Daimon (δαίμων) — In Greek cosmology, an intermediary entity between the gods and human beings, situated on a plane that is neither fully divine nor mortal. The term, whose root evokes the idea of “distributing” or “allotting” a destiny, originally denoted an impersonal divine force or power; it could name a god as readily as a lesser spirit attending and shaping an individual’s life. In the Heraclitean fragment often rendered “a person’s character (êthos) is their daimon,” the word approaches the notion of a destiny that grows out of one’s own way of being. The most famous usage comes from Socrates, who described his daimonion — a “divine sign” or inner voice — as something that never told him what to do but held him back from certain actions, working as a kind of moral check. In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima teaches that every daimon dwells in the metaxu, the “in-between” that links the divine and human worlds, and classes Eros as a great daimon, a messenger who carries the prayers of mortals up to the gods and the commands of the gods down to mortals. This idea of mediation sets the daimon apart both from the theós (a full-fledged god) and from the mere mortal. The concept deeply influenced Christian angelology — which recast the daimones now as angels, now as demons — and, centuries later, was taken up by German Romanticism, above all by Goethe, to name the creative and fateful force that drives genius.
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