Heraclitus - Heidegger

The saying of Heraclitus (Fragment 119) goes: ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων [ethos anthropos daimon]. This is usually translated, 'A man's character is his daimon.' This translation thinks in a modern way, not a Greek one. ἦθος [ethos] means abode, dwelling place. The word names the open region in which the human being dwells. The open region of his abode allows what pertains to the essence of the human being, and what in thus arriving resides in nearness to him, to appear. The abode of the human being contains and preserves the advent of what belongs to the human being in his essence. According to Heraclitus's phrase this is δαίμων [daimon], the god. The fragment says: the human being dwells, insofar as he is a human being, in the nearness of god.



M.H.  'Letter on Humanism', in Pathmarks.  Cambridge, 1998.

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