The Socratic and Platonic Conception of Arete - Coursework Example

Download file to see previous pages Before we can understand how Areté can be learned, it is important to understand how this concept has been used by Socrates and Plato which can help us in understanding what areté really is. The meaning of areté can be made clear by showing its connection with virtue as described by Yu (1998) who says that, “The word "virtue" is a transliteration of the Latin virtus (from vir, literally "manhood"), which was in turn employed by Latin authors to translate the Greek areté, originally referring to excellence of manly qualities (Yu, 1998, Pg. 323)”.

Since the philosophers of the time were often concerned with the functions of things, a large part of Plato’s work is dedicated to the function and purposes of things and how something which performs its function well displays the qualities of areté. For example, even emotions such as love and hate can have an aspect of areté as described by Plato. When it comes to love, honorable and heavenly love works with its highest functions i.e. areté by, “Giving birth in beauty both in body and mind (Plato, The Symposium, pg. 43)”. In a similar manner, when it comes to objects, areté would be how well they perform their required function.

This idea of function can be applied to anything at all and the excellence of function becomes the notion of areté. A book can be excellent in terms of the knowledge it contains within, a knife can be excellent if it cuts through all that it is meant to cut and a horse can be excellent with regard to its speed and stamina. Of course, it is possible for things to have only one measure of excellence since a knife can only be used to cut and may not be used to ride. On the other hand, things may have more than one measure of areté since a horse can be measured on the scale of strength as well as top speed or stamina.

However, the concept of areté can be further developed with application to higher-order things such as the concepts of love, friendship, and duty. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More