Courage: A Philosophical Investigation

by Douglas N. Walton

Published January 1st 1986 by University of California Press.

241 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Douglas Neil Walton (PhD University of Toronto, 1972) is a Canadian academic and author, well known for his many widely published books and papers on argumentation, logical fallacies and informal logic. He is presently Distinguished Research Fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric (CRRAR) at the University of Windsor, Canada, and before that (2008-2014), he held the Assumption Chair of Argumentation Studies at the University of Windsor. Walton’s work has been used to better prepare legal arguments and to help develop artificial intelligence. His books have been translated worldwide, and he attracts students from many countries to study with him. A special issue of the journal Informal Logic surveyed Walton’s contributions to informal logic and argumentation theory up to 2006 (Informal Logic, 27(3), 2007). A festschrift honoring his contributions, Dialectics, Dialogue and Argumentation: An Examination of Douglas Walton’s Theories of Reasoning and Argument, ed. C. Reed and C. W. Tindale, London: College Publications, 2010, shows how his theories are increasingly finding applications in computer science. A list of titles of many of Walton’s books is given below. Links to preprints of many of his published papers can be found on the website

http://www.dougwalton.ca

Reviews

[A YOGAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walton analysiert Mut nicht als bloßes Gefühl, sondern als rationale Handlung unter Risiko. Er bricht mit dem Klischee des furchtlosen Helden und definiert Mut als das bewusste Ausharren für ein wertvolles Ziel – trotz berechtigter Angst.
Diese Analyse liefert das moralische Fundament für Figuren wie Anne Brorhilker: Mut erscheint hier nicht als spontaner Impuls, sondern als logische Konsequenz ethischer Notwendigkeit. Walton macht deutlich, dass wahre Zivilcourage dort beginnt, wo die Kosten des Handelns hoch sind – die Kosten des Schweigens für die eigene Integrität jedoch höher.