"Would have been" Vs "Would be"

Question

What's the difference between these two examples:

1."Your father would be proud of us."

2."Your father would have been proud of us."

Answer 1

In the first example, the second conditional expresses a hypothesis on a present situtation, imagining an impossible or unlikely event.

Your father would be proud of us (if he were here now)

It might as well imply he is dead, or simply away.

In the second example, the third conditional expresses a hypothesis on a past situation.

Your father would have been proud of us (if he had been there to see us)

We don't know if the father is dead now or even if he was dead at the time of the past action. We only know he was not there and so it was impossible for him to feel proud of us.

Answer 2

The connotation of

• Your father would be proud of us.

Is that he would be proud if he was here and knew we did [x].

The connotation of

• Your father would have been proud of us.

Is that he would be proud of us if he were still alive and knew we did [x]. He is presumed to be dead.

Answer 3

The first sentence is purely hypothetical that nobody will ever know if what have been done is something that a father should be proud of while the second sentence is something that they have done to be proud of by any father but the thing is it will never happen because the father was not able to witness or see what they have done.