Andrew Chignell

The main goal of this project is to develop a new, systematic (albeit broadly Kantian) account of hope, one that is sensitive both to the history of the concept and to recent empirical research. After a brief historical survey, the project looks at the nature, objects, and varieties of hope and contrasts them with related states like expectation, anticipation, acceptance, absence of despair, and especially optimism. An important hallmark of the project is that it explicitly discusses and incorporates recent social science research throughout (psychology and nursing science, especially). It also discusses ways in which this sort of secular, empirically-informed account of hope relates to more familiar debates in moral psychology, epistemology, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy.