[...] but the essence of the world is cheerful spirit and the urge to creative shaping: the Thing In Itself is objective imagination.
(Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope)
Utopia [...] is not yet in the sense of a possibility; that it could be there if we could only do something for it.
(Ernst Bloch in conversation with Theodor W. Adorno, “Something’s Missing”.)
Ernst Bloch was a highly original and equally controversial social thinker who during his lifetime ranked among the prominent philosophers of Europe. A pre-Frankfurt School, non-dogmatic Marxist theorist, Bloch took inspiration from a wide array of sources: fin-de-siècle …
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2656 words
Citation: Starkman, Ruth. "Ernst Bloch". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 April 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=448, accessed 12 July 2025.]
