Abstract

Can one have faith that something is the same as itself, or hope that a triangle has four sides? Accounts of the proper object of faith or of hope typically exclude modal cases, where the object of faith or hope is understood by the agent to be either necessary or impossible, on the basis of their intuitive implausibility or their incompatibility with beliefs that the agent has about the probability or possibility of the object of faith or hope. This paper argues that the noncognitive components of the psychology of these attitudes—evidential resistance in the case of faith and desire in the case of hope—provide a more plausible and economical explanation for restrictions on their proper objects.