Hope and Fear as Co-Variable Attitudes

Abstract

I offer a critique of the method of analysis employed in Carl-Johan Palmqvist's article The Mirror Account of Hope and Fear when arguing against the co-variation thesis (CVT). I show that the analysis of CVT - which uses the notational convention of representing a hope as "p' and its supposed corresponding fear as "¬p' - is problematic in that it potentially obscures the divergent propositional content of hopes and fears. As an antidote, I suggest representing the propositional content of hopes and fears with distinct placeholders p, q, and etc. and I show how this refinement in method allows us to make progress on the issue of co-variation.