Discussions of hope can be found throughout the history of philosophy and across all

Western philosophical traditions, even though philosophy has traditionally not paid the same
attention to hope as it has to attitudes like belief and desire. However, even though hope has
historically only rarely been discussed systematically—with important exceptions, such as
Aquinas, Bloch and Marcel—almost all major philosophers acknowledge that hope plays an
important role in regard to human motivation, religious belief or politics. Historically,
discussions of the importance of hope were often embedded in particular philosophical
projects. More recent discussions of hope provide independent accounts of its nature and its
relation to other mental phenomena, such as desire, intention and optimism.