Hope and Necessity

Pawlett-Jackson, Sarah (2019). Hope and Necessity. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 11(2) p. 49.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V11I3.2881

Abstract

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 (two types of) 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.

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About

• Item ORO ID
• 67110
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 1689-8311
• Keywords
• hope; fundamental hope; Rowan Williams; Rebecca Solnit; Emmanuel Levinas
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
• Depositing User
• ORO Import