Il principio speranza. Volume 3-immagini di desiderio

by Ernst Bloch

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.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Utopia

Paperback

Expected publication January 1, 2030

About the author

Ernst Bloch was one of the great philosophers and political intellectuals of twentieth-century Germany. Among his works to have appeared in English are The Spirit of Utopia (Stanford University Press, 2000), Literary Essays (Stanford University Press, 1998), The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays (1987), and The Principle of Hope (1986).

Reviews

[Pin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this felt like visiting an amusement park called "the world of hopeless hope", where every attraction is a wild rollercoaster ride that takes you up and down and all around. You'll come off with a rambled up mind every time, thoughts colliding and becoming new ideas.
That's just the experience though, the content is just a treasure trove of ideas I can't even begin to discuss right now.
There's also humour, poetry, knowledge, the freedom to think what you want of it all, and a whole lot of hope, but to get to that land of hope you have to travel over all the roads of hopelessness we've been building throughout this idea we call history...

[Jeffrey Paris [was Infinite Tasks] · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be teaching a Symposium course at USF on selections from The Principle of Hope this Fall. I've always wanted to read it through carefully, but being 1500 words and all, never quite was up for it. The students will read about 600 pages, and hopefully I'll be able to get through the whole thing over the four months. Stay tuned! [Update: Full book completed near the end of the semester. Eminently worthwhile, but not much to say about it that is goodreads appropriate.]