Abstract

as covid-19 set in, many people struggled to find or hold onto hope. TIME magazine devoted its entire annual TIME 100 Most Influential People issue to the very topic, offering up suggestions on how to find hope, from religious leaders, politicians, and celebrities. While some presented helpful ideas, I found myself seeking more satisfying and sustaining answers. I turned to pragmatist philosophers, both old and new, to help me understand what hope is, why it matters, and how to foster it.Intriguingly, classic American pragmatists seem to have much to contribute to discussions of hope and yet have actually said very little explicitly about it. Even as pragmatism complemented the late nineteenth- and...