Episode #230 ... Hope as an Existentialism (Ernst Bloch)

In this episode of Philosophize This!, Stephen West introduces Ernst Bloch's concept of hope as anticipatory consciousness, contrasting it with existentialist views that frame human experience in terms of lack. Bloch sees hope as a fundamental, ontological aspect of reality, constantly orienting us toward the future and co-evolving with the world. West explains Bloch's idea of the "darkness of the lived moment" and how our inherent incompleteness leads us to contemplate future possibilities. He uses the example of an existential crisis to illustrate how a surplus of hope, rather than a lack of meaning, can explain feelings of anxiety and nihilism. West also explores Bloch's analysis of music and art as reflections of hope and wish landscapes, and he presents four criteria for distinguishing between "educated hope" and "false hope": tendency, latency, mobilization, and revisability. The episode concludes with a discussion of Bloch's concept of non-synchronicity, encouraging listeners to view differing viewpoints as reflections of different moments in the history of ideas, rather than as signs of underdevelopment.