What is hope? Hope, desire and possibility

Abstract

In the presentation, I will deal with the meaning of the word ?hope?, as well as the analysis of cases in which its use is rational and justified. First, I will present the classical meaning of that word, that is, the meaning in which it is most often used today, as well as the conceptual network within which its meaning is most often analyzed. Then I will examine the relationships between the meaning of that word and the meaning of the words possibility, desire, belief and faith, optimism, as well as the word expectation. Then I will move on to the latest attempts to better determine the meaning of that word, due to some counterexamples, which threaten the classical analysis.