Abstract
“VIRTUE AND VICE” IN TURKISH AS THE CONCEPTS OF BINARY OPPOSITION
Philosophy, functioning with abstract thinking, has been founded on abstract concepts since the antiquity. The transmission of the history of philosophy and philosophical thoughts from the sources of different languages necessitates those concepts to be fulfilled in Turkish that is the target language. The usage of originally Latin concepts of “virtue” and “vice” in English, which are the most significant concepts of ethics–one of the major sub-branches of philosophy–varies in Turkish at present. Those opposite concepts used especially in virtue ethics are corresponded with “erdem ve erdemsizlik (virtue and virtuelessness)” or “erdem ve ahlaksızlık (virtue and immorality)”. However, considering that the concept of “vice” is the opposite of virtue rather than being its negative, in this study it will be discussed that it corresponds to the concept of “kusur (defect, fault)”, which has not settled exactly yet and is used less frequently in Turkish.
In this regard, the concepts of “erdemsizlik” or “ahlaksızlık” used instead of “kusur” create an intellectual gap in Turkish philosophical studies as they do not reflect the binary opposition completely. Thus, the dichotomy of virtue/vice, one of the basic binary oppositions of ethics will be scrutinised regarding their subcomponents in the context of philosophy and language. In this way, this study aims to propose the concepts of “erdem” and “kusur”, appearing as binary oppositions in western languages, to be also located as binary oppositions in Turkish and Turkish philosophy dictionaries.
Keywords
Virtue/vice, erdem/kusur, binary opposition, virtue ethics.