Jannah Loontjens / Tommy Wieringa

Wars, climate disasters and increasing inequality in the world make it difficult to be hopeful in life. Do we want children, how do we raise them, will we still go on holidays while the world burns? Even more fundamental is the question of whether it is still responsible to face the future with confidence. Can we live happily only with blinders on? Or is optimism a moral imperative? Hannah Arendt saw in hope a naive and dangerous laziness. But Rebecca Solnit just exhorts us to keep hoping bravely, especially in the dark. In conversation with Nicky Aerts, Jannah Loontjens and Tommy Wieringa go in search of hopeful insights, or insightful hope, if such exist. Tommy Wieringa will write the Philosophy Month essay entitled Optimism without hope: How to be happy in an unhappy world.

Would you like to attend the full programme, incl. the conversation with Jannah Loontjens & Tommy Wieringa? Buy your combi ticket here.