Philosophy and Courage

This article proposes the first conceptual coordinates for a renewal of
the concept of courage. By distinguishing two forms of conceptualizing
courage (as a male and military virtue based upon knowledge, on the one
side, and as an element of becoming a subject constitutive of truth, on the
other) that originate in Plato, it shows how one of these forms was taken
up by an Aristotelian strand within the history of philosophy, whereas
the other leads from Plato through Hegel and ultimately to Lacan and
Badiou. The central thesis is that today it is the latter logically female
version of courage that might be useful and even needed for rethinking
not only contemporary forms of political action but subjectivization in
general. The article suggests that a rendering of such a concept of courage
must be conceived of as a specific form of working with anxiety