Relation to oneself· Adversity
Lucidity without hope
Axis: Hope — Is hope a force that sustains life and action, or an illusion we ought to let go of?
Hope distracts us from the present and sets us up for disappointment: it makes us live in a future that does not exist. Wisdom consists in facing reality squarely, without consolation, and finding in that very lucidity a form of freedom.
Movements 1
Show inferred positions (1)
Stoicisminferable
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
Philosophers 11
Camusexplicit
If arises from the confrontation between man and the world, keeping it alive requires holding both terms in view: anything that removes one is an evasion. Suicide abolishes the consciousness that demands; hope, religious or ideological, abolishes the silence by lending it a hidden meaning. Camus therefore ranks the faith of or with philosophical suicide: to leap toward a consoling is to betray the very lucidity through which the absurd was recognized. The only consistent stance is to live without appeal, expecting nothing from any elsewhere, which is not despair but the refusal of a deceptive hope.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Schopenhauerexplicit
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'
Senecaexplicit
Citing Hecato, Seneca ties hope to fear as two correlated affects turned toward the future. 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)
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Epictetusinferable
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
Marcus Aureliusinferable
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
Sartreinferable
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)
Spinozaextrapolated
Hope and fear are correlated affects, inconstant joys and sorrows born of 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)
Lucretiusinferable
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)
Pyrrhoinferable
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
Sextus Empiricusinferable
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
Epicurusinferable
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)