It has recently been argued that hope is polysemous in that it sometimes refers to hoping and other times to being hopeful. That it has these two distinct senses is reflected in the observation that a person can hope for an outcome without being hopeful that it will occur. Below, I offer a new argument for this distinction. My strategy is to show that accepting this distinction yields a rich account of two distinct ways in which hope can be lost, (...) ways that map onto the two senses of hope: A person can lose hope either by ceasing to hope for an outcome (hopelessness) or by ceasing to be hopeful that it will obtain (despair). Thinking about these negative attitudes in these two ways, I contend, is explanatorily rich and fruitfully reveals how they differ in phenomenology, behavioral differences, and the ways in which a person can escape them. (shrink)

Since Case and Deaton (2015) coined the term ‘deaths of despair,’ there has been significant empirical work and public interest in the topic. Yet social scientists studying this topic lament the absence of a clear theory of despair. Philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of hope has begun to fill this gap, with despair often cited as the opposite of hope. The assumption that hope and despair are opposites has helped to motivate two central tasks in the literature: how (...) a theory of hope can make sense of the difference between hope and despair, and how hope might prevent people from falling into despair. Yet the focus of inquiry has been principally on hope. This paper builds on the existing literature to offer a theory of despair. We argue that despair is a mode of sadness whereby one experiences the loss of reasons to take seriously that which one desires. Our account of despair captures a set of desiderata that any theory of despair should explain, and it offers useful conceptual resources to social scientists studying deaths of despair. (shrink)

Although doubt (Tvivl) and despair (Fortvivlelse) are widely recognized as two central and closely associated concepts in Kierkegaard’s authorship, their precise relationship remains opaque in the extant interpretive literature. To shed light on their relationship, this paper develops a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the connection between despair and our agency over our beliefs, and its significance for Kierkegaard’s ethics of belief. First, I show that an important yet largely overlooked form of Kierkegaardian despair involves either failing to take (...) ethico-religious responsibility for one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs, or misusing one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs by refusing to recognize or comply with externally given ethico-religious norms governing belief. Second, I argue that Kierkegaard takes properly exercising one’s agency over one’s beliefs to matter because beliefs are partly constitutive of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) that Kierkegaard regards as the cure for despair. (shrink)

In today’s world we appear to place a premium on happiness. Happiness is often portrayed, directly or indirectly, as one of the key aims of education. To suggest that education is concerned with promoting unhappiness or even despair would, in many contexts, seem outlandish. This paper challenges these widely held views. Focusing on the work of the great Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, I argue that despair, the origins of which lie in our reflective consciousness, is a defining feature of human (...) life. Education, I maintain, should not be seen as a flight from despair but as a process of deepening our understanding of suffering and its potentially pivotal role in our humanisation. In developing these ideas, I draw on Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, among other sources. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify Kierkegaard’s concept of demonic despair (and demonic evil) and to show its relevance for discussions of the guise of the good thesis (i.e. that in f-ing intentionally, we take f-ing to be good). Contemporary discussions of diabolic evil often emphasise the phenomena of despair and acedia as apparent counter-examples to the guise of the good. I contend that Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair is relevant to these discussions, because it reconciles demonic (extreme) despair (...) and acedia with the guise of the good. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard provides an influential, systematic account of despair that relates evil, despair, and acedia to each other. Michelle Kosch argues that this account goes beyond Kierkegaard’s German predecessors by introducing a concept of diabolic evil and despair. By contrast, the present paper argues that Kierkegaard takes diabolic evil to be impossible, although he offers a rich analysis of the demonic that resembles diabolic agency. Still, Kierkegaard’s analysis rests on ontological assumptions about the nature of the good that belong to a Platonico-Christian tradition that is controversial today. (shrink)

The question of meaning in life has enjoyed renewed attention in analytic discourse over the last few decades. Despite the apparently “existential” quality of this topic, existential philosophy has had little impact on this re-energized conversation. This paper draws on Kierkegaard’s _The Sickness unto Death_ in order to challenge the objectivist theory of meaning in life. According to that theory, a meaningful life is one replete with objective goods. Kierkegaard, however, exposits four forms of the spiritual sickness he calls despair (...) that are compatible with the possession of objective goods. If this account is convincing, it poses a challenge to the objectivist view, suggesting that a subjective contribution is also necessary to fully account for meaning in life. By a process of negative inference, this paper concludes by sketching out what this subjective contribution might look like and suggests the term “authenticity” in order to capture this subjective element of a meaningful life. (shrink)

Dehejia has tried to create a place within the main frame of culture and philosophy of Indian art for a legitimate analytic theory called despair.

In times of a prevailing sense of crisis and disorder in modern politics, there is a growing sentiment that anger, despair or resignation are more appropriate attitudes to navigate the world than hope. Political philosophers have long shared this suspicion and shied away from theorising hope more systematically. The aim of this article is to resist this tendency by showing that hope constitutes an integral part of democratic politics in particular. In making this argument I draw on Kant’s conceptualisation of (...) hope as a psychological condition on action under circumstances where the chances of making a difference are dim. Given that the Kantian agent avoids the threat of despair in the pursuit of political goals by placing trust in her fellow citizens, hope has the potential to positively transform democratic practices. (shrink)

[W]e might despair of despair itself, rather than of life, and cast that off, and begin, and so reverse our direction.This is a finely conceived, elegantly written, and exquisitely executed work. At its center, there is Naoko Saito ’s creative appropriation of one of Cavell’s most fecund suggestions—philosophy is first and foremost an activity and, as such, it is either akin to or, more strongly, identifiable with practices of translation.1 Everything I have to say concerns translation, if only implicitly. Moreover, (...) I offer everything as a friendly amendment. That is, I take my reflections on her book to be in accord with both the spirit and, in most instances, even the letter of her texts. Whether or not she... (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the Thomistic vice of despair, one of two vices opposed to the theological virtue of hope. Aquinas's conception of despair as a vice, and a theological vice in particular, distances him from contemporary use of the term "despair" to describe an emotional state. His account nonetheless yields a compelling psychological portrait of moral degeneration, which I explain via despair's link to its "root," the capital vice of sloth. Cases in which sloth and its offspring (...) vices progress into full-fledged despair raise intersecting issues about whether and how despair might be remediable. I conclude by considering puzzles regarding despair's disordered effects on the intellect and will and weighing three possible means of remedying it. (shrink)

: The category of despair plays a central role in Kierkegaard's pseudonymous corpus, but its meaning is controversial. This paper offers an interpretation of its use in Either/Or (in particular, in the claim the aesthetic life is despair and the ethical life freedom from despair). After examining and rejecting two recent alternatives, I argue that despair is the conscious or unconscious assumption of a passive or fatalistic attitude toward one's existence, which attitude is informed by a misconstrual of the nature (...) of human agency. (shrink)

Both within the climate movement and in academic circles, it has become common advice to avoid despair. Despair about the climate crisis is the opposite of hope and should be avoided on grounds of both rational aptness and pragmatic considerations. Despair about climate breakdown is only rationally apt if it is impossible for our actions to make a difference. As our actions do make a difference, despair is not a fitting response to climate change). Further, we have pragmatic reasons to (...) avoid despair as it leads to apathy and inaction about climate change. This chapter argues that despair is a rationally apt response to the climate crisis. Despair is a fitting response to the structural features of the climate crisis in terms of fragmentation of agency, making despair an accurate representation of a situation lacking agency. Despair is an important source of moral knowledge about the structure of the climate crisis, which is not automatically outweighed by pragmatic reasons and demanding to avoid despair can lead to affective injustice. The chapter closes with considerations of whether despair really does hinder moral imagination. (shrink)

Hegel's "highway of despair," introduced in his _Phenomenology of Spirit_, represents the tortured path traveled by "natural consciousness" on its way to freedom. Despair, the passionate residue of Hegelian critique, also indicates fugitive opportunities for freedom and preserves the principle of hope against all hope. Analyzing the works of an eclectic cast of thinkers, Robyn Marasco considers the dynamism of despair as a critical passion, reckoning with the forms of historical life forged along Hegel's highway. _The Highway of Despair_ follows (...) Theodor Adorno, Georges Bataille, and Frantz Fanon as they each read, resist, and reconfigure a strand of thought in Hegel's _Phenomenology of Spirit_. Confronting the twentieth-century collapse of a certain revolutionary dialectic, these thinkers struggle to revalue critical philosophy and recast Left Hegelianism within the contexts of genocidal racism, world war, and colonial domination. Each thinker also re-centers the role of passion in critique. Arguing against more recent trends in critical theory that promise an escape from despair, Marasco shows how passion frustrates the resolutions of reason and faith. Embracing the extremism of what Marx, in the spirit of Hegel, called the "ruthless critique of everything existing," she affirms the contemporary purchase of radical critical theory, resulting in a passionate approach to political thought. (shrink)

The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the best (...) treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. (shrink)

In a recent thought-provoking piece, Peter Roberts argues against the central role of happiness as a guiding concept in education, and argues for more attention to be paid to despair. This does not mean cultivating despair in young people, but allowing them to make sense of their own natural occasional despair, as well as the despair of others. I agree with Roberts about happiness, and about the need for more attention to despair, but I argue that focusing too much on (...) despair is dangerous without paying simultaneous attention to goodness. Roberts argues that students must be helped to face the despair born of the realisation that we can never be sure of the moral grounds on which our actions are based, we can never fully know ourselves, and that education should make us more appreciative of what we don't know. I argue against all three claims: there are some moral truths that we can know; we can know enough of ourselves in certain contexts; education should not only teach intellectual humility, it should also give us confidence in appreciating the sources of meaning that are ordinarily available, e.g. personal relationships. The paper concludes with a response to the objection that my position is little more than old-fashioned moralism and conservatism. (shrink)

In this article, we examine how white working-class women reimagine gender in the face of social and economic changes that have undermined their ability to perform normative femininity. As blue-collar jobs have disappeared, scholars have posited that white working-class men and women have become increasingly isolated, disconnected from institutions, and hopeless about the future, leading to a culture of despair. Although past literature has examined how working-class white men cope with the inability to perform masculinity through wage-earning and family authority, (...) gender has been undertheorized in these discussions, treating working-class women’s and men’s despair interchangeably. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews conducted in a former coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania, we identify three overarching strategies that women deploy in their life histories to cope with disruption: embracing pain as an opportunity for self-growth; dispelling shame and striving for equality; and enduring suffering. These strategies allow women to feel hopeful and worthy as they confront enormous challenges, whether starting over following relationship dissolution, learning to be independent from men, or simply surviving hardship for the sake of their children. We explore the implications for recreating gender identity in each strategy and question how different strategies might serve to protect women from, or alternatively solidify, sentiments of despair. (shrink)

The theme of religious despair appears several times in Hegel’s philosophy. Each meaning differs from the preceding ones, but presupposes them. Gradually a totality of sense unfolds which remains latent in each instance taken singularly. The development is most clearly apparent in The Phenomenology of Spirit which presents the various moments of despair as following necessarily from the internal logic of the religious consciousness itself. That schema of development provides a framework for incorporating the descriptions in the Lectures on Aesthetics (...) as well as those in the History of Philosophy, and, above all, the conclusion of Faith and Knowledge in which the famous expression, “God is dead,” first appears. One passage does not seem to fit into this logical development. The pessimistic evaluation of the modern age at the end of the 1821 lecture notes on the philosophy of religion does not follow from Christianity’s own principles, but rather moves directly against its “truth.” Nevertheless, as we shall see, even this deviation may be “justified” as a direct consequence of attitudes provoked by the Christian faith in its struggle with the Enlightenment. Precisely because of this final predicament Hegel presents his philosophy of spirit as a - hopefully temporary - refuge for religion from the outward and inward ravages of the Enlightenment, In the following paper I shall consider the four phases in which the despair of religion appears in the Phenomenology of Spirit and, by way of conclusion, briefly situate the final section of the 1821 lecture notes. (shrink)

This article investigates the convergence between Kierkegaard’s concept of despair and Nietzsche’s concept of nihilism. The piece argues that (1) both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche rely on an internal critique of ways of life which collapse on their own terms; (2) both despair and nihilism involve a radical, existential aporia and double-mindedness which can be (3) either conscious or non-conscious; (4) there is some overlap between the main types of nihilism and the different types of inauthentic (non-conscious) despair; (5) finally, a (...) comparison with Nietzsche makes it possible to make sense of inauthentic despair without resorting to theological presuppositions or a twentieth century depth psychology notion of the unconscious. (shrink)

According to Gabriel Marcel, no task is more important and more complex than looking for ways of confronting and overcoming despair. Therefore, the search for the essence of hope is the objective of this paper. Reference is made to the theme of the open soul in Henri Bergson’s, Gabriel Marcel’s, and Jan Patočka’s works. Such a soul is not centred in itself; moreover, according to Marcel, hope and soul are intrinsically linked together. Hope opens people towards the future. The concept (...) of hope in the biblical context is shown briefly, according to which hope is in God (Ps 62:5), while God is coming to man. At the same time, biblical texts sketch a pathway to hope, setting out from suffering through endurance and character (Rom 5:3–4). The paper stresses that hope takes root in dialogue and that a person is empowered to adopt hope as a gift. (shrink)

How are we to read and how translate the brief formulae with which ‟The Sickness unto Death” introduces two forms of ‛authentic despair’? In response to Michael Theunissen’s claim that, to conform with the actual drift of Kierkegaard’s thought, the first of the two forms of despair should be given priority, an alternative reading that conforms with the published ordering is defended on the strength of both the text itself and the development of Kierkegaard’s thought up to the time of (...) its writing. The further aim, shared with Theunissen, is to widen the basis for assessing the continuing relevance of Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair. (shrink)

This paper examines the interplay between hope and despair in David Walker's "Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World" (1829). I argue that, in his pamphlet, Walker mobilizes despair about the depth and seeming insurmountability of white supremacy to catalyze collective political agency and thereby emancipatory hope among Black Americans. This emancipatory potential of despair is grounded a distinction between the content of despair (a belief in the insurmountability of white supremacy) and its form as a political judgment made (...) in concert with others. Walker uses the form of despair as political judgment to effect a transformation in the political affect of Black Americans from a shared sense that there is nothing to be done to to a collective sense of a 'we' that can act to change the world. (shrink)

The realities of modern war provide lots of reasons for pessimism and despair. In this article, I identify ways pessimism cannot only undercut the types of political action needed to end war but also conflict with central democratic norms, e.g. equality and political autonomy. Contrary to the growing literature on pessimism, which stresses its resources for negotiating the moral chaos and disenchantment of modernity, I highlight the democratic costs of relying on pessimism to stop war. To do this, I clarify (...) the meaning of despair, identify two sources of hope, and distinguish three different types of despair. (shrink)

이 논문은 지금까지 규정되어온 절망에 관한 통속적이고 피상적인 고찰과 불충분한 이해에서 벗어나 인간이 왜 절망하는지 그 본질적 문제에 주목하고, 나아가 절망 끝에 숨어있는 새로운 삶의 시작이 어떻게 가능한지에 대해 논의한다. 현대를 ‘절망의 시대’로 선언한 키에르케고어가 그의 저서 『죽음에 이르는 병』에서 절망을 죽음의 병으로 규정하는 근거가 무엇인지, 절망이 현실적인 문제로 인한 일시적인 혼란의 감정이 아니라면 도대체 왜 인간은 절망하는지, 그에 대한 이론적 고찰을 수행한 뒤, 절망에 빠진 인간이 삶을 지탱해나갈 수 있는 근원을 오히려 절망에서 찾는 키에르케고어의 역설적 시도를 철학상담의 관점에서 재해석한다. (...) 키에르케고어에게 자기와의 참된 관계란 절망을 통하지 않고서는 자기기만에서 벗어날 수 없으며, 또한 자기의 한계를 인정하고 수용하는 진정한 ‘나’로 거듭날 수 없다. 이 점에 주목하는 이 논문은 ‘자기 자신’에 관한 논고라 할 수 있는 『죽음에 이르는 병』이 절망하는 사람을 도울 수 있는 매우 중요한 철학적 단초를 제공하고 있다고 보고, 이를 토대로 철학상담이 어떻게 그들을 도울 수 있는지에 대해 그 가능성을 모색하고 있다. (shrink)

This article examines the importance of doubt in Western philosophy, with particular attention to the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno. Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus ventures down the pathway of doubt, finds it perplexing and difficult and discovers that he is unable to return to his pre-doubting self. In despair, the meaningfulness of his life is called into question. Unamuno, a great admirer of Kierkegaard, acknowledges the suffering that accompanies doubt while affirming the pivotal role of uncertainty, (...) despair and struggle in realising our humanity. From Unamuno, we can acquire a keener sense of the part education has to play in both forming us as doubting beings and allowing us to work constructively with the despair engendered by this formation. (shrink)

Those of us who enjoy certain products of the global industrial economy but also believe it is wrong to consume them are often so demoralized by the apparent inefficacy of our individual, private choices that we are unable to resist. Although he was a deontologist, Kant was clearly aware of this ‘consequent-dependent’ side of our moral psychology. One version of his ‘moral proof’ is designed to respond to the threat of such demoralization in pursuit of the Highest Good. That version (...) of the argument says that the capacity that faith and trust in God has to sustain our moral resolve licenses that faith and trust, from a practical point of view. My goal here is to argue that Kant’s proof has a contemporary, secular analogue in modern industrial contexts where the apparent “inefficacy” of an individual consumer’s choices in the face of massive insensitive supply-chains is a threat to her moral resolve. I conclude by suggesting that the Kantian approach may license us in adopting (as an item of defeasible moral faith) an evidential decision-theoretic principle regarding what it is to ‘make a difference.’ This in turn licenses trust -- if not in God then in other right-minded people. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard has been called many things, from brooding genius and "melancholy Dane" to the father of existentialism. Yet, rather than clarify the nature of Kierkegaard's writings, such labels have often obscured other important aspects of his authorship. Such, indeed, is the case with Kierkegaard's standing as a spiritual author. In From Despair to Faith: The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard, Christopher B. Barnett endeavors to remedy this problem. He does so in two overarching ways. First, he orients the reader to (...) Kierkegaard's grounding in the Christian spiritual tradition, as well as to the Dane's own authorial stress on themes such as upbuilding, spiritual journey, and faith. Second, Barnett maintains that Kierkegaard's spirituality is best understood through the various "pictures" that populate his authorship. These pictures are deemed "icons of faith," since Kierkegaard consistently recommends that the reader contemplate them. In this way, they both represent and communicate what Kierkegaard sees as the fulfillment of Christian existence. In the end, then, From Despair to Faith not only offers a new way of approaching Kierkegaard's writings, but also shows how they might serve to illuminate and to deepen one's relationship with the divine." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

This paper is a study of Kierkegaard’s concept of despair. The Danish etymology of fortvivleslse is examined in order to argue that, for Kierkegaard, despair is not simply a feeling, but is more fundamentally a willed misrelation in the self.

This study reexamines the existentialist nature of Walker Percy's fiction, arguing that his debt to Kierkegaard is more substantial than previously acknowledged. Others have noted his employ of Kierkegaardian stages, terminology, and artistic indirection, but they haven't revealed the extent to which his sources lie in Kierkegaard and the action of his novels occurs within the context of a "Kierkegaardian narrative." Prior critics have overstated both the role his protagonist's "searches" and the assistance of others play in their movement to (...) faith. This study rejects the Marcelian reading of Percy's endings and demonstrates that his characters follow a Kierkegaardian path toward faith; they do not move toward faith via the assistance of an other, but subjectively, by despairing of their efforts to find ontological answers in immanent sources and choosing, in the midst of that despair, a paradoxical faith. ;Chapter one pairs Kierkegaardian philosophy with views espoused by Percy in his nonfiction and interviews in order to establish their intellectual affinities: each uses art as a means of responding to the objectifying forces of rationalism and posits a movement toward self which necessitates the embrace of faith after despairing of an aesthetic existence. The second and third chapters provide extended Kierkegaardian readings of The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman, tracing their sources to his philosophy and demonstrating how each can be read within a Kierkegaardian framework and as a tacit either/or. Percy's protagonists either "come to themselves" by despairing of their own searches and realizing a subjective faith , or they remain in Kierkegaard's aesthetic stage, separated from faith, and thus lost to themselves . Both readings of Percy's novels reveal the ways in which he continually adopts Kierkegaardian categories, images, and details as he works within the larger framework of the paradoxical movement toward faith. The study concludes by emphasizing the Christian character of the narratives of Kierkegaard and Percy and arguing that a strict Kierkegaardian reading of Percy's fiction is more illuminating than the use of multiple existentialist perspectives. (shrink)

I have never doubted that the problem of inequalities in health status and access to needed care is a difficult ethical and political challenge. After reading the essays in Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: New Conversations across the Disciplines, edited by Mara Buchbinder, Michele Rivkin-Fish, and Rebecca Walker, I concluded that despair was the only suitable response in the face of daunting ethical and political complexity. The editors of this volume have three questions in mind that they asked contributors to (...) address. How do scholars from various disciplines approach relations between health inequalities and ideals of justice? Social scientists want to offer empirical descriptions of inequalities in health status across a range of social groups, but there are numerous ways of offering such descriptions. Are they all “correct”? Philosophers and medical ethicists want to make normative judgments regarding which inequalities matter, ethically speaking. So do we need to know when considerations of justice are relevant to assessing health inequalities and which considerations of justice are most relevant in specific contexts? Ultimately, the question is which of these scholarly approaches is most useful for improving health policy. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that Brandom’s interpretive oversights leave his inferentialist program vulnerable to Hegelian critique. My target is Brandom’s notion of “conceptual realism,” or the thesis that the structure of mind-independent reality mimics the structure of thought. I show, first, that the conceptual realism at the heart of Brandom’s empiricism finds root in his interpretation of Hegel. I then argue that conceptual realism is incompatible with Hegel’s thought, since the Jena Phenomenology, understood as a “way of despair,” includes (...) a critique of the philosophical framework upon which conceptual realism relies. Finally, I offer the Hegelian critique of Brandom that results from these textual infidelities. (shrink)

The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the best (...) treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. (shrink)

Since the wife-husband team of Anne Case and Angus Deaton popularized the term deaths of despair, psychologists have become more interested in decoupling despair from clinical depression and anxiety. Despair’s central marker is the loss of hope. It is characterized by feelings of social and spiritual isolation, meaninglessness, hopelessness, helplessness, demoralization, and shame. Causes of despair are complex, ranging from individual (e.g., grief, bad health, addiction, abuse), to societal (e.g., social and cultural dislocation, unemployment, economic disaster, poverty), to a combination (...) of both. Sometimes, acknowledging and/or addressing despair’s material causes is enough. But the problem with despair is that it tends to generate a vicious cycle of self-defeat. Often, it manifests in self-perpetuating negative cognitive biases, self-defeating emotional reactions, and self-destructive behavior. To break free, the person must address the psychological and spiritual roots of her despair. Here, I offer insights from a Christian tradition grounded in the monastic spirituality of the Desert Fathers in the hopes that these might help a therapist seeking to do just that. After distinguishing between an emotion and a sin of despair, I locate the latter’s roots in the vices of acedia and pride. Finally, I point to the virtue of humility as a traditional cure for despair. (shrink)

In the ultimate meeting of the sublime with the ridiculous" (London Evening Standard) My Beautiful Despair blends the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with the superficial musings of Kim Kardashian West, based on the popular Twitter feed @KimKierkegaard. The love child of Søren Kierkegaard and Kim Kardashian, the @KimKierkegaard Twitter account has been admired, praised, and adored in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, New York, Buzzfeed, and more, and has amassed nearly (...) a quarter of a million Twitter followers, including J.K. Rowling and Anna Kendrick. A mash-up of Kim's tweets and observations with Kierkegaard's philosophy, Kim Kierkegaardashian shares their musings on fashion, beauty, brunch, and the relentless waves of existential dread that wash over us day after day. Now in a humorous, illustrated gift book, perfectly suited for our existential times, Kierkegaardashian's philosophical insights are juxtaposed for the first time with Dash Shaw's brilliant black-and-white illustrations. A sample of the revelations included in My Beautiful Despair include: - I have majorly fallen off my workout-eating plan! AND it's summer. But to despair over sin is to sink deeper into it. - Obsessed with protecting your skin, lips, hair & face from the sun? Close the cover of the coffin tight, really tight, and be at peace. - I like my men like I like my coffee: a momentary comfort in the midst of all my suffering. - What is the operation by which a self relates itself to its own self, transparently? Selfie. - What if everything in life were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears? Scared LOL!! - Glamour, menswear, top hat. (shrink)

The Book of Job is often read as the Bible's response to theodicy's 'problem of evil.' As a resolution to the logical difficulties of this problem, however, it is singularly unsatisfying. Job's ethical protest against God is never addressed at the level of the ethical. But suggested in Job's final encounter with God is the possibility of a spiritual resolution beyond the ethical. In this paper I examine the Book of Job as a response to the spiritual problem of despair; (...) despair engendered by the ethical problem of evil. My reading is informed by Kierkegaard's analysis of despair in The Sickness unto Death, and Stephen Mitchell's extraordinary translation of the Book of Job, as well as his insightful commentary. (shrink)

Written collaboratively by two undergraduate students and one professor, this article explores what it would mean to teach existentialism “existentially.” We conducted a survey of how Existentialism is currently taught in universities across North America, concluding that, while existentialism courses tend to resemble other undergraduate philosophy courses, existentialist texts challenge us to rethink conventional teaching practices. Looking to thinkers like Kierkegaard, Beauvoir and Arendt for insights into the nature of pedagogy, as well as recent work by Gert Biesta, we lay (...) out the four qualities that we propose characterize “existentialist” teaching practices: an emphasis on teaching over learning and on the “how” over the what; the cultivation of newness as well as capacities for resistance. Reflecting on the significance of existentialism for classroom dynamics, we conclude by examining the tensions between existentialist commitments to freedom and prevailing trends in higher education. This essay raises questions about the emancipatory potential of existentialist philosophies, especially in the context of undergraduate classrooms. (shrink)

This essay offers a Kierkegaardian analysis of and response to the harmful effects of destabilization that can be caused by engaging with certain technological media. It argues that the intellectual technological ethic that is at work in social media platforms reflects two types of despair discussed in Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death. It advises using a Kierkegaard-inspired Socratic rhetorical strategy of communication that ironically employs technology for depicting this despair and awakening individuals to its presence in their lives. Moreover, this (...) essay suggests that the edifying themes of “misery” and “guilt” can be communicated indirectly and thereby offer one intervention that could possibly help the current technological age move from the immediate aesthetic sphere of existence to the religious sphere. Considering the important role of upbuilding in Kierkegaard's oeuvre, the final portion explores how even someone who does not identify with a religious tradition or community may encounter what Kierkegaard terms the paradox of the eternal in time in ways that foster the development of authentic selfhood. (shrink)

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

In the face of accelerating climate change and the parlous state of its politics, despair is tempting. This paper analyses two manifestations of despair about climate change related to (1) the inefficacy of personal emissions reductions, and (2) the inability to make a difference to climate change through personal emissions reductions. On the back of an analysis of despair as a loss of hope, the paper argues that the judgements grounding each form of despair are unsound. The paper concludes with (...) consideration of the instrumental value of hope in effective agency to tackle climate change. Overall, the paper’s assessment of personal despair about climate change as philosophically unjustified provides a fresh perspective on aspects of the debate about how to frame climate change in public debate. (shrink)

Quine's argument for a naturalized epistemology is routinely perceived as an argument from despair: traditional epistemology must be abandoned because all attempts to deduce our scientific theories from sense experience have failed. In this paper, I will show that this picture is historically inaccurate and that Quine's argument against first philosophy is considerably stronger and subtler than the standard conception suggests. For Quine, the first philosopher's quest for foundations is inherently incoherent; the very idea of a self-sufficient sense datum language (...) is a mistake, there is no science-independent perspective from which to validate science. I will argue that a great deal of the confusion surrounding Quine's argument is prompted by certain phrases in his seminal ‘Epistemology Naturalized’. Scrutinizing Quine's work both before and after the latter paper provides a better key to understanding his remarkable views about the epistemological relation between theory and evidence. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the experience of hope by focusing on experiences that seem to rival hope, namely, disappointment, desperation, panic, hopelessness, and despair. I explore these issues phenomenologically by examining five kinds of experiences that counter hope (or in some instances, seem to do so): first, by noting the cases in which hope simply is not operative, then by treating the significance of both desperation and pessimism, next by examining the experience of hopelessness, and finally, by treating the (...) experience of despair. Here despair is shown to constitute the most profound challenge to hope among these experiences and to be foundational for the others, even though it is disclosed ultimately as founded in hope. (shrink)

Drawing on observations from on‐ and offline fieldwork among transhumanists and artificial superintelligence/singularity‐focused groups, this article will explore an anthropology of anxiety around the hoped for, or feared, posthuman future. It will lay out some of the varieties of existential hope and existential despair found in these discussions about predicted events such as the “end of the world” and place them within an anthropological theoretical framework. Two examples will be considered. First, the optimism observed at a transhumanist event will be (...) examined to emphasize the positive affective aspects of certain apocalypse scenarios, especially those with an implicit eschatological direction. Second, an online location where examples of existential despair can be noted will be explored further to demonstrate the kinds of negative responses to certain superintelligence/singularity ideas. These examples of existential hope and despair will demonstrate the intrinsic role of anxiety in ideas about a future artificial intelligence apocalypse. (shrink)

CHAPTER I CONTEMPORARY DESPAIR AND ITS ANTIDOTE 1. Forebodings The prevalent mood of contemporary mankind is one of despair, for never before have the ...

On Despair. An Ontological Study (in Polish).

Born of a terrible insomnia--"a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell"--this book presents the youthful Cioran, a self- described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights." On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a (...) theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to a metaphysical revelation. "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."--Bill Marx, Boston Phoenix "The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming. . . . Puts him in the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."-- Publishers Weekly, starred review "This is self-pity as epigram, the sort of dyspeptic pronouncement that gets most people kicked out of bed but that has kept Mr. Cioran going for the rest of his life."--Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Book Review Emil M. Cioran (1911-1995) is the author of numerous works, including The Fall into Time, A Short History of Decay, and Tears and Saints. (shrink)

In the Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy leads Boethius through a series of obstacles that prevent him from finding happiness within his prison cell: the role that luck and misfortune play in our affairs, the false paths to happiness in comparison with the true journey, the problem of evil and the disproportion between people’s lives and eschatological deserts, and, finally, whether God’s providential order necessitates our outcomes or if we can choose freely to pursue the happy life. As the pair (...) discuss each problem, the same argumentative move and countermove play out. Boethius, forgetful of what he had learned from Philosophy long ago on account of his grief, blames the very nature of reality itself for each of the problems that beset him. He thinks that Fortune has taken from him all that is good and that God’s providence only extends to the non-human world. Philosophy, by contrast, argues in each case that the problem at hand is, in fact, no problem at all when we see reality rightly. In each case, Philosophy shows that it isn’t reality that’s to blame for the problem at hand but instead human ignorance’s misunderstanding of the true nature of reality. Boethius’s conversation with Philosophy showcases a puzzling feature of self-knowledge: on the one hand, too much attention to the world (e.g., fortune’s wiles) is the problem and self-inquiry (e.g., the nature of one’s desires) is the solution, but on the other hand, too much attention to one’s self (e.g., attention to passions and limitations) is the problem and turning toward recognizing the true structure of the world is the solution. Philosophy seems to indicate that both poles are true, and the task is to determine how best to clarify how. After showcasing the dialogue’s argumentative pattern, I argue that, in Boethius’s case, each of his problems, as well as his misery in general, are caused by his ignorance and self-deception. Boethius’s ignorance is, in this case, the more proximate cause of his misery, but underlying his ignorance is an act of self-deception that causes him to be ignorant in the first place. As Philosophy tells Boethius early on, he already knows what she plans to teach him (more accurately, of what she plans to remind him). Nevertheless, he has forgotten what he has known and, as a result, is more the architect of his own misery than is Fortune or any of the events that have befallen him. Wounded by grief, he has allowed his affective response to his misfortune to becloud his understanding. As Philosophy says, he is unhappy because he has “forgotten what he is.” He has forgotten himself precisely because of the way in which he has allowed his affective responses to rule in his soul. Hence, while the ultimate cure for Boethius’s misery will be a newly rediscovered knowledge that reality itself is providentially structured, Philosophy must begin by soothing Boethius’s passions and undoing the damage that they have wrought on his understanding of the world. Philosophy cannot turn Boethius’s intellect until she has first turned his passions (cf. Republic 518b-d), which, while still wrongly-turned and governing the soul, are liable to lead to tremendous intellectual mistakes precisely because they are blind to the true nature of reality (cf. Phaedrus 247c). I argue in conclusion that the Consolation is unified by the theme of self-deception as the primary cause of philosophical misery. Boethius is upset primarily because he has convinced himself that he is otherwise than he is and that reality is otherwise than it is rather than because of what has happened to him, contrary to his own view of things. Philosophy’s argumentative strategy suggests that self-deception can only be undone by attending to it as a problem besetting the whole soul, not just the intellectual part of the soul. We thus have good warrant for thinking that simply rational responses to ignorance will be fruitless when ignorance is caused by or accompanied by a moral failing. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper offers a historico-political exegesis of V-I Mudimbe’s Invention of Africa and Idea of Africa, reading how these texts respond to a post-independence African context of political and epistemic despair. This despair reflects at once the desire for a non-Western claim to knowledge and life, for political and economic autonomy from the West, and the seeming impossibilities (confirmed by the political ordinary) of enacting these. Retracing Mudimbe’s analysis of African political thought in the wake of Négritude and his critique (...) of representation, this essay works through Mudimbe’s intellectual historical methods to draw out a subtextual response to questions of historicity, political commitment, and the role of intellectual thought in Black resistant response. I argue that these questions are instantiated in the concept of “absolute discourse.” This concept reveals a theory of speech, inhabitation, and contingency critically aligned with postcolonial Marxist demands for authenticity, sovereignty and authority. Moreover, through this, and against any presumption of futility, I argue that Mudimbe constitutes a theory of politics—of resistance, claim, and seizure, and their limits—and contingency amidst seeming and real epistemic and material closures. (shrink)