PHI 131 — Faith, Hope, and Love: Virtues for an Age of Uncertainty
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Frederick M. Dolan
Date(s): Jun 23—Aug 25
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $560
Refund Deadline: Jun 25
Unit(s): 2
Status: Registration opens May 18, 8:30 am (PT)
This course examines faith, hope, and love as enduring human responses to uncertainty, loss, and the search for meaning. We will explore how philosophers have interpreted these virtues both within and outside of religious frameworks. Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843) presents faith as a wholehearted commitment to an identity-constituting relationship—one that may involve obedience to God yet also illuminates the nature of normative authority and what it means to act when rational justification falls short. Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope (1954–59) recasts eschatological expectation as the anticipatory capacity to imagine fulfillment in light of what does not yet, but could, exist. Harry Frankfurt’s The Reasons of Love (2004) examines love as a bridge between personal identity, value, and meaning. Philosophically, these works raise questions about the nature of personhood, personal identity, and value. More broadly, they illuminate differences and similarities between theological and secular accounts of how faith, hope, and love can orient individual and collective life today.
FREDERICK M. DOLAN
Professor of Rhetoric, Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Frederick M. Dolan’s interests include political and moral philosophy, theories of interpretation, and aesthetics and the philosophy of art. He received a PhD from Princeton. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Søren Kierkegaard, Alastair Hannay (Trans), Fear and Trembling (Penguin Classics) (ISBN 978-0140444490)
(Required) Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (ISBN 978-0674027466)
(Required) Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (ISBN 978-0691191478)
(Required) Jonathan Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (ISBN 978-0674027466)
(Required) Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (ISBN 978-0691191478)