On Confidence

Abstract

Confidence or trust is obviously a sort of reliance or dependence. Confidence is related to fiducia, which in turn is related to fido and to the Greek peitho. The latter term implies persuasion or persuasiveness. If we follow, as we should, the nuances hidden in these terms, we may assume that confidence is a reliance stemming from persuasion or accompanied by it. Confidence may be related to a person, including oneself, and in this sense we speak of self-confidence; or it may be related to another person, either in the singular or in the plural, or even perhaps to the course of events at large, to history, to the cosmos, to God etc. It is in this sense that confidence is the opposite of or contradictory to fear. And Aristotle indeed placed the brave man between the two poles of fear and confidence. The man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward.