope" for life beyon d

death, but he considered it to be of secondary im portance, and he rejected traditional

notions of imm ortality. Life beyond death is really one of the "secrets of God," he

thought, and not at all central to faith the way messianic hope is .

82

Buber looked to the Old Testament prophets as the great advocates of hope . He

described their hop e as two-d imen sional: hope for the introduction of full jus tice in

human relationships and hop e for G od 's establishment of the full Kingd om of God on

earth. On these two dimensions, Buber wrote:

I believe in both in one. Only in the building of the foundation of

the former I myself take a hand, but the latter may already be there in all


27/205

Introduction

11

stillness when I awake some morning, or its storm may tear me from

sleep. And bo th belong together, the "turning" and the "salvation," both

belong together, God kn ow s how, I do not need to know it. That I call

hope.

83

Bub er defined hope as "an outlook for a better hour" and thought that it develops in

its most potent forms in those periods of special stress when "the personal need of

each [individual] reveals the great need of m an."

84

Bub er though t that the Naz i era

and the years w hen the "cold

war

was at its height were such periods.

85

Bu ber 's hope

for mankind was in a completely just community in which people would live in full

cooperation and mutual respect. He pointed to the "Kvuza" or "Village Com mu ne"

of modern Israel as the place wh ere this is best exemplified at present. There wishful

thinking has been destroyed by h arsh realities, but the openness of people to strive for

an ever mo re improved and responsive socialism creates "in its stead a greater hope

which is no longer emotionalism but sheer works."

86

In order to help hum anity as a

wh ole to work toward full com mu nity, he urged the powerful peop les of the world to

move away from ideology to its very opposite'-to a "Civilization of Dialogue" of

which openness, cooperation, and respect would be the marks.

87

Ernst Bloch, a Marxist, was also primarily interested in the development of

ma nkind. In his view it is hope itself which leads a person to strive to overcom e

alienation and to create a better future. A hum an is a being w ith a Utopian in stinc t~a

tendency to dream d reams, and therefore a person can reach beyond him self or herself

to create that which is som ehow better. In his major wo rk, Das Prinzip Hoffnung,

Bloch analyzed several forms of consc iousness which em body hopefulness—from

seemingly trivial "little daydream s" to profound ultimate ideals, and he showed how

all of them illustrate the huma n drive to create the new and to attain fulfillment.

88

Hop e is not in vain, he argued, for the future is truly open. Everything is becom ing

and includes its future possibilities.

89

He was concerned that the mo dern human

underv alues hope and thereby stifles the primary impetus for progress. Bloch has,

therefore, issued a call to people to live in hope. "The imp ortant thing is to learn the

art of hoping," he announced at the outset of D a i

Prinzip Hoffnung.

90

Through hope

one can realize his or her potentiality and create a better world.

91

Jürgen M oltman n, wh o has been an impo rtant figure in the "theology of hope "

m ovem ent, has offered a reinterpretation of Christian e schatology in the light of som e


28/205

12


of Ernst Bloc h's view s. M oltmann contended that primitive Christianity was thor

oughly apocalyptic and eschatalogical, and he sought to help the Church today to

reclaim a sense of urgency and hope. Christian hope yearns for the fullness of

Chris t's resurrection—for the time when the decisively new will break into the present.

It is not unrealistic, he argued, for it provides the only way to take seriously the

possibilities of the present.

92

Th e future is included in the reality of God , and the

Christ-event

is

an anticipa tion of the full expe rience of God that awa its the Christian.

93

M oltmann pro posed that the world be viewed as pregnant with possibility for whole

ness and full life. Accord ingly , he has been an advo cate of political and social

chang e, but he has not reduced hope to the striving for such changes in this w orld.

94

Issues to be Treated in a Theory of ope

Th e preceding sketch reveals a num ber of questions which are associated with

the concept of hop e. Th e various interpretations of the range of phenom ena w hich

have been referred to under the word "hope" deal with one or more of the following

questions: (1) W hat is the basic nature of hope? (2) W hat are the preconditions for

hope ? (3) W hat justifies hop e? (4) W hat is the content or object of hop e? (5) What

is the function or purpose of hope? (6) W hat is the identity of the one who hop es?

These emerge as the questions which it is important for a developed theory of hope

to answer.

1.

'What is the basic nature of

hope?' The re has been an obviou s divergence

of opinion on hop e's gen eral character. It has been described, for exam ple, as a

feeling, as a rational expectation, as a supernatural virtue, and as a form of

imagination. The interpretations differ so widely that this question em erges as one

of the most im portant to be addressed in a tiieory of hope.

One of the most im portant aspects of this question concerns die degre e to which

hope is rational. Plato, Aristotle, de Con dorcet, and Peirce, for examp le, associated

hope far mo re closely with reason than did such thinkers as Hume, Spino za, Mill, or

Kierkegaard. Th e degree to which hope is or is not rational affects the answers to

other questions regarding hope--e.g., 'What justifies hope?'

2.

'

Wh at are the preconditions for hopeT

The type of hope of which Luther


29/205

Introduction

13

among others wrote required faith as a prerequisite. For Hobbes hope can only arise

if

a

person feels an attraction for something. Leibniz implied that hope presupposes

the adoption of a theodicy. There is an important distinction which is relevant to the

question of hope's preconditions—

viz.,

between the capability to hope and the right

to the same. Some conditions might have to be fulfilled before a person is able to

hope. For

example,

a

person might

be

incapable of holding religious hope without a

prior experience of faith. But preconditions might also be required before a person

is entitled to hope. Thus it might be suggested that a person must show love before

he or she has the right to hope for eternal

bliss.

A theory of hope should show what,

if any, preconditions there are for hope.

3. 'What justifies hopeT

The question must first be asked whether hope can

ever be justified. If hope is associated with error, as Spinoza, for example, claimed,

or if it raises a person's expectations unrealistically, then hope might be something

to guard against.

If hope is at least partly rational, then the adequacy of specific reasons and

evidence would be relevant to its possible justification in particular cases. This raises

further questions about what would constitute adequate reasons and evidence as well

as whether a person must be satisfied with slender rational support and consequent

low probability in his or her hope. Special difficulties are raised by the use of

revelation to justify some types of hope. It must then be asked whether revelation is

a type of evidence which must be judged and evaluated on the same bases as other

evidence or whether it

is

somehow above questioning—and

perhaps

even above reason

so that it calls upon a person for a direct response of commitment.

4.

'

What is the content or ob ject of hopeT

Another

issue

of crucial importance

concerns hope's content or object. For Plato and Hume hope was always aimed

toward pleasure and for Aquinas toward happiness, but Luther specifically mentioned

righteousness as hope's end and de Condorcet equality. Mill emphasized the hope for

personal life after death. Cohen, Buber, and Bloch were among those who wrote of

hope as directed toward a better life in this world for all people. For Marcel hope has

no object at all but is simply openness toward the future. The nature of hope's content

or object is an important issue to be addressed in a theory of hope.


30/205

14


5. 'What is the function or purpose of hopeV

Does hope serve a vital purpose

for peop le that is not accomplished by anything else? Ho bbes, Lo cke , and Spinoza

were am ong those wh o did not think it to be particularly important. Bu t Au gustine

and Luther exalted hope on the grounds that it helps a person to endure suffering.

Philo, Fromm , and Bloch were among those wh o thought that hope arouses a person

to perform worthy

deeds.

For A ristotle hope w as the counterpart to memory—it opens

the future for hum anity. And Heideg ger wrote that hope brings out an aspect of

human temporality by transporting people into the future. Some thinkers,

e.g.

Mill,

have attempted to justify hope on the basis of the purpose it can fulfill for m ankind.

The question of hope's purpose or function is related to fundamental issues

regarding the nature of hum anity. If a hum an is more than a com plex org anism, if a

person is, for example, a creature whose ultimate end is oneness with God or whose

future is open to his or her own shaping and molding, then perhaps hope can be the

key to hum an fulfillment. If, by contrast, a perso n is a creatu re whose projections and

desires are as likely to bring failure and grief as success, then hope has little or no

purpose.

6.

'What is the identity of the one who hopesT

In many cases the writers

mentioned above seem ed to think of the individual as the subject of hope. A person ,

they thought, hopes for his or her own eternal bliss, his or her own pleasureful

experienc es, and the like. But som e of the writers,

e.g.

de Co ndorcet, Peirce, Cohen,

Bub er, and Bloch, were more concerned about the developm ent of man kind. For

them the subject of hop e is the hum an race. In several Old Testam ent passages on

hop e, the subject is not so much an individual as it is Go d's peop le.

A fully developed theory of hope should deal with all of these issues-with

ho pe 's basic n ature, its preconditions, its justifications, its content, its function or

purpose, and its subject. In Ch apter 5, we shall see that Kant offered a full theo ry of

hop e in which he specified positions on each of these points.

Preliminary Com ments on Kant s Theory of Hop e

It is seldom realized just how important Kant considered the topic of hope to

be. He referred to its significance several times throug h a long portion of his


31/205

Introduction 15

philosophical career, and he treated it and related themes repeatedly.

In a famous passage from the


(1781) he revealed his

interest in the topic:

All of the interests of m y reason, speculative as well as practical,

com bine in the following questions:

1.

What can I know?

2.

W hat ought I do?

3. W hat may I hope?

95

In that work he included a brief answer to the third question.

96

In the years which follow ed, Kant gave attention to various aspects of the topic

in "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan P oint of View " (1784), "What

is Enlightenment?" (1784),

Critique ofPractical Reason (1788), Critique of Judgment

(1790),

and "On the Failure of All Attempted Theo dicies" (1791).

97

His most important work on hope was Religion within the Limits of Reason

Alone

(179 3). In a letter to C. F. Stäudlin, which accom panied a copy of the then

newly published work, he indicated the close relationship which he saw between the

book and the topic of hope:

The plan I prescribed for myself a long time ago calls for an

examination of the field of pure philosophy with a view to solving three

problem s: (1) W hat can I know ? (metaphysics). (2) What ought I to do?

(moral philosoph y). (3) W hat may I hope? (philosophy of religion). A

fourth question ough t to follow, finally: Wh at is man? (anthropology, a

subject on which I have lectured for over twenty years). W ith the

enclosed work, Religion within the Limits [ofReason Alone], I have tried

to comp lete the third part of my plan.

98

Th is book did not mark the end of Kan t's treatment of the topic. He dealt with

aspects of it again in "Perpetual Peace" (1795), Metaphysics of Morals (1797), and

The Strife of Faculties

(1798).

99

The re are certain aspects of Ka nt's philosophy as a whole which had an impor

tant impact upon his theory of hope. For exam ple, in his critical system Kant did not

treat religion in any traditional sense. The results of the


led

him to speak of God as an

a priori

"Idea" of practical reason rather than as objective

reality that can be known by theoretical reason. The primacy of ethics over religion


32/205

16 Kant's Philosophy of Hope

required that piety be defined in terms of morality rather than of worship or of some

other spiritual activity. As we shall see, Kant developed his theory of hope in ways

that were consistent with these views.

A second example of how Kant's general philosophy impacted his theory of

hope can be seen in the effect that his general a priori methodology had upon his

theory of hope. Kant relied on pure reason, rather than on either revelation or

empirical evidence, for example, as the basis for many general truths. He also

presented hope's objects or ideals as a priori "Ideas." As a consequence, his

justification of hope is quite unlike any of those found in the views previously

mentioned.

A third example is brought out in Kant's philosophical anthropology. He

distinguished strongly between the human as an individual and as a species ( Gat-

tung ).

m

This distinction recurs frequently in Kant's writings and is crucial for his

philosophy of religion and philosophy of history.

101

As an individual or person, a

human is both a physiological creature driven by desires and a rational being who is

responsible for developing his or her own knowledge and virtue. But human physio

logical and rational traits are such that certain of one's objectives can be attained only

by the species. Kant's theory of hope is largely individualistic in nature, but in

Chapter 4 we shall see that in his philosophy of history he presented a social analogue

to that

theory.

There it is mankind rather than the individual that is the subject.

urpose of this Study

The purpose of this study is twofold: 1) to offer an analysis and interpretation

of Kant's views on hope and 2) to provide a critical evaluation of the same.

A careful examination of the full range of Kant's views on hope is lacking in

the literature. There is no work specifically devoted to the study of that theme in his

philosophy. The topic is hardly touched upon in the journals. Although Kant

associated hope closely with religion, such standard works on his philosophy of

religion as those by W ebb and England leave it virtually unmentioned.

102

Much has

been written, of course, about the summum bonum, and several writers have exam

ined Kant's views on the prospects of humanity's further historical development, but,


33/205

Introduction 17

although the writings on these topics have often been very beneficial, they have

generally provided interpretations that have not taken into consideration Kant's

broader views on hope.

Goldmann has offered a more extensive interpretation, but,

although his views are interesting, he has distorted Kant's position.

103

A more helpful

discussion of the topic is in a work by Despland, but his primary concern was not in

the topic of hope.

104

We shall attempt to show that Kant's philosophy of hope is an interesting and

well-developed theory.

And it

is

noteworthy that

his

views

are

not merely

a

variation

of "Enlightenment optimism." Although he wrote of reason, science, human potential,

and history in ways that are reminiscent of Turgot, de Condorcet, Lessing, or Voltaire,

the differences from these and other 18th-century thinkers are remarkable and put his

views into the new form of a "critical theory." His philosophy of hope is unique and

must be judged on its own merits.

NOTES

'The m ost prominent of the contemporary theologians dealing with hope have been Jürgen

Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Johannes B. Metz.

The "theology of hope" has evoked widespread interest. Theological symposia on the topic

have been held at Chicago, Santa Barbara, and New York.

Dialogue

entitled its entire volume VII (1968) The Fu ture of Mankind" and included several

articles on the theology of hope in it. The Lutheran Quarterly, vol. XXI, no. 1 (Feb., 1969) and

Cross Currents, vol. XVIII, no. 3 (summ er, 1968) were completely devoted to the topic. The

Cross

Currents issue has been published in book form under the title, The Future of Hope, ed. Walter H .

Capps (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). For an introduction to the theology of hope movement,

c/. Walter H. Capps, "Mapping the Hope Movement," The Future of Hope, pp . 1-49. Capps has

further developed his overview in W alter H. Capps,

Tim e Invades the Cathedral; Tensions in the

School of Hope (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972).

^To be sure, Kant did consider hope in works which are not normally associated with the

three areas of his philosophy listed. For exam ple, he dealt with the topic rather extensively in the

Critique

of Pure Reason.

But since this treatment was included in a section on moral philosophy,

it will be considered in Chapter

2.

A portion of the Critique of Judgment deals with philosophy of

history, so it is considered in Chapter 4.

3

In this section the views of only a sample of significant philosophers and theologians are

presented. Special attention is paid to those figures whose importance for the history of thought is

most widely acknowledged and who m ade significant contributions on the topic of hope. The


34/205

18

Kant s Philosophy of Ho pe

sample does reveal the diversity of the views that have been developed as well as the primary

themes and problems that arise in connection with hope.

The traditions are divided at the end of the eighteenth century because Kant developed his

theory near the close of that century.

'Severa l Hebrew words we associated with hope —the most important of which are iTD 3 ,

Π Ο Γ Ο Γ Ρ , Π 1p , and~n\u . I n the Septuagint these and a few other words were occasionally translated

by έ λ π ί ς and έ λ π ί ζ ε ι ν , but none was translated exclusively that way. riLO emphasizes trust or

reliance, and it often connotes a condition in which a person feels at ease or secure. Cf. Psalms 22:5,

26:1,

37:3, Jeremiah 17:7, and Isaiah 32:9-10. Π Ό Π means searching for refuge or yearning for

security.

Cf.

Psalms 2:12, 25:20, 71:1,141 :8, and Isaiah

30:2.

The primary meaning of ^Π > with

3 is to wait expectantly for something or someone. Cf. Isaiah 42:4, Ezekiel 13:6, Psalms 33 :18 ,22 ,

and 119:43, 74. Likewise, Π If

7

means to wait or look eagerly for something or someone. Cf.

Ge nesis 49 :18,Isa iah5 9:ll,and Jerem iah8 :15,1 3:16 ,6:19 . ~)3\U sometimes means to wait or yearn

for. Cf. Psalms 119:166, 10 4:27,145 :15, and 146:5.

6

C/.Galatians 5:5, Romans 5:2ff.,8:24f., 12:12,15:4,Ephesians 1:18,2:12, Philippians 1:20,

and Titus 1:2, 2:13, 3:7.

7

I Corinthians 15:20-23, and Romans 4:17-21, 15:12-13.

8

In the book of

Acts,

Luke emphasized the central place that hope occupies in the Christian

life. Jes us ' resurrection, he argued, has vindicated the hope that a Messiah would com e and that a

life of glory is in store for all believers. Cf. Acts 2:26, 23:6, 24:15, 26:6f., 28:20. In I Peter hope

is the expectation of glory in this life and in the next.

Cf

I Peter 1:3,

2 1;

3:15.

For a fuller treatment of hope in the Old and New Testaments, cf Rudolf Bultmann and

Karl

H.

Rengstorf, ' Ε λ ιά ς , έ λ π ί ζ π ,

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 1964, Π ,

517-

35 ,

and P. S. Minear, Hope,

The Interpreter s D ictionary of the Bible,

1962, Π , 640-43.

'Plato,

Philebus,

36a-b.

Cf.

also

Laches,

198b. Plato 's most extensive treatment of hope and

expectation is to be found in Philebus, esp . 36-40.

m

Ibid., 40a-b . It is worth noting that Plato thought the gods provided the virtuous person

with correct expectations and the evil individual with incorrect ones.

Plato,

Timaeus,

69d.

On the question w hether hope is beneficial, there is an old Greek fable according to which

Zeus gave hum anity a jar of good things, but the hu man's curiosity led to taking off the cover, and

all the things escaped except hope. The fable concludes, And so it is that hope alone abides with

men, promising to give us each of the other blessings that escaped.

Babrius,

#58. The translation

is by Ben Edw in Perry in the Loeb Library edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1965), p. 75.

n

Cf Plato, Phaedo, 63c, 64a, 67a-68b; Apology, 41c ; and Republic 331a.

Aristotle, Rhetoric, Π , 12, 1389a 20f.; Π , 13, 1390a, 5ff.; and De Memoria et

Reminiscentia,

1, 449b, 27f.


35/205

Introduction

19

Aristotle,

Rhetoric,

Π , 5,1383a 16ff.

15

The translated Septuagint version is: To Seth a son was born, and he called his name

Enos;

he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God. In Quod Detenus Potion Insidiari Soleat,

XXXVin, 138, Philo rendered the last part of this verse,

He

first hoped

to

call

on

the name

of

the

Lord God. The Hebrew text in the Kittel edition may be translated, To Seth a son was born, and

he called his name Enos; then man began to call on the name of the Lord.

Just as in Philo's system Enos typified hope, so Enoch represented repentance and

improvement, and Noah symbolized justice. Philo, De Abrahamo HI, 17, and VI , 33.

I6

Philo, De Abrahamo, Π , 8. The translation is by F. H. Colson in the Loeb Library edition

(Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), VI, 9. The phrase Colson translated as

comfortable hopes is έ λ π ίσ ι χ ρ η σ τ α ΐ ς .

Ibid.

18

Philo,

De

Praemiis

et Poenis,

Π , 10. The translation is by F. H. Colson in the Loeb Library

edition,

Vin, 319.

l9

Ibid., Π , 11. The translation is by Colson in the Loeb Library edition, VHJ, 319.

^ h i l o ,

Quod Detenus P otion Insidiari

Soleat, XXXV HI, 138. The translation is by F. H.

Colson and G. H. Whitaker in the Loeb Library edition, Π , 295.

2l

Philo,

De

Praemiis

et

Poenis,

Π , 14. The

translation

is by

Colson

in the

Loeb Library

edition, VJU, 321.

22

Augustine,

On

Christian Doctrine, 1,37-40; E nchiridion, 1,3, andU, 8. The subtitle of the

Enchiridion is On Faith, Hope, and Love. Augustine based his list of characteristics on I Cor.

13:13.

23

Augu stine,

Confessions,

Book Thirteen, XIV, 15; City of God , XIX, 20.

Augustine, C ity of God, XIX, 4:

Confessions,

Book Ten, XXVffl-XXIX, 39-40.

R . A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine.

(Cambridge: University Press, 1970), p. 166.

^Thom as Aquinas,

Summa

Theologica, Part Π of Second Part, Q 17 , Arts. 1,5,6; Part I of

Second Part, Q 62, Art. 3; De Virtutibus in communi, 12. The other theological virtues are faith and

love.

Thom as also designated hope as one of the four principal passions of the soul—the others

being sadness, joy,

and

fear. Thom as Aquinas, De Veritate,

Q

26 ,

Art. 5.

^Thom as A quinas, Summa Theologica, Part Π of Second

Part,

Q1 7, Arts. 2-4; De Virtutibus

in communi, 12.

28

Thomas Aquinas, De

Spe,

1,

ad 1.

29

Thomas A quinas,

Summa Theologica,

Part

I of

Second Part,

Q 40,

Arts.

1-3;

Part

Π of


36/205

2

Kant s Philosophy

of

Hope

Second Part,

Q

18, Arts.

1 and 4.

' When hope

is

given

up, men

rush headlong into

sin, and are

drawn away from good

works. (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part Π of Second Part, Q 20, Art. 3.) The

translation is

by

the Fathers of the Eng lish Dom inican Province

in

the Great Books of the W estern

World edition (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), XX , 477.

31

Martin Luther,

Lectures

on

Genesis, Chapters 45-50,

trans. Paul

D.

Pahl,

Vol. Vm,

Luther s Works

(St.

Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1966),

p. 115.

Cf. also

a

remark which

Veit Dietrich attributed

to

Luther:

Faith teaches that there

is a

resurrection of the dead

on the

Last Day. Then

hope adds: Well, if that is really true, then let us stake all we have on it; and let us

suffer whatever

we

must,

if

thereafter

we

shall become such great lords. (Martin

Luther, What Luther Says, ed. Ewald Μ . Plass, Π (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing

House, 1959), p.

669.)

32

Luther, What Luther

Says,

Π , 6 68 .

33

Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians,

1535,

trans. Jaroslav Pelikan, Vol. XXVII, Luther s

Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), pp. 26ff.

^Luther, What Luther Says,

Π ,

668-669.

Calvin gave hope somewhat less prominence that Luther,

but he did

think

it an

important

aspect of the Christian life. Hope ,

he

thought, is

an

unshakable confidence that one will experience

glory. Doubt can never be consistent with hope ; hope is virtual knowledge that blessing awaits one

beyond

death.

Cf. John Calvin, Treatises in Defense of the Reformed Faith, trans. Henry Beveridge

(Grand Rapids: Wm . B. Eerdmans, 1958), Γ Π ,

137f.

35

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter VI (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1950), p. 43.

' 'John Locke, An

Essay

Concerning

Human Understanding,

Π , XX,

9.

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ΙΠ ,

Π , DC

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p.

438.

The other direct passions he listed are desire, aversion, grief, joy, fear, and volition.

Ibid.

Ibid, p.

439.

• Rene Descartes, Passions of the Soul, Part Π , Art. LVm.

'Spinoza,

Ethics,

Γ Π , Prop. XVIII,

n. 2.

42

Baruch Spinoza, Spinoza s Short Treatise on God,

Man,

an d His

Well-Being,

trans.

A.

Wolf

(New York: Russell

&

Russell, 1963),

p.

92.

Ibid.


37/205

Introduction

2 1

This dialogue, which is without title, appears in Gottfried W ilhelm

Leibniz,

Philosophical

Papers and Letters, ed . Leroy E. Loemker (Chicago: U niversity of Chicago Press, 1956), 1,332-38.

Leibniz developed elaborate theological and metaphysical argumentation to support his theodicy,

the most complete collection of which is his work entitled simply, Theodicy. But neither this book

nor his other writings related to the topic contain specific discussion of hope.

45

Less sanguine about mankind's further development were such figures as Voltaire and

Rousseau, but even they held that under certain conditions humanity could make great advances

beyond its present conditions. Voltaire proposed that mankind would be able to expand know ledge

greatly and live a much richer life if it could free itself from wars, prejudices, superstitions, bigotry,

and fanaticism. Cf. especially

Essai sur

les moeurs

et l'esprit des

nations

et sur lesprincipauxfaits

de l'histoire depuis Charlemagne jusqu'a Louis

XIII,

ed. Rene Pomeau (Paris: Gam ier, 1963).

Rousseau, of course, claimed that the development of civilization had led to human regress, but even

he proposed that humanity could com e to a much better state if all economic, social, and political

inequalities could be eradicated. His Social Contract was a proposal for such a cond ition. Cf. Jean

Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, trans. G. D. H. Cole (New York: E. P.

Dutton and C o., 1913).

The question of ust how prominent

optimism

really was in the eighteenth century has been

the topic of an extremely lively debate. Carl Becker characterized the age as an era of faith in

human ability to build the Heavenly City on this earth through the full use of man kind's rational

capacity to comprehend all the laws of nature. Ernst Cassirer thought that the prevailing philosophy

of that age was optimistic because people were confident that mankind can know and live according

to natural physical and moral laws. Charles Frankel has contended that the century was m arked by

a faith in reason and science (rather than revelation) as reliable guides to truth and insurers of

progress.

Henry Vyverberg and Peter Gay have been among the challengers to this prevailing view.

They have argued that there was also a realization in that century of mankind's fanaticism,

ignorance, and other defects and that there was a corresponding streak of pessimism that ran through

the age. Although their points have offered a valuable antidote to the interpretations of Becker and

others, nevertheless it is true that several writers of that period were confident that human progress

in many areas was assured.

For the key arguments in this debate, cf. C arl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the E ighteenth

Century

Philosophers

(New Haven: Yale University P ress, 1932); Ernst Cassirer,

The Philosophy

of the Enlightenment, trans. F. A. C. Koelln and J. P. Pettegrove (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955);

Charles Frankel,

The Faith of Reason

(New York: Octagon Books, 1969); Henry Vyverberg,

Historical Pessimism in the French Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University P ress,

1958);

Peter Gay, The Party

of Hum anity

(New

York:

Alfred A. Knopf,

1964),

pp.

188ff.

and 270f.;

and R. O. Rockwood

(ed.),

C arl Becker's Heavenly City Revisited (Ithaca, N.

Y.:

C ornell University

Press, 1958).

* C .

I. Castel, abbe de Saint-Pierre, Scheme for a Lasting Peace, trans. H. Hale Bellot

(London: Peace Book Company, 1939). Cf. also J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York:

Dover, 1955), pp. 127-43.

47

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot,

R eflections on the Form ation and Distribution of Riches

(New York: Macmillan, 1898). Cf. also Anne Robert Turgot, "Tableau philosophique des progres

successifs de l'esprit humain," Oeuvres de

Turgot, ed.

G ustave Schelle (Paris: F. Valcan, 1913-23),

vol.

I.


38/205

Kant's Philosophy

of

Hope

• Gotthold Lessing, The Education of the Human Race, Lessing's Theological Writings,

trans.

Henry Chadwick (Stanford: Stanford U niversity Press, 1957), pp. 82-98.

*>Ibid., p. 96.

' Antoine-Nicolas

de

Condorcet, Sketch

for a H istorical Picture of The Progress of the

Human

Mind, trans. June Barraclough (London: Weidenfeld

and

Nicolson, 1955), p.

173.

5l

In

a key

passage

de

Condorcet wrote:

We shall find in the experience of the past,

in

the observation of the progress

that the sciences

and

civilization have already made,

in

the analysis

of

the progress

of the human m ind and of the development of its faculties, the strongest reasons for

believing that nature

has set no

limit

to

the realization

of

our

hopes.

(Ibid.,

p .

175.)

52

G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie (2d ed.; New York:

Macm illan, 1949), pp. 251-67, esp. 254f.

M

Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels,

O n Religion (New

York: Schocken Books, 1964),

p. 42. The

paragraph which

precedes the sentence quoted reads:

Religious distress is at the same tim e the expression of real distress and the

protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart

of a heartless world, just as

it is the

spirit

of

a spiritless situation.

It is the

opium

of

the people.

(Ibid.)

Julian Huxley, New

Bottles for New Wine

(New York: Harper & B rothers, 1957), p. 289.

55

Cf. Julian Huxley, Religion without Revelation (New York: New American Library, 1958),

esp.

pp. 181-212.

56

Charles Sanders Peirce,

Collected Papers

(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1965-66),

5.357. He also referred to this hope as the assumption that man or the comm unity (which may be

wider than man) shall ever arrive at a state of information greater than some definite finite

information.

(Ibid.)

Ibid., 2.655.

The other two sentiments he mentioned are interest in an indefinite community —which he

likened

to charity, and recognition of the possibility of this interest being made supreme —which

he called faith. Cf. ibid.

5>

Ibid., 2.654f.

59

John Stuart Mill,

Theism (New

York:

The

Liberal Arts Press, 1957), pp .

55 and

78-82.

' This

is the

essay , Utility

of

Religion, which

he

wrote between

1850 and 1858.

John

Stuart Mill,

"Nature " and

Utility

ofReligion "

(New York:

The

Liberal Arts

Press, 1958), pp.

79-80.

61

Mill, Theism, p. 81. This essay was written between 1868 and 1870.


39/205

Introduction

23

62

Ibid.,

p p.

81f. In the

same essay

he

wrote,

When the reason is strongly cultivated, the imagination may safely follow its

own end and do its best to make life pleasant and lovely inside the castle, in reliance

on the fortification raised and maintained by reason round the outward bounds.

(ÄW.,p.81.)

63

S0ren Kierkegaard, Either/Or,

trans.

David F. and Lillian M . Swenson (Garden City, New

York: Doubleday, 1959), I, 288-89.

64

S0ren Kierkegaard,

Repetition,

trans. Walter Lowrie (New York: Harper Row, 1964),

p.

34.

65

S0ren Kierkegaard,

For

Self-Examination, Judge for Yourselves

and

Three Discourses,

1851, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), p. 102.

A s, for example,

in

The Sickness unto

Death.

Cf S0ren Kierkegaard, F ear and Trembling,

and

The

Sickness unto Death,

trans. Walter Lowrie (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and

Company, 1954), pp. 141-262.

67

S0ren Kierkegaard, Works

of Love, trans.

Howard and Edna Hong (New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1962), pp. 234ff.

^Martin Heidegger, Being

and

Time, trans. John Macquarrie

and

Edward Robinson

(New

York: Harper & Row, 1962), p.

396.

^Ga briel Marcel,

The

Philosophy

of

Existentialism, trans. M anya Harari (New York: Citadel

Press, 1970), p. 28.

' Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, Introduction

to a Metaphysic of

Hope, trans. Emm a Craufurd

(Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), pp . 32-36.

n

lbid.,

p. 36, and

Gabriel Marcel, Being and

Having,

trans. Katharine Farrer (New York:

Harper

Row, 1965), p.

74.

72

Erich Fromm ,

The Revolution of Hope

(New York: Harper & R ow, 1968), p. 13.

n

Ibid., p . 9.

74

Erich Fromm ,

The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

(New York: Holt, Rinehart, and

Winston, 1973), p. 438.

75

Fromm, The Revolution of Hope,

pp. 17ff.

Fromm even provided

a

this-worldly

interpretation of resurrection:

Resurrection

in

its new meaning—for which the Christian m eaning would be

one of the possible sym bolic expressions—is not the creation of another reality after

the reality of this life, but the transformation of this reality in the direction of greater

aliveness. Man and society are resurrected every mom ent in the act of faith and of

hope in the here and now; every act of life, of awareness, of compassion is


40/205

4


resurrection; every act of sloth, of

greed,

of selfishness is death. Ibid., p. 17.)

16

Ibid.,

p p.

llff.

Ez ra Stotland, The Psychology of Hope (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969), pp .

7f.

n

Ibid., pp. 17ff.

Hermann Cohen, Reason and H ope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann

Cohen,

trans. Eva Jospe (New York: W. W . Norton, 1971), pp. 122ff.

m

Ibid., p . 126.

Cf

ibid.,

p .

123.

82

Hermann Coh en,

Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des

udentums (2d

ed.;

Darmstadt:

Joseph Melzer Verlag, 1966), pp. 363-64. Co hen 's view

of

life after death

was

simply that o ne's

spirit would go home to God; he did not understand it as personal, individual existence beyond

death. Cf. Cohen, Reason and Hope, p.

139.

''Martin Buber, Replies

to My

C ritics, The P hilosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur

Schilpp

and

Maurice Friedman

(La

Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1967), p.

715.

^M artin Buber, Hope

for

t is

Hour, Pointing the W ay; Collected Essays of Martin

Buber,

ed. Maurice S. Friedman (New York: Harper Row, 1963), p. 220.

85

Hope for this Hour was originally delivered as a speech in 1952 at the conclusion of a

lecture tour Buber had conducted in the United States.

^Martin B uber, Paths in Utopia, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 142.

The word for the village comm une may also be transliterated, 'kvu tzah.'

87

Buber,

Pointing the W ay,

pp. 224-29. The ideal community can be understood, I think, as

people living together in full I-Thou relationships as they are described in Martin Buber, /

and

Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937).

88

Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1959). In each of

the five main sections of the book Bloch treated a form of this consciousness. The sections are

titled, Little Daydreams, The Anticipating Consciousness, Wish-Ideals in a Mirror, Sketches

of a Better World, and Wish-Ideals of the Fulfilled Mom ent.

89

Bloch expressed this point with the slogans, 'S is not yet P' and 'Incipit vita nova.' Ernst

Bloch, Man on His

Own: Essays

in the

Philosophy of Religion,

trans. Ε . Β . Ashton (New York:

Herder & Herder, 1970), p.

90.

Bloch, Das

Prinzip Hoffnung,

p . 1.

Bloch,

M an

on His

Own,

p. 91.


41/205

Introduction 2 5

w

Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of

Hope,

trans. James W . Leitch (New York: Harper & Row ,

1967),

p. 25.

Jürg en Moltmann, The Theology of Hope, The Future of Hope, ed. Frederick Herzog

(New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), pp. lOff.

^Moltmann's views have been expanded and altered by a number of other prominent

theologians—e.g. Pannenberg, Metz, SchauU, and Braaten. They have been strong advocates of

living for an eschaton of freedom, justice, equality, and peace, and some have proposed that

Christians should be revolutionaries—fighting to open up God 's future. SchauU has been the

strongest advoca te of revolution, but Braaten has also written along those lines. Cf. Richard SchauU,

Revolutionary Change in Theological Perspective, Christian Social Ethics in a Changing World:

An Ecumenical Theological

Inquiry,

ed. John C. Bennett (New York: Association, 1966), pp . 23-43,

and Carl

E.

Braaten, The Future of God: The Revolutionary Dynamics of Hope (New York: Harper

and

Row,

1969),esp.pp. 141-166. ForPan nenb erg's views, c/Wolfhart Pannenberg, Tfteo/ogy and

the Kingdom of G od (Philadelphia: The W estminster Press, 1969) and What is Man?, trans. Duane

A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970). For the views of Metz, cf. Johannes B. Metz,

Creative Hope, Cross

Currents,

XVII (1957), 171-79; The Responsibility of Hope, Philosophy

Today, X (1966), 280-88; Poverty of the Spirit (New York: Newman P ress, 1969); and Theology of

the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).

CP R, A804-805 = B832-833.

Alles Interesse m einer Vernunft (das spekulative sowohl, als das praktische)

vereinigt sich in folgenden drei Frage n:

1. Was kann ich wissen?

. 2. Was soll ich thun?

3.

Was darf ich hoffen?

This material is examined in Chapters 2 and 3.

T he relevant material in these writings will be treated in Chapters 2 and 4.

Imm anuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence

1759-99,

ed. Arnulf Zweig (Chicago: T he

University of Chicago Press, 1967),

p.

205.

The brackets are the editor's. Religionwithin the Limits

of Reason Alone is very important for the purposes of this study, and in Chapter 3 it is treated in

some detail.

There is also an interesting passage in the Logic which shows Kant's interest in hope.

Although the w ork was first published in

1800,

it was a handbook Kant used for his lectures on logic

and may have been written several years earlier. The passage reads:

The field of philosophy in the cosmopolitan sense [i.e., in the sense in which

it unites all men in the search for the ultimate end of human reason] may be

summarized in the following questions:

1. What can I know?

2. What should I do?

3.

What may I hope?

4. What is man?

Metaphysics answers the first question, ethics the second, religion the third, and


42/205

2 6


anthropology the fourth. (Immanuel Kant, Logik, KGS , IX, 25.)

Relevant parts of the

M etaphysics of Morals

will receive attention in Chapter 2. Portions

of Perpetual Peace and The Strife of Faculties are treated in Chapter 4.

l00

Some translators, e.g. Beck (Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History from a

Cosmopolitan Point of View, On History (Indianapolis: Bobbs-M errill, 1963), p. 3 (VIE, 18) as

well as Greene and Hudson (Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (New York: Harper

and Row, I960)), have rendered the term Gattung as race in the sense of the human race, but

Kant also wrote about various races ( Racen ) in such essays as Von den verschiedenen Racen der

Menschen.

m

Cf. Chapter 4, section I. The distinction may be found in Kant, Idea for a Universal

History, p. 13 (VIII, 18-19), and in Kant, Anthropology from a Pragm atic Point of

View,

trans.

Mary J. Gregor (The Hague: Martinus

Nijhoff,

1974), pp. 151-52 (VII, 285-86), and pp. 182ff. (VII,

321ff.). In the latter work K ant also included sections on the character of the sexes, of nations, and

of races, but those categories can be understood in terms of the nature of the species.

l02

Clement C. J. Webb, Kant's Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926); and

F. E. E ngland, Kant's Concept of God (London: Allen and Unwin, 1929). In his study of K ant's

philosophy of religion, Schweitzer focused on the tension between K an t's critical idealism and his

moral emphasis and did not give attention to the topic of hope. Cf. Albert Schweitzer, Die

Religionsphilosophie Kants in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft bis zur Religion innerhalb der Grenzen

der bloßen Vernunft (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1899). Bohatec 's excellent study of the historical

backgrounds to Religion within the L imits of Reason A lone treats the topic of ho pe only briefly. Cf.

Josef Bohatec, Die Religionsphilosophie Ka nts in der Religion Innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen

Vernunft

(Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966). Wood mentioned hope only in passing in the work in

which he defended K an t's use of the moral postulates.

Cf.

Allen

W.

Wood,

Kant's M oral Religion

(Ithaca: Cornell University P ress, 1970).

103

Lucien Goldmann, Imm anuel Kant�

kant's philosophy of hope

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