Results for 'optimism'

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  1. Optimism, Agency, and Success.Lisa Bortolotti - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (3):1-15.
    Does optimism lead to success? Friends of optimism argue that positive beliefs about ourselves and our future contribute to fitness and mental health, and are correlated with good functioning, productivity, resilience, and pro-social behaviour. Sceptics, instead, claim that when we are optimistic we fail to react constructively to negative feedback, and put ourselves at risk because we underestimate threats. Thus, it is controversial whether optimistic beliefs are conducive to success, intended as the fulfilment of our goals in a (...)
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  2. Optimistic Realism over Selectivism.Seungbae Park - 2019 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 33 (1):89-106.
    Selectivism holds that some theoretical contents of most present theories will be preserved in future theories. By contrast, optimistic realism holds that most theoretical contents of most present theories will be preserved in future theories. I construct a pessimistic induction over selectivists to undermine selectivism, and an optimistic induction over optimistic realists to support optimistic realism. The former holds that since the selectivists of the early twentieth century were overly cautious about their present theories, those of the early twenty-first century (...)
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  3. Techno-optimism: an Analysis, an Evaluation and a Modest Defence.John Danaher - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (2):1-29.
    What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key (...)
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  4.  13
    Cautiously optimistic rationalism may not be cautious enough.Justin F. Landy - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42:e159.
    May expresses optimism about the source, content, and consequences of moral judgments. However, even if we are optimistic about their source (i.e., reasoning), some pessimism is warranted about their content, and therefore their consequences. Good reasoners can attain moral knowledge, but evidence suggests that most people are not good reasoners, which implies that most people do not attain moral knowledge.
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  5. Selective Optimism about Mind-Uploading.Clas Weber - 2025 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 32 (1):215-235.
    Optimists about mind-uploading believe that we can survive uploading. Pessimists about mind-uploading, on the other hand, believe that we cannot survive uploading. An under-explored middle ground between the two is a selective form of optimism, which claims that we can survive some forms of uploading, such as gradual replacement uploading, but not others, such as scan-and-copy uploading. Is selective optimism about uploading a rational stance? In this paper I argue that the answer is yes. The paper has a (...)
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  6. Optimism without theism? Nagasawa on atheism, evolution, and evil.Guy Kahane - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (4):701-714.
    Nagasawa has argued that the suffering associated with evolution presents a greater challenge to atheism than to theism because that evil is incompatible with ‘existential optimism’ about the world – with seeing the world as an overall good place, and being thankful that we exist. I argue that even if atheism was incompatible with existential optimism in this way, this presents no threat to atheism. Moreover, it is unclear how the suffering associated with evolution could on its own (...)
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  7.  14
    Without Optimism: Sex, Žižek, and Apocalyptic Queerness.Felder Stephen - 2017 - International Journal of Žižek Studies 11 (2).
    There are clear parallels between Žižek's concept of apocalyptic experience without teleology, and Berlant and Edelman's "sex without optimism." Both readings point to a negativity at the heart of human experience and the need to reliquish all our teleological aspirations. The apocalpytic experience should be taken in its original sense, as a "revelation," but a revelation of the incoherence of the social order and its demands on the Subject. This non-telelogical experience can be illustrated by contrasting the works of (...)
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  8.  77
    Techno-Optimism and Rational Superstition.Alexander Wilson - 2017 - Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 21 (2/3):342-362.
    This article examines some of the implications of technological optimism. I first contextualize, historically and culturally, some contemporary variants of techno-optimism in relation to the equally significant contemporary exemplars of techno-pessimism, skepticism and fatalism. I show that this techno-optimism is often instrumentalized in the sense that the optimistic outlook as such is believed to have some influence on the evolving state of affairs. The cogency of this assumption is scrutinized. I argue that in the absence of explicit (...)
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  9. Between Optimism and Anti-Optimism: Prémontval's “Middle Point”.Lloyd Strickland - 2024 - In Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet & Christian Leduc, Debates, controversies, and prizes: philosophy in the German Enlightenment. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 69-88.
    In 1753, the Berlin Academy announced that the focus of the prize essay contest of 1755 would be optimism, with entrants required (among other things) ‘to put forward arguments that will be thought most fitting to confirm or destroy this system’. In line with these instructions, entrants submitted essays that were either pro- or anti-optimism. This was to the dismay of one of the judges of the contest, André-Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval (1716–1764), who had, by his own (...)
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  10.  38
    Unrealistic optimism in early-phase oncology trials.Lynn A. Jansen, Paul S. Appelbaum, William Mp Klein, Neil D. Weinstein, William Cook, Jessica S. Fogel & Daniel P. Sulmasy - 2011 - IRB: Ethics & Human Research 33 (1):1.
    Unrealistic optimism is a bias that leads people to believe, with respect to a specific event or hazard, that they are more likely to experience positive outcomes and/or less likely to experience negative outcomes than similar others. The phenomenon has been seen in a range of health-related contexts—including when prospective participants are presented with the risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial. In order to test for the prevalence of unrealistic optimism among participants of early-phase oncology (...)
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  11. Staying Optimistic: The Trials and Tribulations of Leibnizian Optimism.Lloyd Strickland - 2019 - Journal of Modern Philosophy 1 (1):1-21.
    The oft-told story of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world, or optimism, is that it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the eighteenth century until the massive earthquake that struck Lisbon on 1 November 1755 destroyed its support. Despite its long history, this story is nothing more than a commentators’ fiction that has become accepted wisdom not through sheer weight of evidence but through sheer frequency of repetition. In this paper we shall examine the reception of Leibniz’s doctrine (...)
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  12. Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness.Josh Weisberg - 2023 - Routledge. Edited by Josh Weisberg.
    Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. -/- The key step in the debunking argument involves the development and defense of (...)
  13. Optimistic Naturalism: Scientific Advancement and the Meaning of Life.Dan Weijers - 2014 - Sophia 53 (1):1-18.
    Naturalist theories of the meaning of life are sometimes criticised for not setting the bar high enough for what counts as a meaningful life. Tolstoy’s version of this criticism is that Naturalist theories do not describe really meaningful lives because they do not require that we connect our finite lives with the infinite. Another criticism of Naturalist theories is that they cannot adequately resolve the Absurd—the vast difference between how meaningful our actions and lives appear from subjective and objective viewpoints. (...)
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  14. False Optimism? Leibniz, Evil, and the Best of all Possible Worlds.Lloyd Strickland - 2010 - Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 15 (1):17-35.
    Leibniz’s claim that this is the best of all possible worlds has been subject to numerous criticisms, both from his contemporaries and ours. In this paper I investigate a cluster of such criticisms based on the existence, abundance or character of worldly evil. As several Leibniz-inspired versions of optimism have been advanced in recent years, the aim of my investigation is to assess not just how Leibniz’s brand of optimism fares against these criticisms, but also whether optimism (...)
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  15. Optimistic realism about scientific progress.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3291-3309.
    Scientific realists use the “no miracle argument” to show that the empirical and pragmatic success of science is an indicator of the ability of scientific theories to give true or truthlike representations of unobservable reality. While antirealists define scientific progress in terms of empirical success or practical problem-solving, realists characterize progress by using some truth-related criteria. This paper defends the definition of scientific progress as increasing truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Antirealists have tried to rebut realism with the “pessimistic metainduction”, but critical (...)
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  16. Optimism.Margaret A. Boden - 1966 - Philosophy 41 (158):291 - 303.
    The optimist may be secretly envied, but he is publicly despised. His pronouncements are regarded as expressions of simple-minded blindness or as cynical propaganda. Optimism is not regarded as intellectually respectable. It was not always so: there have been times when optimism was not merely considered worthy of rational argument, but was widely accepted by thinking men. Now, however, we react with a growing embarrassment to passages such as these: The time will therefore come when the sun will (...)
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  17.  32
    The evolutionary stability of optimism, pessimism, and complete ignorance.Burkhard C. Schipper - 2021 - Theory and Decision 90 (3-4):417-454.
    We seek an evolutionary explanation for why in some situations humans maintain either optimistic or pessimistic attitudes toward uncertainty and are ignorant to relevant aspects of their environment. Players in strategic games face Knightian uncertainty about opponents’ actions and maximize individually their Choquet expected utility with respect to neo-additive capacities allowing for both an optimistic or pessimistic attitude toward uncertainty as well as ignorance to strategic dependencies. An optimist overweighs good outcomes. A complete ignorant never reacts to opponents’ changes of (...)
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  18.  18
    Cruel Optimism as an Ecology of Powers.İbrahim Berkan Karataş - 2025 - Theory, Culture and Society 42 (2):25-43.
    How do the flexibilized scenes of cruel optimism crystallize and resonate with the situational displays of crises as a governmental oversight? Centering around this question, the paper aims to offer a critical fulcrum for problematic attachments toward future-mediated fantasies in the aftermath of the Kahramanmaras earthquakes. It starts with evaluating how the pastoral mode was applied as a cruel diagram of positivity by the Turkish government through the omnipresent prowess of the media, which presents an ‘ordinaryizing’ affect in regularizing (...)
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  19.  24
    Hope Without Optimism.Terry Eagleton - 2015 - London: Yale University Press.
    In a virtuoso display of erudition, thoughtfulness and humour, Terry Eagleton teases apart the concept of hope as it has been conceptualised over six millennia, from ancient Greece to today. He distinguishes hope from simple optimism, cheeriness, desire, idealism or adherence to the doctrine of Progress, bringing into focus a standpoint that requires reflection and commitment, arises from clear-sighted rationality, can be cultivated by practice and self-discipline, and which acknowledges but refuses to capitulate to the realities of failure and (...)
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  20.  6
    Optimism in politics: reflections on contemporary history.Walter Laqueur - 2014 - New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
    This new collection by Walter Laqueur, one of the most distinguished historians and political commentators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, vividly brings to life his perspective on fifty years of political life. The essays in this volume deal with events ranging from more than seventy years ago to some that have not yet happened, but may in years to come. Laqueur divides his writings into five main areas: optimism in politics, the topic that unites this volume; Europe; the (...)
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  21. (1 other version)What is unrealistic optimism?Anneli Jefferson, Lisa Bortolotti & Bojana Kuzmanovic - 2017 - Consciousness and Cognition 50:1-2.
  22.  10
    Relentless optimism: how a commitment to positive thinking changes everything.Darrin Donnelly - 2017 - [Lenexa, Kansas]: Shamrock New Media.
    Studies prove that positive thinkers are happier, healthier, and more successful than everyone else. Discover the simple, proven techniques for becoming a more positive person... Positive thinking leads to positive outcomes. Study after study proves this. Researchers have found that optimistic people live longer, live healthier, have more energy, have more successful careers, make better decisions, are more productive, are less stressed, have healthier relationships, and (not surprisingly) are much happier than pessimists. However, a lot has been misunderstood about what (...)
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  23.  35
    Cruel Optimism and Precarious Employment: The Crisis Ordinariness of Academic Work.Kate Daisy Bone - 2020 - Journal of Business Ethics 174 (2):275-290.
    Precarious employment is commonplace within the University-as-business model. Neoliberal and New Public Management agendas have influenced widespread insecurity, and limited career progression pathways within academic work. Qualitative multi-case data inform this investigation of how young academic workers cope with, and justify, their precarious situations in a large Australian university. This article introduces the notion of cruel optimism to analyse the unethical exploitation of desires of precariously employed academics. This analytical engagement extends empathetic engagement with the lived experiences and rationalisations (...)
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  24.  13
    Optimistic Environmental Messaging Increases State Optimism and in vivo Pro-environmental Behavior.Megan MacKinnon, Adam C. Davis & Steven Arnocky - 2022 - Frontiers in Psychology 13.
    Despite recent empirical interest, the links between optimism and pessimism with pro-environmental behavior remain equivocal. This research is characterized by a reliance on cross-sectional data, a focus on trait-level at the neglect of state-level optimism–pessimism, and assessments of retrospective self-reported ecological behavior that are subject to response bias. To attend to these gaps, 140 North American adults were experimentally primed with bogus optimistic or pessimistic environmental news articles, and then asked to report their levels of state optimism–pessimism, (...)
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  25.  80
    Are ‘Optimistic’ Theories of Criminal Justice Psychologically Feasible? The Probative Case of Civic Republicanism.Victoria McGeer & Friederike Funk - 2017 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 11 (3):523-544.
    ‘Optimistic’ normative theories of criminal justice aim to justify criminal sanction in terms of its reprobative/rehabilitative value rather than its punitive nature as such. But do such theories accord with ordinary intuitions about what constitutes a ‘just’ response to wrongdoing? Recent empirical work on the psychology of punishers suggests that human beings have a ‘brutely retributive’ moral psychology, making them unlikely to endorse normative theories that sacrifice retribution for the sake of reprobation or rehabilitation; it would mean, for example, that (...)
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  26.  67
    Optimism about Moral Responsibility.Jacob Barrett - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (33):1-17.
    In his classic “Freedom and Resentment,” P. F. Strawson introduces us to an optimist who believes that our moral responsibility practices are justified by their beneficial consequences. Although many see Strawson as a staunch critic of this consequentialist position, his stated view is only that there is a gap in the optimist’s story where the reactive attitudes should be. In this paper, I fill in the gap. I show how optimism can be suitably modified to reflect an appreciation of (...)
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  27. Dispositional Optimism and Context Sensitivity: Psychological Contributors to Frailty Status Among Elderly Outpatients.Alberto Sardella, Vittorio Lenzo, George A. Bonanno, Gabriella Martino, Giorgio Basile & Maria C. Quattropani - 2021 - Frontiers in Psychology 11.
    The association of resilience-related factors with frailty is a recent research topic. Dispositional optimism and context sensitivity are two psychological factors that differently contribute to individual resilience. This study aimed at investigating whether dispositional optimism and context sensitivity might contribute to a multifactorial model of frailty, together with established relevant factors such as cognitive and physical factors. This cross-sectional study involved 141 elderly outpatients aged ≥65 years, who were referred to the Geriatrics and Multidimensional Evaluation Clinic of the (...)
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  28. Schopenhauerian Optimism and an Alternative to Resignation?David Cartwright - 1985 - Schopenhauer Jahrbuch:153-164.
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  29. Optimism and Immortality.G. L. Dickinson - 1903 - Philosophical Review 12:565.
     
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  30.  68
    Is the Optimism in CEO’s Letters to Shareholders Sincere? Impression Management Versus Communicative Action During the Economic Crisis.Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini - 2014 - Journal of Business Ethics 124 (1):19-34.
    In this study, we explore the sincerity of the rhetorical tone of 664 annual letters to shareholders (CEO letters). Prior studies adopt Impression Management theory to predict that firms obfuscate failures and emphasize successes to unfairly enhance their image and maintain organizational legitimacy. Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) challenged such a view, showing that firms reporting earnings surprises engage in ethical discourse with shareholders. We adopt the methodology of Yuthas et al. (J Bus Ethics 41:141–157, 2002) to (...)
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  31.  18
    Philosophical Optimism and Philosophy of Historical Progress in Slovak Lutheran Ethics in the First Half of the 19th Century.Vasil Gluchman - 2022 - Neue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 64 (1):124-138.
    SummaryThe author studies the form of philosophical optimism in Slovak Lutheran ethics in the first half of the 19th century in the views of Ján Kollár and Ján Chalupka. Herder’s philosophy of history and his philosophy of historical progress significantly influenced Slovak Lutheran ethics of the given period. In the author’s view, Kollár and Chalupka mainly appreciated human history as progress in all parts of life and refused glorification of the past. However, they did not limit their assessment to (...)
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  32.  11
    Optimism and agency in the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman.Matt Dawson - 2012 - European Journal of Social Theory 15 (4):555-570.
    Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology has often been seen as a bleak worldview; he has been called the ‘sociologist of misery’. This article argues that assigning pessimism and misery to Bauman’s work relies on a reading which does not fully consider his sociology of morality. When this is accounted for, Bauman can be seen to have a very optimistic worldview. The significance of such an observation rests on where Bauman’s optimism lies—namely in the hands of inevitably moral individuals who can acquiesce (...)
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  33.  4
    “Cruel Optimism,” Minimum Wage, and the Good Life.A. G. Holdier - 2021 - The Prindle Post.
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  34.  47
    The New Prometheans: Technological Optimism in Climate Change Mitigation Modelling.Michael Keary - 2016 - Environmental Values 25 (1):7-28.
    Technological change modelling (TCM) is quietly transforming the landscape of environmental debate. It provides a powerful new basis for technological optimism, which has long been a key battleground. The technique is at the heart of mainstream climate change mitigation policies and greatly strengthens environmentalism over ecologism. It seems to show that technological change can solve the problem. I argue that the models employ a flawed understanding of technological change and that policies based on them are a major gamble. The (...)
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  35.  49
    What Optimistic Responses to Deep Disagreement get Right (and Wrong).Scott F. Aikin - 2020 - Co-herencia 17 (32):225-238.
    In this paper, I argue for three theses. First, that the problem of Deep Disagreement is usefully understood as an instance of the skeptical Problem of the Criterion. Second, there are structural similarities between proposed optimistic answers to deep disagreement and the problem of the criterion. Third, in light of these similarities, there are both good and bad consequences for proposed solutions to the problem of deep disagreement.
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  36.  35
    Optimism for Naturalized Social Metaphysics: A Reply to Hawley.Daniel Saunders - 2020 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (2):138-160.
    Metaphysics has undergone two major innovations in recent decades. First, naturalistic metaphysicians have argued that our best science provides an important source of evidence for metaphysical theories. Second, social metaphysicians have begun to explore the nature of social entities such as groups, institutions, and social categories. Surprisingly, these projects have largely kept their distance from one another. Katherine Hawley has recently argued that, unlike the natural sciences, the social sciences are not sufficiently successful to provide evidence about the metaphysical nature (...)
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  37.  30
    On Optimism.Adriano Sofri - 2004 - Critical Inquiry 30 (4):739.
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  38.  42
    Conjuring optimism in dark times: Education, affect and human capital.Sam Sellar & Lew Zipin - 2019 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 51 (6):572-586.
    This paper analyses how the discursive construction, valuation and subjective experience of human capital is evolving in parallel with crises of capital as a world-system. Ideology critique provides tools for analysing policy ‘fictions’ that aim to sustain investment in human capital through education. Foucauldian analytical tools enable analysis of how human capital has become a project of self-appreciation and cultivation of positive psychological traits. We argue that the work of Lauren Berlant provides an important complement to these approaches and enables (...)
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  39.  17
    (1 other version)The Optimism of Thomas Hardy.Ernest Sutherland Bates - 1904 - International Journal of Ethics 15 (4):469.
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  40.  13
    Nuclear Optimism and the Technological Imperative:: A Study of the Pacific Northwest Electrical Network.Steven M. Hoffman & John Byrne - 1991 - Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 11 (2):63-77.
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  41.  44
    The ‘Optimistic Cruelty’ of Hayek’s Market Order: Neoliberalism, Pain and Social Selection.Carla Ibled - 2023 - Theory, Culture and Society 40 (3):81-101.
    This article argues that cruelty, as a willingness to see or orchestrate the suffering of others, is not an unfortunate side-effect of neoliberal theories put into practice but is constitutive of the neoliberal project from its theoretical inception. Drawing on Lisa Duggan’s concept of ‘optimistic cruelty’ and treating the canonical texts of neoliberal economic theory as literary artefacts, the article develops this argument through a close reading of one of the central architects of the neoliberal project, the philosopher and economist (...)
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  42.  21
    Who needs an optimistic philosophy of history?В.Н Порус - 2016 - Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 47 (1):57-61.
    All speculations on «the meaning of history» are argued to exceed the epistemological capacities of historical science. Nevertheless, the author argues, such speculations are significant for a philosophy which treats historical development as a real phenomenon. For many philosophies of this sort, freedom of a human-being is the main goal of the historical process. The author notes that such «historical optimism» is in conflict historical practice. And he argues that it can be dangerous if transformed into a slogan.
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  43. Optimism in the face of uncertainty should be refutable.Ronald Ortner - 2008 - Minds and Machines 18 (4):521-526.
    We give an example from the theory of Markov decision processes which shows that the “optimism in the face of uncertainty” heuristics may fail to make any progress. This is due to the impossibility to falsify a belief that a (transition) probability is larger than 0. Our example shows the utility of Popper’s demand of falsifiability of hypotheses in the area of artificial intelligence.
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  44. Beyond Optimism.Michael Slote - 1992 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 1:131-133.
     
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  45.  44
    Academic optimism: an individual teacher belief.David P. Ngidi - 2012 - Educational Studies 38 (2):139-150.
    In this study, academic optimism as an individual teacher belief was investigated. Teachers? self?efficacy beliefs were measured using the short form of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale. One subtest from the Omnibus T?Scale, the faculty trust in clients subtest, was used to measure teachers? trust in students and parents. One subtest from the Organizational Climate Index was used to measure academic emphasis. Pupil Control Ideology was used to measure teachers? beliefs about classroom management. Constructivist teaching subscale of the (...)
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  46. Unrealistic optimism and the ethics of phase I cancer research.Joshua Crites & Eric Kodish - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (6):403-406.
    One of the most pressing ethical challenges facing phase I cancer research centres is the process of informed consent. Historically, most scholarship has been devoted to redressing therapeutic misconception, that is, the conflation of the nature and goals of research with those of therapy. While therapeutic misconception continues to be a major ethical concern, recent scholarship has begun to recognise that the informed consent process is more complex than merely a transfer of information and therefore cannot be evaluated only according (...)
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  47.  39
    Optimism about Measuring Animal Feelings.Heather Browning & Walter Veit - 2023 - Asian Bioethics Review 15 (3):351-355.
    While animal sentience research has flourished in the last decade, scepticism about our ability to accurately measure animal feelings has unfortunately remained fairly common. Here, we argue that evolutionary considerations about the functions of feelings will give us more reason for optimism and outline a method for how this might be achieved.
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  48. Afterword. Optimism and pessimism.Robert Bringhurst & Jan Zwicky - 2018 - In Robert Bringhurst & Jan Zwicky, Learning to die: wisdom in the age of climate crisis. [Regina], Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Regina Press.
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  49. Optimism, finitude, and the meaning of life.R. W. Hepburn - 1982 - In Donald MacKenzie MacKinnon, Brian Hebblethwaite & Stewart R. Sutherland, The Philosophical frontiers of Christian theology: essays presented to D.M. MacKinnon. New York: Cambridge University Press.
     
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  50.  40
    ‘Cruel Optimism’ and Contemporary Australian Critical Theory in Educational Research.Mary Lou Rasmussen - 2015 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 47 (2):192-206.
    Abstract‘Cruel optimism’ is a term coined by Lauren Berlant. In conceptualizing this term, Berlant draws on the resources of critical theory to interrogate people’s desires for things they think may improve their lot, but actually act as obstacles to flourishing. This notion may be useful for analysing the current state of education in Australia, and the desire to believe that My School, and the associated data it provides, will enable schools to address social inequalities. For Berlant, the promise of (...)
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