Fear as Related to Courage: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Redefinition of Cognitive Emotions

The relationship between fear and courage has been discussed in terms of opposite but mutually involving notions. However, their link has not been inquired extensively. Recently, new light has been shed on the topic thanks to recent empirical evidence with in emotion theories stressing the role played by perception and/or cognition in the experience of fear as well as the role played by the “emotional virtue” of courage in fear regulation. Questions arise whether fear has a fundamentally perceptual structure or is a biologically grounded natural kind and whether such an emotion related virtue as courage is intrinsically or extrinsically related to fear. This paper considers the latter problem first, broadens the view to fear modelling, and drives some conclus ions aimed at deepening the relationship between fear and courage. As a result, it emerges that the emotion of fear has conceptual, emotional, situational, and subjective dimensions. Assuming fear as a possible emotional centre within the subject’s cogniti ve experience, the virtue of courage appears to balance the excess and lack of fear and is consequently related to rational thought and consistent behaviour, laying the foundations for a new Aristotelian Thomistic (A T) account for it.