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Hubris is a Greek term that means excessive/deadly pride or arrogance before the gods. She is also a personified daemon. Soon after one succumbs to Hubris, Nemesis enacts retribution.

Since hubris is such a bad thing, did the Greeks have a term opposite of it?

2 Answers 2

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The opposite of Hubris is Sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη). It is considered an important quality to have and is expressed in opposition to the concept of hubris. The meaning of the concept Sophrosyne is, "an ideal of excellence of character and soundness of mind." No language has an equal word to Sophrosyne.

When one has Sophrosyne, it leads to other qualities of humble importance. Qualities are such: temperance, moderation, prudence, purity, and self-control.

The word Sophrosyne was used in Plato's writing and my have been influenced by Heraclitus. His fragment 112 states, "Sophrosyne is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is speaking and acting the trust, paying heed to the nature of things."

Sophrosyne is also a personified daemon. She was released from Pandora's jar and left the cosmos on her way to Olympus.

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    Could you please point us to a source (or two) where Sophrosyne "is expressed in opposition to the concept of hubris".
    – yannis
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 8:23
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    @yannis , home.earthlink.net/~dbscr/Sophros.htm ... 'Arrogance, insolent self-assertion, was the quality most despised by the Greeks. Sophrosyne was the exact opposite.' ... Hubris in ancient Greece meant arrogance against the gods, which, in term, can plainly mean arrogance. The quote and link above says Sophrosyne is the exact opposite of arrogance. Commented May 7, 2018 at 15:17
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    This is a good answer, although I still think "humility" is the proper opposite. But I'll have to build a case, as you have here! I think your answer is correct in the context of how sophrosyne could be used, relating to temperance as discretion and conduct (moderation in all things!), where hubris is an excess or extreme--a lack of discretion due to unmoderated pride.
    – DukeZhou
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 21:29
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    @yannis archive.org/details/sophrosyneselfkn00nort/page/10/mode/…
    – cmw
    Commented Mar 2, 2021 at 13:00
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    Plato contrasts the two in Phaedrus 237e-238a @yannis
    – b a
    Commented Mar 3, 2021 at 21:23
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Following E.R. Dodds' (1951) The Greeks and the Irrational, I'd suggest that @Andrew Johnson and @DukeZhou are both correct, in a way.

Among the Ancient Greeks, Greek sōphrosynē ("moderation," "temperance") was sometimes considered to be the opposite of Greek hybris, English "hubris." Among the Christians, however, Dodd's suggested the opposite of hybris/hubris was "humility" (Latin: humilitas; Greek: tapeinós).

(As two asides, in Ancient Greek, tapeinós often meant "debased," "dejected," "low-lying," even "bad" in the sense of "debased". And, technically speaking, the opposite of sōphrosynē is often considered by etymologists to be represented by the Greek word mania: "madness.")

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  • One of the problems with the original question is that it flattens out a thousand years of literature. In Old English, blac and blæc could be seen as opposites, while their modern counterparts, bleak and black, couldn't.
    – cmw
    Commented Jan 23, 2023 at 1:49

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