Abstract

Medieval philosophers took hope to be an emotion with a cognitive content. It is precisely this content, they argued, that makes it an intentional phenomenon. But how is its specific content to be characterized? How is it to be distinguished from the content of other emotions? And what kind of cognitive activities are required to produce it? This paper discusses these questions, focusing on Thomas Aquinas’ and William of Ockham’s explanatory models. It pays particular attention to the role these authors ascribed to intellect and will, the two rational faculties. While Aquinas defended an intellectualist view, claiming that it is the intellect alone that fixes the cognitive content and brings about hope, Ockham subscribed to a voluntarist view, affirming that the will always needs to give its assent to the content presented by the intellect. Given this disagreement, they gave different accounts of the responsibility we have for rational as well as irrational forms of hope.