arete

The ancient Greeks applied the term {{transliteration|grc|arete}} ({{Langx|grc|{{Linktext|ἀρετή}}|translit=|label=none}}) to anything: for example, the excellence of a chimney, the excellence of a bull for breeding, and the excellence of a man. The meaning of the word changes depending on what it describes since everything has its own excellence; the {{transliteration|grc|arete}} of a man is different from the {{transliteration|grc|arete}} of a horse. This way of thinking originates from Plato, where it can be seen in the Allegory of the Cave.{{Cite web|title=Plato, Republic, Book 6|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+6&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0168|access-date=2021-11-30|website=Perseus Digital Library}} In particular, the aristocratic class was presumed, essentially by definition, to be exemplary of {{transliteration|grc|arete}}:

The root of the word is the same as {{transliteration|grc|aristos}}, the word which shows superlative ability and superiority, and {{transliteration|grc|aristos}} was constantly used in the plural to denote the nobility.{{cite book|title=Paideia; the Ideals of Greek Culture|first=Werner|last=Jaeger|author-link=Werner Jaeger|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|year=1945|volume=I|page=5}}

Aristotle deliberated on the various goals of education: including practical skills, {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, and theory.{{cite book|author=Aristotle|author-link=Aristotle|title=Politics|title-link=Politics (Aristotle)|at=VIII}}{{cite book |url = https://archive.org/details/aretegreeksports0000unse_j0h6 |title = Ancient Greek Athletics |first = Stephen G. |last = Miller |date= 2004|author-link=Stephen G. Miller |publisher = University of California Press |isbn = 978-0300115291|edition=3rd }}{{rp|[https://archive.org/details/aretegreeksports0000unse_j0h6/page/149/mode/1up 149]–152}} Educating towards {{transliteration|grc|arete}} means boys would be educated towards things that are useful in life. However, there is no agreement about what constitutes {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, which leads to disagreement about how to train students for {{transliteration|grc|arete}}.{{r|Miller|page=[https://archive.org/details/aretegreeksports0000unse_j0h6/page/150/mode/1up 150]}} To say that {{transliteration|grc|arete}} has a common definition of excellence or fulfillment may be an overstatement simply because it was very difficult to pinpoint {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, much less the proper ways to go about obtaining it.

In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, {{transliteration|grc|arete}} mainly describes heroes and nobles and their mobile dexterity, with special reference to strength and courage, though it is not limited to this. For instance, the excellence of the gods generally included their power, but, in the Odyssey (13.42), Odysseus asked the gods to grant the Phaeacians {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, which here is generally translated as prosperity.{{Cite web|title=Homer, Odyssey|at=Book 13, line 1|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0136:book=13:card=1|access-date=2021-11-30|website=Perseus Digital Library}} Penelope's {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, as another example, relates to co-operation, for which she is praised by Agamemnon. Though associated with "manly" qualities, the Homeric usage of the term was not necessarily gender-specific, as Homer applied the term to major female figures as well as the Greek and Trojan heroes.

The Odyssey states that "far-sounding Zeus takes away half the arete of a man, when the day of slavery takes hold of him."{{cite book |last1=Powell |first1=Anton |title=The Greek World |date=11 September 2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-69864-6 |page=53 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dsOEAgAAQBAJ&dq=slave+arete&pg=PA53 |language=en}}

In the Iliad, the way Homer describes Achilles is an example of {{transliteration|grc|arete}}. {{transliteration|grc|Arete}} is associated with the goodness and prowess of a warrior. Debra Hawhee points out that the norms and practices of Athenian virtuosity "operate within the politics of reputation, whose normative poles are honor and shame."{{cite journal | last=Hawhee | first=Debra | title=Agonism and Arete | journal=Philosophy and Rhetoric | publisher=The Pennsylvania State University Press | volume=35 | issue=3 | year=2002 | issn=1527-2079 | doi=10.1353/par.2003.0004 | pages=185–207| s2cid=143802236 }} Dying in battle or securing a victory in the Olympic Games were considered {{Transliteration|grc|agathos}} ("good") and, hence, deserving of {{Transliteration|grc|timê}} ("honor"). So, not only is Achilles a brave and brilliant warrior but also, from the outset, he is destined to die in battle at Troy with the utmost glory—a guarantor of {{transliteration|grc|arete}}.

According to Bernard Knox's notes in the Robert Fagles' translation of The Odyssey, "{{transliteration|grc|arete}}" is also associated with {{Transliteration|grc|araomai}}, the Greek word for "pray".{{cite book|title=The Odyssey|translator-first=Robert|translator-last=Fagles|chapter=Introduction and notes|first=Bernard|last=Knox|publisher=Penguin Classics Deluxe Ed|location=London|date=1996}}

{{Hatnote|For the Roman equivalent deity, see Virtus}}

{{Greek myth (personified)}}

File:Annibale Carracci - The Choice of Heracles - WGA4416.jpg by Carracci, 1596. Depicts Hercules deciding between Vice (right) and Virtue, or Arete (left)|260x260px]]

Arete was occasionally personified as a goddess, the sister of Homonoia (goddess of concord, unanimity, and oneness of mind), and the daughter of Praxidike (goddess of justice). Arete and Homonoia were known jointly as the {{transliteration|grc|Praxidikai}} ("Exacters of Justice"). As with many minor Greek deities, there is little or no real mythical background to Arete, who is used at most as a personification of virtue.

The only surviving story involving Arete was told in {{BCE|the 5th century}} by the sophist Prodicus. Known as "Hercules at the crossroads", it concerns the early life of the hero Heracles. At a crossroads, Arete appeared to Heracles as a young maiden and offered him glory and a life of struggle against evil; her counterpart Kakia ({{Langx|el|κακία|lit=badness|label=none}}) offered him wealth and pleasure. Heracles chose to follow the path of Arete.{{Citation|last=Xenophon|title=The Memorabilia Recollections of Socrates|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm#link2H_4_0004|work=Book II|year=1897|publisher=Macmillan and Co.|access-date=2021-06-11|translator-last=Dakyns}}

This story was later used by Christian writers, such as Methodius of Olympus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Basil of Caesarea.

• In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, chapter 6: "Virtue ({{transliteration|grc|arete}}), then, is a habit or trained faculty of choice, the characteristic of which lies in moderation or observance of the mean relatively to the persons concerned, as determined by reason, i.e., by the reason by which the prudent man would determine it."{{cite book|author=Aristotle|author-link=Aristotle|title=Nicomachean Ethics|title-link=Nicomachean Ethics|translator-first=F.H.|translator-last=Peters|chapter=II. Moral Virtue|chapter-url=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/f-h-peters/text/book-2#chapter-2-1-6|date=1906}}
• In the Admonition of Paul in {{bibleverse|Philippians|4:8}}: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence ({{transliteration|grc|arete}}) and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
• Robert Pirsig uses "{{transliteration|grc|arete}}" as a synonym for "quality" in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which includes an extensive discussion of Plato's Phaedrus and the historical contrast between Dialectic and Rhetoric: "And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good—Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"{{cite book|author-link=Robert M. Pirsig|last=Pirsig|first=Robert M.|year=1974|title=Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance|title-link=Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance}} Pirsig's line plays off a line in the Platonic dialogue The Phaedrus which reads: "And what is well and what is badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?"{{cite book|author=Plato|author-link=Plato|title-link=Phaedrus (dialogue)|title=Phaedrus|translator-link=Benjamin Jowett|translator-first=Benjamin|translator-last=Jowett}}
• In a Pindarian ode inscribed on the base of an Olympian victor's statue for the boxer Diagoras of Rhodes: "O father Zeus, give honor to this hymn for a victor at Olympia, and to his now famous {{transliteration|grc|arete}} in boxing."
• Arete is the name of a key protagonist in The Philosopher Kings, the second book of Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy in which a group of people gathered by the time-traveling goddess Athena work to achieve the ideal society as described in Plato's Republic. She is a precocious teenager who also appears in the sequel. Arete's name and its meaning ("excellence") is a small but important plot point in the book—as well as a general theme of the series as a whole.

{{transliteration|grc|Arete}} was also used by Plato in his discussion of athletic training and the education of young boys. It was commonly believed that the mind, body, and soul each had to be developed for a man to live a life of {{transliteration|grc|arete}}. This led to the thought that athletics had to be present in order to obtain {{transliteration|grc|arete}}. Athletics did not need to occupy one's life, but could be used to exercise the body into the right condition for {{transliteration|grc|arete}}, just as the mind and soul would be exercised by other means.

{{transliteration|grc|Arete}} is a significant part of the {{transliteration|grc|paideia}} of ancient Greeks: the training of the boy to manhood. This training in {{transliteration|grc|arete}} included physical training, for which the Greeks developed the {{transliteration|grc|gymnasion}}; mental training, which included oratory, rhetoric, and basic sciences; and spiritual training, which included music and what is called virtue.

• {{annotated link|Aretaic turn}}
• {{annotated link|Aretology}}
• {{annotated link|Maturity (psychological)}}
• {{annotated link|Mens sana in corpore sano}} ("a healthy mind in a healthy body")
• {{annotated link|Pirsig's metaphysics of Quality}}
• {{annotated link|Virtue ethics}}
• {{annotated link|Virtus}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Kerferd|first=G.B.|date=1967|chapter=Arete/Agathon/Kakon|title=The Encyclopedia of Philosophy|title-link=The Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-first=P.|editor-last=Edwards|location=New York|publisher=Macmillan & The Free Press}}
• [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173495434-aret Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential by Brian Johnson | Goodreads]

{{Ancient Greek philosophical concepts}}

{{Virtues}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Concepts in ancient Greek ethics

Category:Hellenistic deities

Category:Virtue