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This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices. Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period to the present. It (...) shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people's best interests, the passions and powers of the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two. These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis. (shrink)

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 begins with Homeric poetry and the politics of fearless demi-gods thriving on war. The tales of lion-hearted Heracles, Achilles, and Ulysses, and their tragic fall at the hands of fate, eventually give way to classical views of courage based on competing theories of rational wisdom and truth. Fears of the enemy and anxieties (...) about suffering and death are addressed through the lenses and teachings of medicine, geography, military history, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. For early Christian thinkers, the ethics of fear, fate, and fealty to the Almighty supplant the voice of reason and the wisdom of virtue. Much of Christian doctrine's history is a long journey towards bridging the gap between Greek philosophy and devotion to God and spirits in heaven. Some Church Fathers attempt to dispel the fear of suffering through a joyful craving for martyrdom and the eternal blessings that follow. Others show openness to one or more of the following principles: the abstractions of moral philosophy, the metaphysics of Gnostic enlightenment, the gift of free will and intentionality, the growth of church authority and hegemony, and the intrinsic worth of life on Earth. Augustine, Ambrose, Cassian, and Chrysostom play a central role in revisiting the foundations of Christian fortitude along some or all of these lines. They lay the groundwork for the scholastic adaptations of faith-based rationalism proposed by Peter Lombard, Philip the Chancellor, Albert the Great, and Thomas of Aquinas. The mediaeval period ends with church dissidents and Protestant Reform leaders condemning Rome’s corruption and calling for a return to early Christian faith and the courage of godly fear, submission, suffering, and fate. (shrink)

v. 1. Half brain fables and figs in paradise -- v. 2. The corpus and the cortex -- v. 3. Scorpions and the anatomy of time.

Hence arose the demand to which this book is a. response. 1 I shall, therefore, endeavor to do as I have been asked, and preserve in the written word the ...

[1] Chocs d'idées. Disciplines d'action. Aspects de la vie morale: L'ordre. L'amour. L'apparence.--2. Voies d'accès au réel. Principes de l'humanisme. Images de France.

L’unité du savoir est assurément le principe, la fin et le dessein de Descartes. Et il apparaît qu’il l’a réalisée dans son oeuvre, pourvu qu’on sache se placer au centre de perspective qui fut celui de l’homme et qui confère au système son unité foncière : je veux dire cette intuition originelle qui, dans son doute même, lui fit saisir tout à la fois son être imparfait et l’Etre parfait et immuable de qui tout dépend.

t. 1. Psychologie et logique.--t. 2. Morale et métaphysique.

Excerpt from La Notion du Necessaire Chez Aristote Et Chez Ses Predecesseurs, Particulierement Chez Platon: Avec des Notes sur les Relations de Platon Et d'Aristote Et la Chronologie de Leurs OEuvres Il est donc du plus haut interet de voir comment la question a ete posee et traitee par les Grecs. C'est chez Aristote qu'on saisit le mieux les difficultes qu'elle souleve. Dans la solution qu'il entreprend d'en donner, nous verrons constamment sa pensee se mouvoir, comme entre deux poles, entre (...) les deux propositions qui resument toute sa doctrine la necessite et l'uni versalite comme condition d'intelhgibilite, l'indi vidualite comme sujet du reel. Rien de fige chez lui les cadres rigides du systeme eclatent sans cesse sous la poussee des tendances contradictoires. Et cette contradiction meme n'est pas a eliminer elle est signe de richesse; elle fait le vivant interet de la pensee aristotelicienne. Nous mettrons en pleine lumiere ces tendances diverses, en meme temps que nous ferons effort pour voir, d'apres les textes eux-memes, com ment elles se concilient chez Aristote, sans chercher d'ailleurs a donner une solution qui ne pourrait etre logiquement satisfaisante qu'a condition d'etre histo riquement inexacte. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)