Arete in its basic sense, means excellence of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one's full potential. Arete in ancient Greek culture was courage and strength in the face of adversity and it was to what all people aspired.

"The most articulated value in Greek culture is Areté. Translated as "virtue," the word actually means something closer to "being the best you can be," or "reaching your highest human potential."

The term from Homeric times onwards is not gender specific. Homer applies the term of both the Greek and Trojan heroes as well as major female figures, such as Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero, Odysseus. In the Homeric poems, Areté is frequently associated with bravery, but more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of Areté is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength, bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results. In the Homeric world, then, Areté involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans. The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world.

Areté is explicitly linked with human knowledge, where the expressions "virtue is knowledge" and "Areté is knowledge" are used interchangeably. The highest human potential is knowledge and all other human abilities are derived from this central capacity. If Areté is knowledge and study, the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself; in this light, the theoretical study of human knowledge, which Aristotle called "contemplation," is the highest human ability and happiness." -Richard Hooker http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/ARETE.HTM

History

The Ancient Greeks applied the term to anything: for example, the excellence of a chimney, the excellence of a bull

Bull

Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...

 to be bred and the excellence of a man

Man

The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...

. The meaning of the word changes depending on what it describes, since everything has its own peculiar excellence; the arete of a man is different from the arete of a horse. This way of thinking comes first from Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, where it can be seen in the Allegory of the Cave

Allegory of the cave

The Allegory of the Cave—also known as the Analogy of the Cave, Plato's Cave, or the Parable of the Cave—is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate "our nature in its education and want of education"...

. In particular, the aristocratic class

Aristocracy

Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...

 was presumed, essentially by definition, to be exemplary of arete: "The root of the word is the same as aristos, the word which shows superlative ability and superiority, and "aristos" was constantly used in the plural to denote the nobility

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

."

By the 4th and 5th centuries BC, arete as applied to men had developed to include quieter virtues, such as dikaiosyne (justice

Justice

Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

) and sophrosyne

Sophrosyne

Sophrosyne is a Greek philosophical term etymologically meaning healthy-mindedness and from there self-control or moderation guided by knowledge and balance....

(self-restraint). Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 attempted to produce a moral philosophy that incorporated this new usage, but it was in the work of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 that the doctrine of arete found its fullest flowering. Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean

Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's best known work on ethics. The English version of the title derives from Greek Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, transliterated Ethika Nikomacheia, which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as Ἠθικῶν Νικομαχείων, Ethikōn Nikomacheiōn...

is a paradigm example of his thinking.

Arete has also been used by Aristotle when talking about athletic training and also the education of young boys. Stephen G. Miller delves into this usage in his book "Ancient Greek Athletics". Aristotle is quoted as deliberating between education towards arete "...or those that are theoretical". Educating towards arete in this sense means that the boy would be educated towards things that are useful in life. But even Aristotle himself says that arete is not something that can be agreed upon. He says, "Nor is there even an agreement about what constitutes arete, something that leads logically to a disagreement about the appropriate training for arete. To say that arete has a common definition of excellence or fulfillment may be an overstatement simply because it was very difficult to pinpoint arete, much less the proper ways to go about obtaining it.

Athletics

It was commonly believed that the mind, body, and soul each had to be developed and prepared for a man to live a life of arete. This led to the thought that athletics had to be present in order to obtain arete. They did not need to consume one's life, merely exercise the body into the right condition for arete, just like the mind and soul would be exercised by other means.

Homer

In Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

and Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

, "arete" is used mainly to describe hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

es and nobles and their mobile dexterity, with special reference to strength

Physical strength

Physical strength is the ability of a person or animal to exert force on physical objects using muscles. Increasing physical strength is the goal of strength training.-Overview:...

 and courage

Courage

Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation...

, but it is not limited to this. Penelope

Penelope

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him....

's arete, for example, relates to co-operation, for which she is praised by Agamemnon

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...

. The excellence of the gods generally included their power, but, in the Odyssey (13.42), the gods can grant excellence to a life, which is contextually understood to mean prosperity. Arete

Arete (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Queen Arete of Scheria was the wife of Alcinous and mother of Nausicaa and Laodamas. She welcomed Odysseus and treated him hospitably. Her name appears to be associated with the Ionic noun...

 was also the name of King Alcinous

Alcinous

Alcinous or Alkínoös was, in Greek mythology, a son of Nausithous, or of Phaeax , and father of Nausicaa, Halius, Clytoneus and Laodamas with Arete. His name literally means "mighty mind"...

's wife.

According to Bernard Knox

Bernard Knox

Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox was an English classicist, author, and critic who became an American citizen. He was the first director of the Center for Hellenic Studies. In 1992 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Knox for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S...

's notes found in the Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer...

 translation of The Odyssey, "arete" is also associated with the Greek word for pray, "araomai" .

Personification

Arete was occasionally personified as a goddess, the sister of Harmonia

Harmonia (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.-Origins:...

 (a personification of concord), daughter of the goddess of justice

Justice

Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

 Praxidike

Praxidike

In Greek mythology, Praxidike is the goddess of judicial punishment and the exactor of vengeance, which were two closely allied concepts in the classical Greek world-view....

.

Arete and Harmonia were known jointly as the Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice). As with many minor Greek deities, there's little or no real mythical background to Arete, who is used at most as a personification of virtue. The only story involving Arete was originally told in the 5th century BC by the sophist Prodicus

Prodicus

Prodicus of Ceos was a Greek philosopher, and part of the first generation of Sophists. He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Plato treats him with greater respect than the other sophists, and in several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears...

, and concerns the early life of the hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

 Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

.

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 (κακία, "badness"), offered him wealth and pleasure. Heracles chose to follow the path of Arete.

This story was later used by Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 writers, such as Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....

, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria

Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

, and Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian...

, but Justin and Basil change Arete from a modest and attractive maiden into a squalidly dressed and unattractive figure.

Paideia

Arete is a significant part of the paideia

Paideia

In ancient Greek, the word n. paedeia or paideia [ to educate + - -IA suffix1] means child-rearing, education. It was a system of instruction in Classical Athens in which students were given a well-rounded cultural education. Subjects included rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, music, philosophy,...

 of ancient Greeks: the training of the boy to manhood. This training in arete included: physical training, for which the Greeks developed the gymnasion

Gymnasium (ancient Greece)

The gymnasium in ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Ancient Greek term gymnós meaning "naked". Athletes competed in the nude, a practice said to...

, mental training, which included oratory

Oratory

Oratory is a type of public speaking.Oratory may also refer to:* Oratory , a power metal band* Oratory , a place of worship* a religious order such as** Oratory of Saint Philip Neri ** Oratory of Jesus...

, rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

, and basic sciences, and spiritual

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 training, which included music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 and what is called virtue

Virtue

Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

.

Examples of usage

• "Virtue (arete) then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it."
• "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence (arete), if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (The Admonition of Paul in Philippians)
• Robert Pirsig uses "arete" as a synonym for Quality in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a 1974 philosophical novel, the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of Quality.The book sold 5 million copies worldwide...
  
  . This 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?" - 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?"
• "O father Zeus, give honor to this hymn for a victor at Olympia, and to his now famous arete in boxing" From a Pindarian ode inscribed on an Olympic victor's statue of Diagoras of Rhodes that is set up in Olympia.