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What is Courage?

Courage has two components; the ontological (body in action) and the conceptual (mind in action).

Paul Tillich, “Apostle to the intellectuals”, attempts to provide a new theological vocabulary by which modern wo/man might deal with the human situation. Tillich informs us that “Few concepts are as useful for the analysis of the human situation” as the concept of courage.

In his acclaimed book The Courage to Be Tillich sees courage as an “ethical reality”, i.e. courage is foremost a conceptual reality, which is rooted in the whole gestalt of human existence and “ultimately in the structure of being itself. It must be considered ontologically [body-mind in action] in order to be understood ethically”.

When one speaks of mind almost everyone thinks of a stand alone entity functioning in a logical manner in which the body is merely a house for its place of habitation until death, at which time it, sometimes called the soul, floats away to a spiritual kingdom. I wish to correct that erroneous idea.

I have coined the word body-mind, which I first discovered by reading Mark Johnson’s book The Meaning of the Body, because I wish the reader to think not of the mind as a separate entity residing in the body but because I want the reader to think of a body-mind gestalt. That is to say that the mind is an embodied mind, which cannot stand alone just as the heart cannot stand alone with the body bracketed.

Quickie from Wiki: “The psychologist, Carl Jung, who studied archetypes, proposed an alternative definition of symbol, distinguishing it from the term "sign". In Jung's view, a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand for something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise.”

In accordance with Carl Jung I would say that the term “body-mind” is a symbol.

Humans, when they became conscious of their mortality, became overly anxious upon discovering their forthcoming death and they conceptualized the soul, which over millions of years morphed into monotheism and religion. Religion became the promise of life everlasting and thus assuaged the anxiety of death.

This anxiety over mortality caused a self-critical humanity to develop the mind/body dichotomy. This dichotomy leads to the idea that there is an essential difference between body and mind. But SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) informs us that we have a body-mind, that is to say that we are a gestalt, not two parts working separately but an integrated functioning whole. The body and mind works as a single unit. The body in action and the mind in action make the human being in action with a constant interrelationship between these two aspects of the gestalt.

Tillich informs us that the human act of courage is fundamentally a body-mind action driven by an ethical concept. “The courage to be is the ethical act in which man affirms his own being in spite of those elements of his existence which conflict with his essential self-affirmation.”

Courage is saying "Yes." when your wife asks. "Does my bum look big in this?"...

Hugh Janus;1300427 wrote: Courage is saying "Yes." when your wife asks. "Does my bum look big in this?"...


:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl

Hugh Janus;1300427 wrote: Courage is saying "Yes." when your wife asks. "Does my bum look big in this?"...


I think that you are confusing foolishness with virtue. Courage is a virtue while speaking in a foolish way is not a virtue.

Sorry. I think you must be confused. As in you have got me confused with somebody who cares...

Hugh Janus;1300427 wrote: Courage is ...


No it's not. Courage (Directors) is a rather nice ruby-ish beer, moderate strength, fairly well "hopped", with a fruity/malty taste. When it's good, it's a great. When it isn't great, it's still much better than nothing.

Courage like many other attributes Is down to how others percieve It. What may seem to be couragous to some can be down right Fool-Hardy to others.

Bill Sikes;1300734 wrote: No it's not. Courage (Directors) is a rather nice ruby-ish beer, moderate strength, fairly well "hopped", with a fruity/malty taste. When it's good, it's a great. When it isn't great, it's still much better than nothing.


HHHmmmm sounds good . I shall look for it.

Hugh Janus;1300731 wrote: Sorry. I think you must be confused. As in you have got me confused with somebody who cares...


Unfortunately our (American) educational system has left almost all of us without any concern or curiosity about the world outside of our personal daily battles. As a result we lack sophisticated and Critical Thinking skills.

They “tranquilize themselves with the trivial”.—Kierkegaard

How can we become intellectually sophisticated enough to survive our own technological success?

I was always led to believe that Courage was the make of beer ! Maybe I got that wrong, a bit. :-3

As far as I can see, there are three types of 'courage' in the sense that you mean it, Coberst. One is the courage somebody shows when they put their own life in danger for others ( that could also be heroic). The second is when somebody jeopardises their own position in life for the benefit of somebody else (e.g. somebody may approach a severe boss, challenging a decision by that boss on another employee, at the risk of the challenger's own position to be put under threat by the challenger's action). The other is the strength of character and fortitude to manage to cope with, and maybe even conquer, a long standing disability, or illness.

Wisdom or Courage, Which the Greater Virtue?

Plato informs us that the armed aristocracy is the representative of what is noble and graceful. “Out of them the bearers of wisdom arise, adding wisdom to courage.”

Aristotle informs us that the courageous man acts “for the sake of what is noble, for that is the aim of virtue.” The noble is understood by Aristotle as being the beautiful, in contrast to the ugly or base.

Self-actualization is the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy and represents the affirmation of one’s essential nature. “Courage is the affirmation of one’s essential nature, one’s inner aim or entelechy, but it is an affirmation which has in itself the character of “in spite of”.

“There is a tendency to use the term ‘virtue’ in an abstract “moralistic” sense—a way that makes it almost Pharisaic in character.”--John Dewey My first thought after reading this and ‘looking up’ the word ‘Pharisaic’ (self-righteous) turns to William Bennett, gambler, ideologue, czar, and author of “The Book of Virtues”.

John Dewey wrote the above quote about virtue in his book “Ethics”. He further identifies the concept ‘virtue’ to mean a talent turned toward enhancing social values. Dewey says “every natural capacity, every talent or ability, whether of inquiring mind, of gentle affection, or of executive skill, becomes a virtue when it is turned to account in supporting or extending the fabric of social values.”

coberst;1300779 wrote: Unfortunately our (American) educational system has left almost all of us without any concern or curiosity about the world outside of our personal daily battles. As a result we lack sophisticated and Critical Thinking skills.

They “tranquilize themselves with the trivial”.—Kierkegaard

How can we become intellectually sophisticated enough to survive our own technological success?


Why do we Americans get all the blame now for the shallowness of the "civilized" world?

I wonder at your remark, since all but one of those responses - I of course assume those response prompted your post, otherwise, it is completely out of context - were from various non-American countries.

Just wondering

LarsMac;1300872 wrote: Why do we Americans get all the blame now for the shallowness of the "civilized" world?

I wonder at your remark, since all but one of those responses - I of course assume those response prompted your post, otherwise, it is completely out of context - were from various non-American countries.

Just wondering


I am an American, I live in America, I know very little about other countries; I try to speak only about that which I have developed a critical judgment.

I suspect that citizens of all other countries are equally naive.

Personal heroism by means of individualism is a task requiring courage and self-confidence. Courage and self-confidence are characteristics of few sapiens, young or old. It is a path less traveled because it imposes terrifying burdens; these burdens display themselves by isolation from the common herd. “This move exposes the person to the sense of being completely crushed and annihilated because he sticks out so much, has to carry so much in himself.”

Personal heroism demands that one exposes her self, i.e. s/he sticks out dramatically from the herd. Those creative types who expose themselves so must create their own justification. Herein we find something that may seem illogical “the more you develop as a distinctive free and critical human being, the more guilt you have. Your very work accuses you; it makes you feel inferior. What right do you have to play God?” By what authority do you presume to introduce new meaning into the world?

Otto Rank was a colleague of Freud and, like Jung, carried theories far beyond those which Freud created. “Freud’s reality psychology emphasized essentially the influence of outer factor, of the outer milieu, upon the development of the individual and the formation of character,…I [was] opposed to this biological principle, the spiritual principle which alone is meaningful in the development of the essentially human.”

For Freud the id is the nucleus of being and it, the id, is subject to the natural laws. In such a frame the personality consists of layers of identification that “form the basis of the parental super-ego.” This might be properly considered to be the spiritual structure of the average individual, i.e. the average personality results from the natural influences developed against the naturally evolved super-ego.

Such a theory accounts for the average but does not account for the two creative extremes: the creative type and the so-called “neurotic” type. I would label the average personality to be a reactive individual; an individual who goes with the flow.

There are two personality types that make up the proactive personality: one creative type squeezes him or her self into a tight ball in reaction to the inner and outer milieu, i.e. the so-called “neurotic” and the second creative type who creates a personality wherein the ego “is strong just in the degree to which it is the representative of this primal force and the strength of this force represented in the individual we call will.”

This second creative type, which Rank identifies as the creative type while he identifies the other creative type as the “neurotic”, creates “voluntarily from the impulsive elements and moreover to develop his standards beyond the identifications of the super-ego morality to an ideal formation which consciously guides and rules this creative will in terms of the personality.”

“The essential point in this process is the fact that he evolves his ego ideal from himself, not merely on the ground of the given but also of self-chosen factors which he strives after consciously.”

Quotes from Will Therapy and Truth and Reality by Otto Rank