If I may join in belatedly with the chat about daemons, here's a paragraph
of my own, complete with footnote:
It is worth paying closer attention to the way in which he 'means'
happiness, because the construction of the word eudaemonia-conventionally
translated as 'happiness'-is, I believe, significant. More literally,
eudaemonia breaks down to 'good spirit', the spirit being something subtly
external, according to OED, 'a supernatural being of a nature intermediate
between that of gods and men; an inferior divinity, spirit, genius
(including the souls or ghosts of deceased persons, esp. deified heroes)'
cognate with the Biblical (and especially early Christian) notion of angel,
and distinct from the inwardly-directing daimonion claimed by Socrates as
his guide and apparently misrepresented by his accusers as evidence for the
presence of a malevolent spirit.(1) In present-day usage the word daemon
crops up in computer operating systems, where it refers to programs that
perform background administrative tasks. This benign ascription of control
is distinguished from the malevolent control ascribed to demons by the
simple addition of an e. We could ascribe this 'good spirit' to an
appreciation for the regard in which the individual is held by others-in
other words, it is those who hold good opinions of the happy one that
personify the good spirits that Aristotle posits.
(1) Svenbro (1999, 50) suggests that the distrust of fellow Athenians for
Socrates' daimonion is due precisely to the fact that no one else could hear
it. Liddell & Scott (1940)-not necessarily the last word on etymology-gives
'knowing, experienced in' for daemon. Cf. Lacedaemon, the Athenian term for
a Spartan. Sparta being otherwise known as Laconia, and the 'lac-' part
being cognate with 'hollow' or 'shallow', the term Lacedaemon seems to be an
uncomplimentary pun-'shallow spirit' or 'hollow spirit'.
P
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