Heraclitus - a (short) reflection

An idea is attributed to Heraclitus (2, 1.1.119.1), which goes something like this: h™qoß aÓnqrw¿pwi dai÷mwn (If this does not look like Greek to you, you will have to install a Greek font on your computer!) In the vernacular (i.e., English) this means, quite literally, that: ‘a man’s habit is his lord’.

Some grammatical considerations, or what one might call a FlexLex (Flexible Lexicon):

*; (to) h™qoß = nominative, neuter; = custom, usage, habit.

*; aÓnqrw¿pwi = dative, masculine; = to or for a man

*; dai÷mwn = nominative, masculine=appositional or compliment; god/deity; fate, destiny, fortune (numen); possibly as adjective = skilled in a thing.

What Heraclitus is clearly drawing our attention to, regardless of how we ultimately translate our phrase, is what we might call an Emphatic formula: h™qoß = dai÷mwn.

Several possible translations:

•    The actions of a man flow from what he values.

•    A man’s action flows from his character.

•    Habit to a man is God.

•    Character to a man is his deity.

•    What we do habitually is who we are or who we become.

Commentary: With this statement Heraclitus provides us with the foundation of both a metaphysic (what is true about the world) and an ethic (how we should act in the world given what is true about the world).