The idea of hardiness in the philosophy of Virtues from Antiquity to Early Modern period

The philosophy of virtues, being a phraseological part of philosophical knowledge, underwent a significant change from Antiquity to the middle Ages and early Modern period. Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato laid the foundations of the so-called cardinal (civic) virtues necessary for a good life. One of them becomes the main carrier of hardiness – courage, which is the central subject of research in this work. The further development of arethalogy, then pedagogy, psychology and other modern disciplines, and philosophical trends up to the present day repeatedly turns to the idea of hardiness, which is designed to give a person support in a changing world, in borderline existential situations, to find the strength of the spirit and strengthen the body to withstand life's troubles and adequately face death.. Earlier, Modern Periods, having inherited and combined much of ancient and medieval arethalogy, proposed a number of ideas that laid an active foundation in courage, transforming reality, including political. The research methodology is based on the principle of historicism, which made it possible to trace the development of the idea of hardiness through the philosophy of virtues from ancient and medieval philosophy to Renaissance philosophy, to determine the specifics of their perception. The analysis of the discourse made it possible to correlate the terminological component and the context of the word usage of the idea of hardiness. Using the comparative method, the concepts of courage in philosophical and theological systems are compared. An interpretation of the history of the concept of hardiness is proposed within the framework of the philosophy of virtues (arethology), which developed in the Socratic philosophical tradition as courage, one of the main cardinal virtues guided by reason; in the Christian tradition, theological virtues are added, which determine its orientation by faith and hope for divine grace and mercy. The novelty of the work lies in the study of courage as a manifestation of hardiness throughout Antiquity, the middle Ages and the Renaissance within the framework of the dichotomies of that time: body – soul / spirit, mind – passions, inner – outer, active – contemplative life, and state – private life. Depending on the philosophical system, courage manifests itself through a different combination of three basic hardiness strategies: enduring, transforming, and avoiding reality.

hardiness, philosophy of virtues, courage, cardinal virtues, theological virtues, Socratic tradition, Epicureans, Stoics, patristics end Thomism, Renaissance humanism