Courage and Fortitude: From Plato to Thomas Aquinas
Courage and Wisdom: The Stoics
Courage and Self-affirmation: Spinoza
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Courage and Fortitude: From Plato to Thomas Aquinas
In Plato’s Republic courage is related to that element of the soul which is called thymos (the spirited, courageous element), and both are related to that level of society which is called phylakes (guardians), thymos lies between the intellectual and the sensual element in man. It is the unreflective striving toward what is noble. As such it has a central position in the structure of the soul, it bridges the cleavage between reason and desire. At least it could do so. Actually the main trend of Platonic thought and the tradition of Plato’s school were dualistic, emphasizing the conflict between the reasonable and the sensual. The bridge was not used. As late as Descartes and Kant, the elimination of the “middle” of man’s being (the thymoeides) had ethical and ontological consequences. It was responsible for Kant’s moral rigor and Descartes’ division of being into thought and extension.
The sociological context in which this development occurred is well known. The Platonic phylakes are the armed aristocracy, the representatives of what is noble and graceful. Out of them the bearers of wisdom arise, adding wisdom to courage. But this aristocracy and its values disintegrated. The later ancient world as well as the modern bourgeoisie have lost them; in their place appear the bearers of enlightened reason and technically organized and directed masses. But it is remarkable that Plato himself saw the thymoeides as an essential function of man’s being, an ethical value and sociological quality’.
The aristocratic element in the doctrine of courage was preserved as well as restricted by Aristotle. The motive for withstanding pain and death courageously is, according to him, that it is noble to do so and base not to do so (Nicomachean Ethics iii 9). The courageous man acts “for the sake of what is noble, for that is the aim of virtue” (iii. 7). “Noble,” in these and other passages, is the translation of kalos and “base” the translation of aischros, words which usually are rendered by “beautiful” and “ugly.” A beautiful or noble deed is a deed to be praised. Courage does what is to be praised and rejects what is to be despised.
