Goethe's Concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients

Erik1 · December 19, 2014, 1:27am

This thread is going to be about a philosophical text on the concept of the daemonic. The title of the text is Goethe’s concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients by Angus Nicholls. It’s an excellent book, because it’s not merely about Goethe’s concept of the daemon, but pretty much the entire history of it. The concept of the daemon originated in ancient Greece. It’s a nuanced philosophical/religious concept, but I believe it’s safe to say that, in general, it is defined as a spiritual mediator or sensibility between two realities, e.g., the divine realm and the Earthly realm. I will put in entries of passages from the text and a link to a free E-book download of it, below.

booksee.org/book/1079437

Erik1 · December 19, 2014, 12:20pm

“The idea of the daemonic,” wrote Walter Benjamin,
“accompanies Goethe’s vision all his life.” For Plato, the
daemonic is a sensibility that brings individuals into contact
with divine knowledge. Socrates also relied upon a
“divine voice” known as his “daimonion,” which inspired
him in situations where his rational methods had reached
an impasse, thereby showing the limitations of reason itself.
Goethe was introduced to this ancient concept of the
daemon by Hamann and Herder, who associated nonrational,
daemonic inspiration with an aesthetic category
of central importance to early German Romanticism: that
of “Genius.” Angus Nicholls’s book shows how the young
Goethe initially depicted the idea of daemonic genius in
works of the Storm and Stress period, before exploring the
daemonic in a series of later poetic and autobiographical
works. Reading Goethe’s works on the daemonic through
theorists such as Lukács, Benjamin, Gadamer, Adorno,
and Blumenberg, Nicholls contends that they contain
philosophical arguments concerning reason, nature, and
subjectivity that are central to both European Romanticism
and the Enlightenment. This is the first book to examine
Goethe’s writings on the daemonic in relation to
both Classical philosophy and German idealism.

Erik1 · December 19, 2014, 12:24pm

In ancient Greek thought, daemons were seen as intermediaries between
the world of the divine and the material world, and Plato would
also have been aware of the conception of the philosopher as a daemon or
intermediary between the secular and the divine. This idea is present only
fifty years or so before Plato’s birth in the thought of Empedocles.
Empedocles’ notion of the daemon as an exile who has been banished
from the kingdom of the gods is presented in fragment 107 of the
Katharmoi, often called “The Decree of Necessity”:

[size=85]There is a decree of necessity, ratified long ago by gods, eternal and
sealed by broad oaths, that whenever one in error, from fear, (defiles)
his own limbs, having by his error made false the oath he
swore — daimons to whom life long-lasting is apportioned — he
wanders from the blessed ones for three times countless years, being
born throughout the time as all kinds of mortal forms, exchanging
one hard way of life for another. For the force of air pursues him
into the sea, and sea spits him out onto earth’s surface, earth casts
him into rays of blazing sun, and sun into the eddies of air; one takes
There is a decree of necessity, ratified long ago by gods, eternal and
sealed by broad oaths, that whenever one in error, from fear, (defiles)
his own limbs, having by his error made false the oath he
swore — daimons to whom life long-lasting is apportioned — he
wanders from the blessed ones for three times countless years, being
born throughout the time as all kinds of mortal forms, exchanging
one hard way of life for another. For the force of air pursues him
into the sea, and sea spits him out onto earth’s surface, earth casts
him into rays of blazing sun, and sun into the eddies of air; one takeshim from another, and all abhor him. I too am one of these, an exile
from the gods and a wanderer, having put my trust in raving strife.14[/size]

The daemon is cast out of heaven as a result of committing the sin of
bloodshed (defilement of the limbs), which is viewed as an act that produces
a pollution of the divine part of the soul. This act also constitutes a
transgression of the bond or oath imposed upon the daemon by Love,
and accordingly he becomes subject to miasma: a kind of infection of the
soul that separates him from his divine counterparts and begins the cycle
of his existence on earth in different incarnations of mortal life.15 The
daemon is then presented with the task of reunifying himself with the
gods, as this will represent his redemption. Thus, as M. R. Wright observes
in his commentary on the Katharmoi, “to be forced from the company
of his fellows for a time of exile, and eventually to return to them, is
basic to Empedocles’ theory of the daimon.”

Erik1 · December 19, 2014, 12:33pm

The daemon’s fate is produced by a
necessity that can only be described as an indeterminate or unknowable
cause. In this way, Empedocles gives a name to that which is unknowable
and incalculable. There is, moreover, no sense in which the daemon’s
banishment can be accounted for in terms of the Christian psychology of
sin. The daemon has not sinned in the modern psychological sense of
freely and consciously choosing a particular course of action. Rather, as
M. R. Wright puts it, “although the daimon has come under the power of
Strife . . . this need not imply wrong intention or power of choice on the
part of the daimon.”17 For Empedocles, and for other pre-Socratics like
Heraclitus, character was an objective and not a subjective phenomenon.
As is seen in the example of Empedocles’ daemon, one’s character is not
really a matter of choice or subjective will; rather, human acts are seen to
flow from an external, divine agency associated with necessity.18
Accordingly, when Heraclitus states in fragment 119 that “a person’s
character is his daemon,” the term daemon may mean either one’s fate or
one’s guardian divinity.19 In his commentary on fragment 119, T. M.
Robinson argues that the fragment may in fact carry both meanings.
Hence, on the one hand, a daemon may be the soul of a noble individual
who has died — a soul that will subsequently function as a guardian
divinity that protects another person during his or her life, thereby influencing
his or her fate. On the other hand, however, the fragment may
also mean that the person’s own character, and not the soul of another
individual who has died, is their daemon. In this latter sense, according to
Robinson, “one’s own character is also one’s destiny (daemon)” and in
this sense one is completely responsible “for the daemon that is one’s
character.”20 This notion of responsibility is, however, definitely not to be
equated with modern notions concerning the consequences that arise
from the actions of free and autonomous agents. As Charles H. Kahn
observes, Heraclitus identified the individual character with the elemental
powers and constituents of the cosmos. It is these elemental powers, as
opposed to the individual’s freedom and autonomy, that “constitute the
physical explanation or psychophysical identity of the particular life in
question, the elemental equivalent of a given moral and intellectual
character.”21
Similarly, the catastrophic split between the forms and the physical
world depicted by Plato in Timaeus should not be confused with the
Christian Fall. Although, as Ronna Burger points out, the Platonic split
does have something in common with original sin, in the sense that all
humans are born fallen and “in ignorance of the truth,” the split cannot
be said to have occurred as the result of sin in the Christian sense. Rather,
it occurs simply because it was not possible to bring beings based upon
the forms into existence without making them temporal and corporeal.22
The temporal world is fallen, but not in any moral or psychological way:
rather, its fallen-ness is its necessity, as the act of creation in Plato is necessarily
an act of division.
With regard to the fates of individuals, the Platonic daemon is likewise
connected with the notion of necessity, although the idea of sin re-
ceives a stronger treatment in Plato than it does in Empedocles. In the
“Myth of Er” section of The Republic (614b–621d) Plato, through the
character of Er, gives an account of the transmigration of souls similar to
that found in Empedocles’ “Decree of Necessity.” Er, having died in
battle, encounters the “other world” in which souls are allotted their
fates, and then returns to life to tell of his experiences. Er has been
appointed by the judges of the other world as a messenger charged with
reporting to earthly men the events that take place there. He refers to
this other world as a topos daimonios (daemonic place, 614c) as it is here
that souls are required to choose their fates or lots for the next life. The
lots are distributed by Lachesis, the daughter of necessity, and they include
both animal and human forms of life. Each soul may choose its
respective lot, but this choice is soon forgotten, as the souls proceed to
the forgetful river at Lethe and, after drinking their fill, they forget all of
their experiences in the daemonic world, subsequently returning to life
ignorant of their choice of lot. Thus, although Plato implies that each
soul chooses its lot and is therefore responsible for this choice, in the trajectory
of life itself the choice of lots is forgotten, and life appears to be
governed by necessity.
What does Plato mean by calling this other world a daemonic place?
Here daemonic can mean both “of necessity” and “of divination” or
“mantic.” In Heraclitus’s sense of the daemon as the nexus between character
and fate, the world experienced by Er is one in which souls are once
more fated (that is, given a lot) for their next incarnation. This interpretation
also accords with the etymological origin of daemonic in the word
daio, which refers to the division and distribution of divine gifts by the
gods.23 Er’s role as an intermediary or courier who brings news of the
hidden world is also daemonic in the mantic or divinatory sense. The experiences
that he reports take place in an intermediate, transitional world
suspended between life and death, and he himself is something like the
living dead, having mysteriously arisen from his own funeral pyre. Overwhelmingly,
however, the “Myth of Er” is a testament to the inexorable
and unfathomable workings of necessity. This is seen when Plato gives us
a detailed rendering, at 616b–c, of the “Spindle of Necessity” that revolves
upon a “straight light like a pillar . . . extended from above
throughout the heaven and the earth” (PCD, 840), demonstrating the
extent to which Plato’s version of the daemonic is literally a kind of
conduit or tube that transports divine or numinous information to the
physical realm.

Erik1 · December 19, 2014, 12:44pm

What does Plato mean by calling this other world a daemonic place?
Here daemonic can mean both “of necessity” and “of divination” or
“mantic.” In Heraclitus’s sense of the daemon as the nexus between character
and fate, the world experienced by Er is one in which souls are once
more fated (that is, given a lot) for their next incarnation. This interpretation
also accords with the etymological origin of daemonic in the word
daio, which refers to the division and distribution of divine gifts by the
gods. Er’s role as an intermediary or courier who brings news of the
hidden world is also daemonic in the mantic or divinatory sense. The experiences
that he reports take place in an intermediate, transitional world
suspended between life and death, and he himself is something like the
living dead, having mysteriously arisen from his own funeral pyre. Overwhelmingly,
however, the “Myth of Er” is a testament to the inexorable
and unfathomable workings of necessity. This is seen when Plato gives us
a detailed rendering, at 616b–c, of the “Spindle of Necessity” that revolves
upon a “straight light like a pillar . . . extended from above
throughout the heaven and the earth” (PCD, 840), demonstrating the
extent to which Plato’s version of the daemonic is literally a kind of
conduit or tube that transports divine or numinous information to the
physical realm.

Erik1 · December 20, 2014, 9:24pm

Anamnesis

Although the concept of anamnesis is given its most detailed philosophical
treatments in the Meno and the Phaedo, it is in the Phaedrus that Plato
endeavors to present this concept by way of a mythical narrative that displays
some similarities with the account of the soul found in the “Myth of
Er.” All souls, says Socrates in the Phaedrus, were originally winged and
beheld true Being before descending to the material world. Once they
have fallen, most souls forget their previous divine existence. This forgetting
may be attributable to what Plato says about the “forgetful river” at
Lethe, or it may generally be associated with the soul’s contamination by
things evil and foul, which cause the soul’s wings to wither and die, as the
soul’s loss of its wings is concomitant with the forgetting of the forms
(246e). To complicate matters further still, Socrates also suggests later in
the dialogue (at 248c) that the soul’s falling to earth may merely be the
result of an accident or malignant necessity. Having lost its wings and
fallen to earth, where it is forced to dwell in the secondary and derivative
world of matter, the soul is faced with the task of regrowing its wings and
returning to its former divine status.
The capacity to recollect the soul’s previous divine existence is, according
to Socrates, most often found in philosophers. At 249b–c of the
Phaedrus, it is revealed that the philosopher is gifted in this particular area
because he is able to move
[size=85]
from a plurality of perceptions to a unity gathered together by reasoning
— and such understanding is a recollection of those things
which our souls beheld aforetime as they journeyed with their god,
looking down upon the things which now we suppose to be, and
gazing up to that which truly is. (PCD, 496)
[/size]
On one level, anamnesis is associated with reason. Plato sees the dialectical
mode of the Socratic dialogue as a kind of path that leads from particular
instances back to the universal forms. In another sense, however,
anamnesis can be a fundamentally non-rational state of possession. Socrates
argues that in some cases the process of anamnesis takes place as a result
of the subject’s contemplating those aspects of the material world
that, in their beauty and goodness, remind him of the transcendent realm
from which his soul originally emanated. In effect, Socrates contends that
anamnesis may be facilitated by focusing upon the beauty inherent in a
love-object. This, it is explained at 249e, occurs when a man

[size=85]as soon as he beholds the beauty of this world, is reminded of true
beauty, and his wings begin to grow; then is he fain to lift his wingsand fly upward;
yet he has not the power, but inasmuch as he gazes
upward like a bird, and cares nothing for the world beneath, men
charge it upon him that he is demented. (PCD, 496)[/size]

Erik1 · December 20, 2014, 9:30pm

Diotima and the Daemon

Diotima’s speech and that of Aristophanes operate on different
levels. While Aristophanes’ discourse on the origin of love functions as a
kind of comic interlude in the Symposium — albeit a comic interlude that
gives a mythic representation of some of the key features of Plato’s notions
of love as eros — the speech of Diotima is intended to be taken far
more seriously. Socrates tells us that Diotima is a wise woman, and that
he has learnt much from her.
At 199c–201c of the Symposium, prior to Diotima’s speech, Socrates
discusses the nature of love with Agathon. In order to refute Agathon’s
assumption that love is to be equated with the beautiful, Socrates points
out that love must be love of something, and that this something is the
beautiful. Socrates then goes on to argue that because love is the desire
for the beautiful, and given that one who desires always desires that which
he lacks, then love itself is not beautiful. Love and desire are thus defined
by Socrates in terms of a lack, and more specifically, as a lack of beauty
and goodness. It is at this point that Socrates introduces Diotima’s
speech. In response to Socrates’ statement that love is a great god,
Diotima argues that love cannot be a god because love desires, and therefore
lacks, that which the gods possess: beauty and goodness. Love (eros)
says Diotima at 202d–203a, is:

[size=85]A very powerful daimon . . . and daimons, you know, are half-way
between god and man. . . . They are the envoys and interpreters that
ply between heaven and earth, flying upward with our worship and
our prayers, and descending with the heavenly answers and commandments
. . . the man who is versed in such matters is said to have
daemonic powers [sophos daimonios], as opposed to the mechanical
powers of the man who is an expert in the more mundane arts.
There are many daimons, and many kinds of daimon, too, and Love
is one of them. (PCD, 555)
[/size]
Diotima’s contention is that the daemon corresponds with a state of lack
or non-consummation. The daemon — embodied in this case in the concept
of eros — is that which strives to be god-like, but due to the fact
that it must always lack that for which it strives, the daemon is forever the
less-than-god or almost-god. This sense of lack resonates with the fact
that according to Diotima love’s mother is Penia: the goddess of poverty.
But what does this notion of love as daemonic have to do with
Plato’s ontology, and with his conception of the philosopher? The answer
to this question is that for Plato, the philosopher is always in a state of
lack, of less than complete knowledge, precisely because he is not a god.
As Diotima explains to Socrates at 204a–b, gods are not philosophers because
they are already wise. It is only those who are intermediate between
knowledge and ignorance who can be called philosophers or lovers of
wisdom. In other words, philosophers, as intermediaries or daemons with
a desire to know the forms, can only ever be on the way. Any sense of
arrival must be false, since the forms are, at least for human purposes, like
a horizon that withdraws when approached: a destination without location
that always spurs the philosopher on to greater heights.

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 12:48pm

Both Plato’s erotics and his poetics are related to his conceptions of
the daemon and the daemonic. In Plato, eros also takes on an intermediary
or mediating aspect that is daemonic in the following sense: the
philosopher is like a daemon who wishes to mediate between the material
world and the forms, and this wish is also a kind of desire, a sometimes
rational, sometimes non-rational eroticism. The relationship between poetry
and the daemonic in Plato is complex. In The Republic Plato expels
or even represses poetry, only to heap praise upon it as a divine practice
in two other dialogues: Ion (where, we shall see, such praise may admittedly
be ironic) and the Phaedrus. Poetry is not simply the enthusiastic
and irrational opposite of Socrates’ logic. It is intimately linked with
philosophy in that both are driven by eros and desire. The philosopher
has a desire for wisdom and the forms, while the poet desires the poem or
poetic inspiration, which in Plato is always a gift from the gods. Likewise,
for Plato, poetry, or the general category of activity to which poetry
belongs — mythos, the creation of narratives, stories, and images — functions
as the form in which all philosophy, all activities of the logos, manifest
themselves.

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 12:52pm

Platonic eros and Lukács’s daemon

The significance of Platonic philosophical eros for the daemonic is
clear. Eros is associated with the non-rational, but the non-rational can be
used in a rational, philosophical way when we investigate it and begin
to understand its power. Our desires indicate to us something about
ourselves and the world that we inhabit. The drunken and intoxicated
Alcibiades, a man suffused with desire, reveals more about philosophical
eros than do any of the other speakers in the Symposium apart from Socrates
and Diotima. Alcibiades shows that the quickest way home, the
shortest way to the forms, is often provided by desire and intoxication,
provided that desire and intoxication can be retrospectively, and — to use
Ronna Burger’s terminology — “artfully” embraced and analyzed by
reason.34 As Kierkegaard also observes in his reading of the Symposium,
Alcibiades’ experience of love complements the more abstract speeches
given by the other speakers on the dialogue, in that his desire is the flesh
that covers and adorns the bones of dialectical reason, and as such it
exemplifies and fills out, renders substantial, the abstract notion of eros
outlined by Socrates and Diotima.35 The essence of Alcibiades’ speech is
the theme of reflection upon desire, upon longing. The deepest desire
buried in Platonic eros, in Platonic longing, is the desire to move from the
immanent into the transcendent. As an inheritor of Kierkegaard’s philosophical
tradition, and, by analogy, the tradition of Plato, the young
Georg Lukács, in his Theorie des Romans (1920) finds this eminently human
desire at the heart of the daemonic:

[size=85]Es gibt eine wesenhafte Bestrebung der Seele, der es nur um das
Wesenhafte zu tun ist, einerlei woher es kommt, einerlei was seine
Ziele sind; es gibt eine Sehnsucht der Seele, wo der Heimatdrang so
heftig ist, daß die Seele den ersten Pfad, der heimzuführen scheint,
in blindem Ungestüm betreten muß.36[/size]

Although Lukács’s definition of the daemonic is fundamentally different
from that of Plato in that its central concern is the triumph of subjectivity
over objectivity that announces itself in the modern novel, his
definition nevertheless concurs with Plato’s notion of the daemonic in the
following way: for Lukács, the longing associated with the daemonic is a
human response to “die Ferne und die Abwesenheit des wirkenden
Gottes.”37 In this way, Lukács’s definition of the daemonic is intimately
connected with metaphysical longing, a longing that is directed towards
an abstract, metaphysical home or origin not unlike Plato’s forms. It is
this idea that comes through even more forcefully in an earlier work by
Lukács — the essay “Sehnsucht und Form” (1910) — in which he defines
Socratic longing as a kind of eros that must remain forever “unerwidert”
precisely because its goal is metaphysical self-perfection rather than physical
consummation.38
33

Erik1 · December 21, 2014, 1:00pm

The Other of Technē : The Art of Poetry

In the Phaedrus Plato relegates the poet to the sixth position in the order of
souls, behind philosophers, warriors, politicians, gymnasts, and prophets.
But he also points out (at 245a of the Phaedrus) that the art of poetry
emanates from a divine origin: the Muses. In this context, Plato argues
that poetry is a kind of possession or inspiration that is to be received as a
divine gift, and that is not to be confused with the conscious deployment
of skill, art, or technē. Rather, poets compose in a state of possession or
unconsciousness, a state that is a kind of madness inspired by the Muses.
Why does Plato go out of his way to distinguish poetry from technē? In
Plato technē refers to any conscious skill or area of professional competence:
its opposites are physis (instinctive ability) and tyche (chance).40
Clearly, Plato sees poetry as a kind of instinctive, non-rational gift. This
means that it is not seen as a skill or practice involving the use of reason,
and as a consequence it is ranked fairly low in his order of professions.
These ideas are more fully developed in Ion, in which Plato asks the
following question: “Is the poet’s skill genuine?” The answer to this question
is no. According to Socrates, poets write in a state of madness or possession.
41 Ion takes as its subject Ion of Ephesus, a rhapsode renowned for
his impassioned recitations of Homer’s works. Rhapsodes were individuals
who performed, acted, or chanted the works of particular poets, usually
accompanied by music. Ion is very knowledgeable on the subject of
Homer; however, he falls silent when asked about other poets. He therefore
possesses no technē with respect to the general field of poetry. If he
possessed technē, explains Socrates, he would be an expert on all poets,
and not just Homer. The explanation for Ion’s virtuosity with regard to
the works of Homer, outlined at 533d–534a, is that he stands in a chain
of divine inspiration, emerging from the divine, through the Muses, to
poets and to interpreters of poets (rhapsodes, like Ion) and ending in the
audiences who witness poetic performances. Within this chain, the poet is
given a special status as a daemonic figure who mediates between the
secular and the divine. At 534b, for example, the poet is described as a
“light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he
has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in
him” (PCD, 220).

Erik1 · December 22, 2014, 2:18pm

Socratic Daimonion

The term daimonion is a contraction of the phenomenon that Socrates
refers to as “the divine sign” at 496c in book 6 of The Republic, and at
272e in Euthydemus.44 The daimonion appears to be a singular instance or
effect of the general sensibility or conduit of the daemonic, a sensibility
that mediates between the secular and the divine. The daimonion is not,
in itself, a daemon in the same sense that eros is in the Symposium, nor is
it even a specific entity with an independently functioning sentience.
Indeed, scholars have puzzled over the grammatical status of the term.
Kierkegaard writes that the term daimonion is “neither simply adjectival
. . . nor is it substantive in the sense that it designates a special or unique
being,”45 while Vlastos views it as being “an adjective flanked by a semantic
hole where a substantive has to be understood.”46 The daimonion is
thus a kind of sign that exists on the boundary between adjectival and
substantive signification, and as such it can only elliptically be referred to
as an effect or phenomenon peculiar to the experience of Socrates, as
opposed to an actual, objective thing.
The best source of information on the daimonion exists in The Apology,
in which Socrates responds to the accusation of Meletus that he does
not recognize the gods of the state but instead believes in divinities of his
own making. At 31c–d, Socrates defines his divinity in the following way:
You have often heard me say before on many occasions . . . that I am
subject to a divine or supernatural experience [daimonion], which
Meletus saw fit to travesty in his indictment. It began in my early
childhood — a sort of voice which comes to me, and when it comes
it always dissuades me from

Erik1 · December 22, 2014, 7:31pm

The Daimonion, Kierkegaard and Subjectivity

Putting the question of politics aside, Kierkegaard’s comments on Socrates’
daimonion have an even greater importance with respect to the general
theme of the daemonic as a conduit that mediates between the
individual and the divine. This is because his critique of Socrates’ daimonion
demonstrates that it may follow a movement from the public into
the private, and — even more crucially — a movement from objectivity
into subjectivity. Kierkegaard expressly points out that the “most fundamental
polemic” that follows from Socrates’ daimonion lies in the fact
that it “never had a thing to do with the substantial interests of political
life,” but instead concerned itself with the sectional, personal interests of
Socrates and his followers.
In order to communicate the full import of Kierkegaard’s contention,
it is necessary to say a few brief words about ancient Greek culture.
As we saw earlier, in the discussion of individual fate in the thought of
Empedocles and in Plato’s “Myth of Er,” the individual in ancient Greece
was to a large degree public and objective rather than private and subjective.
In the ancient Greek polis, for example, the whole identity of an individual
was inextricably bound up with the extent to which he was seen to
participate in public debate and community discussion. Similarly, as we
saw in Ion, the ancient Greek conception of the poet as a kind of
who is subject to the influence of external, numinous forces reflects the
extent to which individual subjectivity was seen to have little, perhaps
even nothing, to do with artistic creation. Taking these factors into account,
the daimonion of Socrates, with its apparent emphasis on subjectivity,
appears to be a curious aberration within the context of ancient
Greek culture. The daimonion appears only to Socrates and its suggestions
are, to a large extent, of consequence to him alone.
Does the daimonion announce the birth of modern subjectivity? To
maintain such a proposition would of course be going much too far. Although
the daimonion visits Socrates alone, it still appears to come from a
divine source outside him, and we are therefore not free to interpret it as
a kind of subjective apparition or auditory hallucination in the same way
that Shakespeare scholars may, for example, interpret the ghost of Old
Hamlet. What can be said, however, is that Socrates’ daimonion returns
to philosophy as a central theme at precisely the time (roughly 1760–
1850) in which modern ideas about subjectivity were being developed. As
will become apparent in chapter 2, Kierkegaard — who wrote The Concept
of Irony between 1838 and 1840 — merely represents the tail-end of a
phenomenon that began in Germany in the work of figures like Hamann,
Herder, and of course, Goethe.

Erik1 · December 23, 2014, 8:23pm

Coleridge’s Daemonic Imagination:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swvElUnS-s[/youtube]

Erik1 · December 24, 2014, 4:24am

Intellect (Nous) in Aristotle

Although Aristotle’s notion of entelecheia exerted, via Leibniz’s Monadology,
an indirect influence upon Goethe’s conception of the daemonic,
there is at the same time absolutely no direct connection between Aristotle’s
concept of entelecheia and the Platonic notion of the daemon.
There is, however, another route via which Aristotle might be seen to
have influenced the Stoic and Neo-Platonic discussions of the daemonic
to be considered later in this chapter. This possible influence can be seen
in Aristotle’s notion of nous (intellect or reason), which he describes as a
divine or god-like faculty immanent in man. In the De Anima, Aristotle
defines the soul as something that displays perceptive and intellectual faculties.
At 413b 25–27, he then raises the question as to whether the intellectual
faculties of the soul exist within, or separately from, the organism:

[size=85]We have no evidence as yet about thought or the power of reflection;
it seems to be a different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal
from what is perishable; it alone is capable of being separated.
(CWA 1:658–59)[/size]

These sentiments are echoed in De Generatione Animalium (Generation
of Animals) at 736b, where Aristotle suggests that nous emanates from a
source outside the soul that is separate from the soul’s bodily faculties or
energeia.
Despite these statements, the ontological status of nous in Aristotle is
a complicated matter that has fueled scholarly debate over decades.70
These complications have emerged from section III.5 of the De Anima,
in which Aristotle distinguishes between two varieties of nous: the passive
(nous pathetikos) and the active, called nous poietikos by Aristotle’s successors.
71 At De Anima 430a 10–25, Aristotle describes nous pathetikos as the
“matter” of the intellect, which passively receives impressions from the external
world, and is accordingly inseparable from the body and “perishable”
(CWA 1:684). On the other hand, nous poietikos is the active and
efficient cause of all thinking,72 a cause that is, in the words of Aristotle at
430a 18, “separable, impassible, unmixed, since it is in its essential nature
activity” (CWA 1:684). While Aristotle does not elaborate elsewhere
upon the concept of nous poietikos as it appears in De Anima III.5, this
passage went on to exert a profound influence upon some of his commentators.
A case in point is the peripatetic philosopher and commentator
Alexander of Aphrodisias (born ca. 200 C.E.), who compares Aristotle’s
nous poietikos with the First Mover of the Metaphysics, thereby associating
this Aristotelian version of nous with God.73
Notwithstanding the complications arising from De Anima III.5, I
am inclined to agree with Arthur Hyman’s view that, in relation to the
topic of nous, Aristotle seems to display an enduring affinity with the
thought of Plato.74 In this respect, Aristotle’s discussions of nous may have
been influenced by Plato’s tripartite structure of the soul, outlined at
588c–e of The Republic and elsewhere,75 in which the intellect or reason
stands at the top of the soul’s structure, and is required to regulate the
baser human faculties. This is made clear at 30b in the Timaeus, where we
are told of how God: “when he was framing the universe . . . put intelligence
[nous] in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a
work which was by nature fairest and best” (PCD, 1163).

But how close is Aristotle’s concept of nous poietikos to the Platonic
daemon? In order to answer this question we need to look back to another
section of the Timaeus — section 90a–d — in which the daemon is
also seen as a divine principle, planted in man by God, which resides at
the top of the soul:
[size=85]
We should consider that God gave the sovereign part of the human
soul to be the divinity [daimon] of each one, being that part which,
as we say, dwells at the top of the body . . . [and] . . . raises us from
earth to our kindred who are in heaven . . . he who has been earnest
in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his
intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal
and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is
capable of sharing in immortality, he must be altogether immortal,
and since he is cherishing the divine power and has the divinity
[daimon] within him in perfect order, he will be singularly happy.
(PCD, 1209)[/size]

Plato’s argument is that the daemon, having been planted in the soul by
the divine, is the most god-like human faculty. The daemon can also, says
Plato, be looked after or strengthened by devotion to learning and
“thoughts immortal and divine.” Another feature of this daemon is its
separation from the bodily aspects of the soul, from corporeal lusts, and
from mortal opinion. But the crucial characteristic of the Platonic daemon
of Timaeus 90a–d is that of immanence. Although the source of this daemon
is divine and external, it is nevertheless contained within the human
soul. In fact, this particular instance of the Platonic daemon seems to be
very far indeed from the unconscious, non-rational, or mantic states of intoxication
seen in the Symposium, Phaedrus, and Ion. In short, this Platonic
daemon of Timaeus 90a–d and Aristotle’s notion of nous poietikos
outlined in the De Anima appear to correspond with the human faculties
of reason and rationality, faculties that originate from, and help the individual
to know, the divine, while at the same time remaining at least partially
immanent in the human soul.76 It is, moreover, arguably these
features of the daemon that carry over into the Stoic and Neo-Platonic interpretations
of the term, which seem to be a synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian
perspectives.
76

Erik1 · January 10, 2015, 6:18pm

The Daemon in Stoicism and Neo-Platonism:

Plato’s discussion of the daemon at 90a–d of the Timaeus seems to have
exerted more influence upon subsequent interpretations of the term than
any of his other sources. The chief consequence of this phenomenon has
been that, given the association of the daemon with nous in Timaeus
90a–d, most Stoic and Neo-Platonic interpreters of the term seem to have
followed Plato’s example in regarding the daemon as a kind of indwelling
intellect or rationality. These interpretations exist in stark contrast to the
mantic, erotic, poetic, and mythological modes of the daemonic outlined
by Plato in the Symposium, Phaedrus, and Ion. A possible reason for this
privileging of Timaeus 90a–d over the myriad of other, comparatively
non-rational, daemonic sources within the Platonic corpus may be that
this particular representation of the daemon as indwelling and rational is
most in accord with Aristotle’s emphasis upon nous or reason.
In considering the concept of the daemon in Stoicism, it is necessary
first of all to note that the Stoics are materialists, who, like the Epicureans
but in contradistinction to Plato, see the divine as being both material
and immanent.77 This feature of Stoicism can be found in one of the earliest
and most prominent Stoic treatments of Timaeus 90a–d, in the works
of Posidonius (ca. 130–50 B.C.E.). Posidonius describes the daemon as an
indwelling fragment or portion of the “One.” The “One” is essentially
concomitant with an immanent God: it is the underlying principle from
which all phenomena emanate, while also being a rational force or logos
that regulates and directs the universe. As a fragment of the One, the
daemon is thus seen as the seat of god-like rationality and goodness
within the soul, and accordingly Posidonius argues that one should rigorously
follow the dictates of one’s daemon, since “not to follow in everything
the daimon in oneself, which is akin and has a similar nature to the
one which governs the whole universe . . . [is to] . . . be swept along with
what is worse and beastlike.78
In his analysis of fragment 187, I. G. Kidd suggests that Posidonius
views the daemon as being an internal faculty which, when followed,
places the soul in tune with the immanent order and rationality of the
universe. Kidd also observes that it “seems highly probable” that Posidonius
had Timaeus 90a–d in mind during the composition of fragment
187.79 Posidonius places the daemon in direct opposition to the nonrational
or beastlike elements of the soul, arguing that following one’s
daemon is the key to living a rational, ordered, and happy life. Once
again, this treatment of the daemon appears to be in direct opposition to
Plato’s other representations of the daemonic as the non-rational or mantic
side of the soul.

Marcus Aurelius and the Daemon:

A similar characterization of the daemon appears in the Meditations
of another Stoic: Marcus Aurelius (ca. 121–180 C.E.). In book 5, section
27 of the Meditations, the daemon is characterized in a fashion that is
reminiscent both of Timaeus 90a–d and of Posidonius, being seen as a
fragment of an immanent divinity that has been planted — in this case by
Zeus — in man.80 As is the case in Posidonius’s treatment, the daemon is
the principle of reason that enables men to master their passions and leads
them to happiness or eudaimonia. The development of the daemon that
occurs in Marcus Aurelius is alluded to by A. S. L. Farquarson, who refers
to the daemon as a genius:
The old Roman belief was that the genius is the numen residing in a
man, that is, the man’s own power. The Greek belief in the δαíμων
gave the Romans the novel idea of an indwelling deity coming from
outside, and their native belief in genius and numen made it easier
for them to use δαíμων in the double sense which we meet in Stoic
literature. . . . The doctrine in M. [Marcus Aurelius], however obscure,
affords a kind of compromise between reliance upon the
higher or idealized self, which is the spur to individual moral progress,
and the assurance of divine grace and protection, the conviction
of the religious consciousness.81

James_S_Saint · January 11, 2015, 4:40pm

… reminds me of quantum physics … conflating noumenology with phenomenology.

A “demon”, “de-mon”, is merely anything that divides or separates the oneness or whole, the “mon-olith”. The serpent that tempts is the subtle proposition that it is okay to take a divergent path from actual rationality in order to satisfy a lust or longing. It is an ancient Hebrew and Hindu concept (embodied in Kundalini) although the epistemology is Latin.

Orbie · January 11, 2015, 6:16pm

…

Erik1 · January 14, 2015, 3:31pm

The Daimonion as Genius: Johann Georg Hamann:

The most influential figure among these non-rationalists was undoubtedly
Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88) whose book Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten
(1759) was conceived as a Kampfansage against the values of German
rationalism, and, in particular, the strictly mathematical and rigidly
deductive thought of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) along with the early
works of Hamann’s friend and would-be mentor, Immanuel Kant.14 Born
in the East Prussian town of Königsberg, Hamann enjoyed a mildly pietistic
upbringing and education, and became, in his youth, a follower of the
practical ideals of the Enlightenment. During a failed mercantile expedition
to London in 1757, Hamann fell into dissolute ways, before undergoing
a typical pietistic conversion experience as a result of reading the
Bible. Returning to Königsberg in 1759, Hamann met with his friend
Christoph Berens and one of Berens’s acquaintances: Immanuel Kant.
Horrified by Hamann’s conversion to evangelical Christianity and his
abandonment of enlightenment methodology, Kant suggested that Hamann
translate some articles from the French Encyclopédie in order to reacquaint
himself with rational modes of thought. In his famous reply to
Kant’s suggestion, Hamann wrote that it is “Eitelkeit und Fluch . . . einen
Theil der Encyclopédie durchzublättern” and then proceeded to give Kant
a modest piece of advice in return:

[size=85]Sind Sie Sokrates und will Ihr Freund [Berens] Alcibiades sein: so
haben Sie zu Ihrem Unterricht die Stimme eines Genii nöthig. Und
diese Rolle gebührt mir. . . . Erlauben sie mir also, daß ich so
lange Genius heißen und als ein Genius aus einer Wolke mit Ihnen
reden kann[/size].

Speaking, or rather writing, from the clouds, Hamann composed
Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten, dedicating the book ironically to Kant and
Berens, and attacking the very enlightenment ideals that they sought to
foster in him. Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten focuses upon the life of Socrates,
or at least Hamann’s eminently idiosyncratic view of Socrates.16
Holding that Christianity is a continuation of, rather than a break with,
the philosophy and culture of ancient Greece, Hamann compares the life
of Socrates with that of Christ. In this regard, he deploys the literary device
of typology; a form of allegory that seeks out recurrent patterns in
history, while at the same time attempting to overcome the historicity of
these patterns. Hamann’s use of typology takes on a tripartite structure, in
which Socrates, Christ, and Hamann himself are unified as inspired geniuses,
prophets, or daemonic intermediaries.

Orbie · January 14, 2015, 3:47pm

‘Seeking out patterns, but attempting to overcome historicity’, is at the crux of the genius behind Sorrows of Young Werther, it may then seem.It is recurrent pattern recognition, but linked variably, and with no signifiers. the question is, is there a purposive method here, or simply a contingency of co incidental connections?

Orbie · January 14, 2015, 3:55pm