The Principle of Hope, Vol. 1 (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) [Paperback]

Ernst Bloch (Author), Neville Plaice (Translator), Stephen Plaice (Translator), Paul Knight (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262521997 | ISBN-13: 978-0262521994 | Publication Date: May 26, 1995

translated by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul KnightThe Principle of Hope is one of the great works of the human spirit. It is a critical history of the utopian vision and a profound exploration of the possible reality of utopia. Even as the world has rejected the doctrine on which Bloch sought to base his utopia, his work still challenges us to think more insightfully about our own visions of a better world.The Principle of Hope is published in three volumes: Volume 1 lays the foundations of the philosophy of process and introduces the idea of the Not-Yet-Conscious - the anticipatory element that Bloch sees as central to human thought. It also contains a remarkable account of the aesthetic interpretations of utopian "wishful images" in fairy tales, popular fiction, travel, theater, dance, and the cinema.Volume 2 presents "the outlines of a better world." It examines the utopian systems that progressive thinkers have developed in the fields of medicine, painting, opera, poetry, and ultimately, philosophy. It is nothing less than an encyclopedic account of utopian thought from the Greeks to the present.Volume 3 offers a prescription for ways in which humans can reach their proper "homeland," where social justice is coupled with an openness to change and to the future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ernst Bloch's Principle of Hope is one of the key books of ourcentury. Part philosophic speculation, part political treatise, part lyricvision, it is exercising a deepening influence on thought and on literature.... No political or theological appropriations of Bloch's leviathan can exhaustits visionary breadth." George Steiner

About the Author

Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) was a close friend and colleague of Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Berthold Brecht. He made major contributions to socialist thought, although the ideas were regarded as heretical by orthodox Marxists. The Principle of Hope was written during the 1930s in the United States, where Bloch lived in exile from Nazi Germany.

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (May 26, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262521997
• ISBN-13: 978-0262521994
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars written 1938-1947 in the "Public Library", Manhattan ..., September 1, 2005

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FrizzText "frizz" (Wuppertal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Principle of Hope, Vol. 1 (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) was a professor for philosophy at the University of Leipzig from 1949-1956. But September 20, 1961, Associated Press reported: "The internationally admitted philosopher professor Ernst Bloch did not return from a visit in the Federal Republic (BRD, West-Germany) to the Soviet Zone (GDR, East-Germany)." One of his reasons: The building of the wall between the two German states August 13, 1961.

In his suit-case Bloch did not have no more possession than a crime-book of Agatha Christie. A typical nonchalant gesture of the philosopher of hope and progress. He wrote to the GDR-administration: "I am no longer determined to offer my work and myself to unworthy conditions."

His peerless magnus opus, "The Principle of Hope", he wrote in the years 1938-1947 in the "Public Library" in Manhattan at the 42nd street - after he had been driven out of Germany by the Nazis, who burned books and terrorized jews and socialists. His wife Karola earned the money, working as an architect in New York.

Back in Germany (1949) he at first helped to evolve Marxian thinking. But it did not last long, then he wrote: "Now chess must be finally played - instead of Bingo." "Nowadays one can select between dull or wrong. With a wrong shoe however no one is able to walk far. A cloudy glass also makes anything cloudy, which is poured in..." With such aphorisms Ernst Bloch very soon became a mentor in the epicenter of the 1968 student movement in Tuebingen, a famous university in West-Germany.

Bloch often tried to convince via small anecdotes, for example the description, how Stephenson, the inventor of the steam engine, managed not to lose HOPE: "In vain he followed the first boiler on wheels running behind. The steam machine more and more rapidly approached a curve. The mother of all railway engines drove straightforward and exploded at the wall of a house. Stephenson now everything had understood completely. He built a new machine, equipped with a steering-wheel, using an iron-track."

Like the art of engineering philosophy should never forget, that to proceed is an important component. This still has been the reasonable message of Bloch's philosophy - though, in the meantime, some states (i.e. hammers and sickles) have had to change their doctrines fundamental ...