sophrosyne:
- 1. soundness of mind, discretion, sensible, discreet, wise.
- 2. moderation in desires, self-control, temperance, chastity, sobriety.
—Liddel-Scott
…the subject of the Charmides is, What is sophrosyne? – and that word cannot be translated by any one English word. The truth is that this quality, this sophrosyne, which to the Greeks was an ideal second to none in importance, is not among our ideals. We have lost the conception of it. Enough is said about it in Greek literature for us to be able to describe it in some fashion, but we cannot give it a name. It was the spirit behind the two great Delphic sayings, “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” Arrogance, insolent self-assertion, was the quality most detested by the Greeks. Sophrosyne was the exact opposite. It meant accepting the bounds which excellence lays down for human nature, restraining the impulses to unrestricted freedom, to all excess, obeying the inner laws of harmony and proportion.
—translator’s notes from Plato, Charmides; Benjamin Jowett, trans.
It seems that sophrosyne is the antithesis of the ancient meaning of hubris and that their decline is intertwined.
It also seems, that in the view of Jowett’s notes, many of the things which might be considered ‘common notions of modern democracy’ are in fact hubris.