The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory after Hegel

Fall 2016 marks the second year in a three-year exploration of the theological virtues and their opposites: faith and doubt, hope and despair, love and hate. These virtues have important resonances in classical philosophy and throughout the Western tradition of philosophical and religious reflection about what it means to live a good life. Is it natural for human beings to have hope? Is there even a duty to have hope? What is the relationship between hope and a happy life? Is despair a necessary component of hope? These questions, and others like them, lie at the heart of religious reflection in many different traditions. This series will explore the possibility of an answer. Guest lecture presented by the Boston University Institute for Philosophy & Religion.

Supported by the BU Center for the Humanities.