' Platonic philosophy begins with the Socratic
thinking about arete and keeps its tie with it to the end. This mode
of knowledge is amplified in the course of Plato's work and
extends to the whole realm of knowledge: man, the state, the world.
What is already present in the early dialogues runs through the
whole of Plato's philosophizing, whose power of growth seems to
know no limit.'
Karl Jaspers, Plato and Augustine , trans. by
Ralph Manheim(Harcourt, San Diego, 1962) pp15-16.
b) In Laws Plato defines the essence of all true culture,
paideia , as 'the education in arete from youth onwards, which
makes men passionately desire to become perfect citizens, knowing
both how to rule and how to be ruled on a basis of justice' ....
arete is defined as the finest possible expression of the
inspiration of heroic strife.
Werner Jaeger, Paideia vol 1