Beyond Hope: Philosophical Reflections

155 Pages·2020·1.38 MB·English

by  Stephen J. Costello

Beyond Hope

Beyond Hope
:

Philosophical Reflections
By
Stephen J. Costello
Beyond Hope: Philosophical Reflections

By Stephen J. Costello

This book first published 2020

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2020 by Stephen J. Costello

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-6021-X
ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6021-5
I dedicate this book to my parents, Val and Johnny,
in love, gratitude, and admiration
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings
the tune without the words and never stops at all”
—Emily Dickinson

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest”
—Alexander Pope

“While there’s life, there’s hope”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Hope is a passion for the possible”
—Soren Kierkegaard

“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances
that we know to be desperate”
—G. K. Chesterton

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
whispering ‘it will be happier’”
—Alfred Tennyson
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ......................................................................... ix

Preface ............................................................................................. xi

Introduction ...................................................................................... 1

Chapter One ...................................................................................... 7
Optimism and Pessimism

Chapter Two ................................................................................... 31
On Hope

Chapter Three ................................................................................. 63
Critique of Positive Psychology

Chapter Four ................................................................................... 83
Advaita and the Bliss of Being

Bibliography ................................................................................. 131

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A huge debt of gratitude is owed to my family, especially my parents,
Val and Johnny, to whom I dedicate this book, and my brother
Simon, for their ongoing, enthusiastic support and interest in my
work. I would like also to thank my friends Darren Cleary, Derek
Smyth, Tom O’Connor, Emma Philbin Bowman, Ross Anderson,
Sam Seary, Ronan Sheehan, Donal Egan, Sheelagh Wilsdon and Jeb
Lennon who have graced me with their presence and helped in ways
too numerous to mention. I need to acknowledge the input, too, of
Mary Telford, Michael Ryan, and Shane Mulhall (in memoriam) of
the School of Philosophy, for the engaging chats, thoughtful classes,
and in-depth knowledge of Advaita, from which I have profited
enormously, and to whom the final chapter is indebted.