The Wish and the Phenomenology of the Wish in The Principle of Hope

Max Brod once wrote the following: recall a conversation with Kafka that began with the contemporary situation in Europe and the corruption of mankind. 'We are nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts, that rise up in the head of God,' he said. This reminded me of the Gnostic view of life, God as an evil demiurge and the world as the place of the fallen, sinful men. 'Oh no,' he said, 'our world is only a bad mood of God's, a lousy day.' 'So could there be hope beyond this particular manifestation of the world?' I asked. He laughed. 'Oh, there's enough hope, infinitely great hope only not for us.'' Bloch's view might be described as the opposite of that of Kafka. There is hope only for the sake of humankind. The existence of hope in the world is a reason for saying that the world as it is is not worthy of humankind while at the same time this critique shows us how hope transcends the limitations of the world. The Principle of Hope begins with children's questions that already have hope in sight, such as, Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? What do we expect? What is expected of us?2 The questions are, of course, not normally thought to be within the province of systematic, scientific examination, since only religion dares answer them in all their hybrid