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''Arete'' (Greek: ἀρετή), in its basic sense, means "excellence of any kind".〔Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', 9th ed. (Oxford, 1940), s.v. ().〕 The term may also mean "moral virtue".〔 In its earliest appearance in Greek, 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. 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, Arete is frequently associated with bravery, but more often with effectiveness. The man or woman of Arete is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties—strength, bravery and wit—to achieve real results. In the Homeric world, then, Arete 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. In some contexts, Arete is explicitly linked with human knowledge, where the expressions "virtue is knowledge" and "Arete is knowledge" are used interchangeably. The highest human potential is knowledge and all other human abilities are derived from this central capacity. If Arete 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 to be bred and the excellence of a man. 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, where it can be seen in the Allegory of the Cave.〔(Greek Philosophy: The Allegory of the Cave, The Divided Line )〕 In particular, the aristocratic class 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."〔''Paideia; the Ideals of Greek Culture'', Werner Jaeger, Oxford University Press, NY, 1945. Vol. I, pg 5.〕 By the 5th and 4th centuries BC, ''arete'' as applied to men had developed to include quieter virtues, such as ''dikaiosyne'' (justice) and ''sophrosyne'' (self-restraint). Plato attempted to produce a moral philosophy that incorporated this new usage,〔And in so doing, developed ideas that played a central part in later Christian thought〕 but it was in the work of Aristotle that the doctrine of ''arete'' found its fullest flowering. Aristotle's ''Doctrine of the Mean'' is a paradigm example of his thinking. Arete has also been used by Plato 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 Plato 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."〔Miller 2004〕 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arete (moral virtue)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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