Studia Philosophica et Historica – serie

This book offers a thorough and precise analysis of Aristotle's (384 - 322 B.C.) theory of the virtue of courage. On the one hand the reader will find a meticulous commentary on relevant chapters from the Nicomachean Ethics and from Aristotle's lectures on Rhetoric. In addition, extensive references to Plato's (427 - 346 B.C.) discussion of courage, as put forward in his dialogue Laches, help to clarify Aristotle's position. On the other hand the author fathoms on Aristotelian grounds the still topical problems related to courage in terms of systematic moral philosophy: Which role do rational choice and knowledge play with regard to ethical virtues such as courage? Is there some specific objective attached to courage in particular and to ethical virtues in general? How can one tell apart those who only seem or pretend to be courageous and those who are really so? Is there any special method or strategy for defining ethical concepts?

«Concept» is a central notion in modern philosophy that also influences other disciplines like psychology and linguistics. The author compares modern theories to the work of Aristotle as the first philosopher with an extensive corpus and one of the predecessors both of classical theory and of modal theories of «concepts». It is surprising that there is no equivalent term for «concept» in his work. Both pathêma and logos are central to his theory of language and thought. Therefore, this book describes which notion in Aristotle’s writing comes closest to «concept» and whether or not it generates a precise theory.

The main aim of this book is to provide a critical and historical inquiry into Kant’s schematism chapter contained in the Critique of Pure Reason. More specifically, the book argues that Kant’s schematism chapter is a necessary step within the project of the Critique. It deals with a problem of its own, one which is not the object of the previous chapters: How can categories be applied to intuitions? The author shows that the term ‘schema’ has an interesting and long tradition of different philosophical uses that finds in the works of Kant a point of no-return. In the philosophical works written before Kant, the notion of schema did not have a specific and distinctive meaning and function of its own but was rather used in different contexts (from rhetoric to logic to psychology). After Kant, all philosophers who speak of schemata refer in one way or another back to Kant’s distinctive notion, which possesses a specific, epistemic meaning. Moreover, this book aims to provide a contribution to the understanding of the relation between philosophy and the sciences. It is by means of demonstrating the importance of the schematism chapter not only within the Critique but also from a broader perspective, deriving from the fact that Kant’s doctrine of schemata had an impressive influence not only on philosophers but also on psychologists.