There is a loud and persistent drum beat of support for schools, for citizenship, for diversity and inclusion, and increasingly for labor market readiness with very little critical attention to the assumptions underlying these agendas, let alone to their many internal contradictions. Accordingly, in this book I examine the philosophical, motivational, and practical challenges of education theory, policy, and practice in the twenty-first century. As I proceed, I do not neglect the historical, comparative international context so essential to better understanding (...) where we are, as well as what is attainable in terms of educational justice. I argue that we must constructively critique some of our most cherished beliefs about education if we are to save the hope of real justice from the rhetoric of imagined justice. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a comparative evaluation of two types of “fundamental hope”, drawn from the writing of Rebecca Solnit and Rowan Williams respectively. Arguments can be found in both, I argue, for the foundations of a dispositional existential hope. Examining and comparing the differences between these accounts, I focus on the consequences implied for hope’s freedom and stability. I focus specifically on how these two accounts differ in their claims about the relationship between hope and necessity. I argue (...) that both Solnit and Williams base their claims for warranted fundamental hope on a sense of how reality is structured, taking this structure to provide grounds for a basic existential orientation that absolute despair is never the final word. For Solnit this structure is one of unpredictability; for Williams it is one of excess. While this investigation finds both accounts of fundamental hope to be plausible and insightful, I argue that Williams’s account is ultimately more satisfying on the grounds that it offers a realistic way of thinking about a hope necessitated by what it is responsive to, and more substantial in responding to what is necessary. (shrink)

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order (...) inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, be hopeful for an outcome with which one has a long record of experience: in other words, what is the epistemology behind when one should, if ever, stop hoping for outcomes which have failed one many times in the past? (shrink)

"Roger Garaudy was for many years at the centre of the French Communist Party but was eventually expelled for his liberal views. In the Seventies he developed a project to bring Marxism and Christianity together, to include all humanity in a project to set all people free. What emerges from Garaudy's project is a very modern Marxism, with its emphasis on the individual, its ecological politics, and in its insistence on religion as central to human emancipation. Although Garaudy himself became (...) frustrated by the West and converted to Islam in 1982, ending his life discredited in the West, it is certainly possible that Garaudy's project represents a good, perhaps even the best, starting point for Marxism in today's world"--. (shrink)

A new ethics of human finitude developed through three experimental essays. As ethical beings, we strive for lives that are meaningful and praiseworthy. But we are finite. We do not know, so we hope. We need, so we trust. We err, so we forgive. In this book, philosopher John T. Lysaker draws our attention to the ways in which these three capacities—hope, trust, and forgiveness—contend with human limits. Each experience is vital to human flourishing, yet each also poses significant personal (...) and institutional challenges as well as opportunities for growth. Hope, Trust, and Forgiveness explores these challenges and opportunities and proposes ways to best meet them. In so doing, Lysaker experiments with the essay as a form and advances an improvisational perfectionism to deepen and expand our ethical horizons. (shrink)

We articulate a holistic understanding of hope, going beyond the common conceptualization of hope in terms of positive affect and cognition by considering what hope means for the underprivileged. In the recognition that hope is always situated in a particular place, we explore the perspective of the privileged and the underprivileged, clarifying how spatial contexts shape their goals for the future and their agency toward attaining these goals. Where some people experience precarity due to their disability, race, gender, sexuality, and (...) social class, others enjoy enhanced agency due to their privilege. In our analysis, this loss of agency does not mean the underprivileged are hopeless; instead, it suggests that hope can incorporate negative affect and cognition. In our view, a spatial understanding acknowledges the power of hope in discouraging situations, and it points to practical measures through which hope can be cultivated by marginalized communities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis introduction sets a framework for the special issue on Education and Hope which contains a selection of papers presented at the 16th Conference of the International Network of Philosophers of Education. It sketches the issue of how education and hope are closely intertwined notions. This introduction also gives an overview of the articles included in this issue and how they are thematically arranged. In a short conclusion the issue of hope is related to the issue of speed and slowness.

Inherent in the self–other dynamic structure are the mechanisms to reduce the other to the self, to surrender the self to the other, to place an insurmountable wedge between them, and to effect a harmonious, mutually beneficent relationship. In this paper, I explore the varied self–other relations between the self in hope, confronting the prospect of its death as other. I also endeavour to unravel a possible eclipse of the above self–other patterns, which can serve as an indication of the (...) uniqueness and perhaps the mystery that surround our attempts to come to terms with the reality of our own mortality. (shrink)

This dissertation deals with the tragic vision that motivates certain key aspects of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy. While in the formative early work, the Dialectic of Enlightenment, co-written with Max Horkheimer, the tragic views are clear, in later works, such as the Aesthetic Theory and the Negative Dialectics, they are only implicit. The study reconstructs the tragic vision found in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and uses it as a key to understand Adorno’s mature philosophy. A tragic vision is born when (...) specific philosophical convictions regarding agency and morality coalesce with certain ethical and political conditions. A tragic vision forms the grounds for tragic views. For Adorno, the key convictions rise out of the failures of reason and culture to enable the eradication of unnecessary suffering by creating the kind of conditions in which human beings could flourish. These convictions give rise to a view of humanity as blind to its own shortcomings and thus doomed to perpetuate suffering in the name of progress and growth. Adorno’s persistent negativism prevents him from offering practical solutions for changing the world, but he does offer a scathing critique of the modern world that continues to resonate with new generations of readers. The analysis of the tragic vision presented in this dissertation will highlight the fundamental philosophical and ethical commitments underlying Adorno’s views and will thus allow both situating his work into a larger cultural context and juxtaposing it with the work of other philosophers, as well as other writers, thereby opening new vistas for research not just on Adorno but on continental philosophy, social theory, and the domain of arts and letters at large. (shrink)