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Courage as Magnitude
A Hidden Virtue of Stoic Philosophy
In recent years, Stoic philosophy has emerged as a sort of “pop culture” philosophy. We walk into popular bookstores and see multiple different translations of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations; we see self-help books with the word “Stoic” in the title, and we see plenty of accounts on Social Media about Stoicism.
This is not a degradation of these accounts or these books. It is a good thing to see philosophy become more mainstream. In this pop-culture philosophy, we are taught how to deal with the vicissitudes of life in the Stoic way. When we read Meditations or if we read the Enchiridion by Epictetus, we are reminded of some themes of Stoic philosophy such as learning to deal with what is in our control, remembering how short our life really is, meditating on finitude and keeping virtue in mind as the ultimate goal.
Yet, this is what I mean by pop-culture philosophy. These ancient works, while amazing, only offer us small insight into the concept of Stoic Virtue which has a rich history in its own right, and as Edward Vernon Arnold mentions in his comprehensive lectures on Stoicism, these works take on a tone that is more characteristic of the Cynic philosophers. To truly understand Stoic theory, one should delve into different aspects of the tradition other than the seeming self-help Stoic doctrines.
Therefore, in this article, I would like to explore a more adventurous aspect of Stoic philosophy — that of Courage.
Courage
What is courage? Well, this question isn’t so easily defined just as Plato debates in the Laches. At first, Courage is defined as “Standing firm” by Laches, which is refuted by Socrates because retreat can be the more courageous of the actions we can take. Then it is suggested that Courage is equivalent to endurance, especially endurance of the soul. This is again refuted because endurance can be foolish, and foolish endurance simply couldn’t be virtuous.
Then it is suggested that Courage is knowledge of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped. It seems as though we are onto something with this definition. If Courage is knowledge of what is to be feared and hoped, then, Socrates explains, knowledge is necessary for virtue.
