Hope

Hope is for Thomas one of the three theological virtues: stretched toward the arduous but possible future good that is beatitude, it relies on the help of divine grace. Far from a lucidity without hope, Christian existence is oriented by the confident expectation of an end that surpasses the powers of nature, which places Thomas at the extreme of the pole of hope.

Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 17-22

"What may I hope?" is one of the three cardinal questions of philosophy. The postulates of practical reason, freedom, immortality of the soul and God, ground a rational hope that the highest good, the accord of virtue and happiness, is possible: an avowed principle of hope.

Critique of Pure Reason, Canon of Pure Reason · Critique of Practical Reason, Dialectic

Hope is the falsification of judgment by desire: the will corrupts the intellect and makes us hold probable what we wish, mistaking our wishes for forecasts. Wisdom consists in facing the worst and expecting nothing, not out of bitterness, but so as to stop being the plaything of illusion.

Parerga and Paralipomena, 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life'

Hope and fear both bear on the future, which is not up to us: Epictetus teaches us to desire only what is in our power and to welcome the rest, without hanging happiness on the anxious expectation of an uncertain future. This is a serene lucidity rather than a principle of hope.

Enchiridion, §2 · Discourses, II.16

Hope and fear go hand in hand, both turned toward a future not up to us: Marcus prescribes himself to expect nothing of it and to hold to the consented present. Let nothing in the future trouble you, he writes, for you will meet it, if you must, with the same reason as today: a serene lucidity rather than a principle of hope.

Meditations, VII, 8 · Meditations, XII, 1

Existentialism assumes despair in a technical sense: one reckons only on what depends on one's own will, without leaning on the hope of outside rescue, of Providence or of a guaranteed meaning to history. To act without hope is not resignation but lucidity: action is worth something in itself, not through the expectation of an assured outcome. The leaning thus runs toward a lucidity without hope, rather than toward a principle of hope.

Existentialism Is a Humanism (anguish, abandonment, despair)

Citing Hecato, Seneca ties hope to fear as two correlated affects turned toward the future. The sage lives in the present and in accepted necessity rather than in the anxious expectation of a better lot, leaning toward lucidity without hope, though without nihilism.

Letters to Lucilius, V (cease to hope and you will cease to fear) · Letters to Lucilius, XIII (we suffer more in imagination than in reality)

Hope and fear are correlated affects, inconstant joys and sorrows born of inadequate ideas about an uncertain future: whoever hopes also dreads. One may infer that the man led by reason would live less by hope than by lucidity, acting from the knowledge of necessity rather than awaiting a better lot, though Spinoza never thematizes this lucidity as an ideal.

Ethics, III, definitions of the affects 12-13 (hope and fear) · Ethics, IV, prop. 47 (the affects of hope and fear cannot be good in themselves)

Hope, for Lucretius, is above all the hope of a survival of the soul, and it is this that must be destroyed: as long as one awaits a beyond or fears the punishments of the underworld, one does not live the present. His therapy is a lucidity without illusion, which removes the object of hope as of fear and restores man to the peaceful finitude of this life. The leaning is clearly on the side of lucidity, happiness being won in the present and not in expectation.

On the Nature of Things, III, 978-1023 (the punishments of the underworld, allegories of present anxieties)

To hope, like to fear, is to judge that a non-evident future will be good or bad: yet it is precisely this judgment on the indeterminate that Pyrrho suspends. With no opinion about what tomorrow must bring, he does not hang his peace on an expectation, and welcomes what presents itself. The tone is one of lucid tranquillity rather than a principle of hope, yet without the tragic despair foreign to one who has given up judging the future.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, IX, 107-108

Hope, like fear, bears on a future held good or bad by anticipation: yet it is precisely this judgment on the non-evident to-come that the skeptic suspends. With no dogma about what tomorrow must bring, he does not hang his rest on an expectation, and welcomes what presents itself. The tone is thus one of tranquil lucidity rather than a principle of hope, yet without tragic despair, foreign to one who has given up judging the future.

Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 25-30

To hope and to fear, for the Stoics, is to cast oneself into a future not up to us and to surrender to disturbance: these movements of the soul are to be corrected. Wisdom lies in seeing lucidly what is, consenting to fate, and expecting nothing from outside. The stance is not despair but a lucidity without hope.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 5 · Epictetus, Enchiridion, §8

Epicurean happiness is won in the present: one must know how to enjoy the present good and beware of hanging everything on the expectation of an uncertain future, for the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours. This distrust of hope, which diverts us from present pleasure, leans toward lucidity, without tipping into despair.

Vatican Sayings, 14 and 47 (enjoying the present, not living in expectation) · Letter to Menoeceus, 127 (the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours)