Abstract

What constitutes “genuine” hope? The kind of hope that helps us overcome the deepest despair? I begin my paper by citing the example of Etty Hillesum—a victim of the concentration camps during World War II. To my mind, during the last moments of her life, Hillesum exhibited a kind of hope that is profound and invincible. In this paper, I strive to understand the nature of Hillesum’s hope. How is such hope possible? After some general remarks on hope and despair, I shall examine three different accounts of hope—what I shall call the “atheistic existentialist”, the “evolutionary biologistic”, and the “intersubjective” accounts of hope. These accounts are differentiated from each other by the worldviews they imply and how they understand the nature of hope. Following this investigation, I shall suggest that Marcel’s account sheds most light on our understanding of Etty Hillesum’s hope.