The Principle of Hope, Volume 1 (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) - Softcover

Bloch, Ernst

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262521997 ISBN 13: 9780262521994

Publisher: MIT Press, 1995

Synopsis

The Principle of Hope is one of the great works of the human spirit. It is a critical history of the utopian vision and a profound exploration of the possible reality of utopia. Even as the world has rejected the doctrine on which Bloch sought to base his utopia, his work still challenges us to think more insightfully about our own visions of a better world. The Principle of Hope is published in three volumes: Volume 1 lays the foundations of the philosophy of process and introduces the idea of the Not-Yet-Conscious-the anticipatory element that Bloch sees as central to human thought. It also contains a remarkable account of the aesthetic interpretations of utopian "wishful images" in fairy tales, popular fiction, travel, theater, dance, and the cinema. Volume 2 presents "the outlines of a better world." It examines the utopian systems that progressive thinkers have developed in the fields of medicine, painting, opera, poetry, and ultimately, philosophy. It is nothing less than an encyclopedic account of utopian thought from the Greeks to the present. Volume 3 offers a prescription for ways in which humans can reach their proper "homeland," where social justice is coupled with an openness to change and to the future.

About this title

Review

Ernst Bloch, the great utopian Marxist philosopher and author of The Principle of Hope, developed a method of criticism that expands, and goes beyond, conventional approaches to culture and ideology. In doing so he provides one of the richest compendiums for the critique of ideology and the deconstruction and unpacking of the "cultural" to be found in Western Philosophy. His huge, awe-inspiring and peerless magnus opus The Principle of Hope (available here as a three-volume set or individually as Vol 1, Vol 2 and Vol 3) is a massive testament to the mature philosophy of a man who inspired Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and who stands in a tradition of greats including Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs. Coming to grips with Bloch isn't easy: The Principle of Hope is over 1400 pages long, contains three volumes (according to Douglas Kellner, "roughly correspond[ing] to Hegel's division of his system into interrogations of subjective, objective and absolute spirit"), and is divided into five parts including all-told 55 chapters.

For Bloch, hope (utopia, human emancipation) permeates everything everywhere. As incomplete beings we seek for the Utopian to complete and fulfil us, and the Utopian is in everything (i.e., in cultural forms such as film, fairy tales, philosophy). The Principle of Hope is Bloch's systematic interrogation of how myths, movies, theatre, art, religion and so on, all contain emancipatory moments that question everything and hint at a fuller and fully human life.

Bloch is magnificent and truly worth the challenge. If The Principle of Hope is too formidable then perhaps the essays of The Utopian Function of Art would be a useful starter. But be prepared: they will only make you hungry for the whopping meal to come. --Mark Thwaite

Review

" Ernst Bloch's "Principle of Hope" is one of the key books of our century. Part philosophic speculation, part political treatise, part lyric vision, it is exercising a deepening influence on thought and on literature. . . . No political or theological appropriations of Bloch's leviathan can exhaust its visionary breadth." -- George Steiner

" "The Principle of Hope" is one of those all-about-everything books characteristic of German culture during the last 150 years. But unlike its direct predecessor, Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West," Bloch's magnum opus. . . reverses Spengler's world-historical scheme by turning "Weltangst" . . . into hope.' In this placing of hope' at the center of a history, an anthropology, and a phenomenology of mankind lies the originality of Bloch's undertaking." -- J. P. Stern, The New Republic

& quot; Ernst Bloch's Principle of Hope is one of the key books of our century. Part philosophic speculation, part political treatise, part lyric vision, it is exercising a deepening influence on thought and on literature. . . . No political or theological appropriations of Bloch's leviathan can exhaust its visionary breadth.& quot; -- George Steiner

& quot; The Principle of Hope is one of those all-about-everything books characteristic of German culture during the last 150 years. But unlike its direct predecessor, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West, Bloch's magnum opus. . . reverses Spengler's world-historical scheme by turning Weltangst . . . into hope.' In this placing of hope' at the center of a history, an anthropology, and a phenomenology of mankind lies the originality of Bloch's undertaking.& quot; -- J. P. Stern, The New Republic

"Ernst Bloch's

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"Ernst Bloch's "Principle of Hope" is one of the key books of our century. Part philosophic speculation, part political treatise, part lyric vision, it is exercising a deepening influence on thought and on literature. . . . No political or theological appropriations of Bloch's leviathan can exhaust its visionary breadth."--George Steiner

""The Principle of Hope" is one of those all-about-everything books characteristic of German culture during the last 150 years. But unlike its direct predecessor, Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West", Bloch's magnum opus. . . reverses Spengler's world-historical scheme by turning "Weltangst" . . . into hope.' In this placing of hope' at the center of a history, an anthropology, and a phenomenology of mankind lies the originality of Bloch's undertaking."--J. P. Stern, The New Republic

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0262521997
• ISBN 13: 9780262521994
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 528