Sophrosyne

Sophrosyne

Stephen Darori on Family Recipes and Cooking

 

Sophrosyne (so-fro-soo-nay, in my area of the globe) is such an elegant word you might want to learn it just so you can say it. Practically, the chances increase the longer you spend studying Classics that you will run into it. Plato‘s Charmides dialogue is about it, so don’t expect to be an expert in it immediately. But, on the other hand, don’t feel threatened by it, as I did. I felt that because it was so exotic a word, I was missing essential connotations not supplied by the Latin equivalent: temperantia, which we translate into English as temperance.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary does not have an entry on sophrosyne, but names this virtue in connection with the Stoics because sophrosyne is a virtue incorporating self-control and moderation. For the Stoics, sophrosyne, courage, prudence, and justice were all cardinal virtues.

The Dictionary of the History of Ideas says…

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