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Eudaimonia,
(644 words)

[German Version]

from Greek εὐδαιμονία, meaning “happiness, bliss” (Lat. beatitudo). Originally a religious concept (eudaímōn, “having a good daimon,” “blessed by God”; cf. Euripides, Orestes 667), it was often used in the sense of having great material wealth, and only entered the vocabulary of philosophical ethics in the 6th/5th century bce. The pre-Socratics were the first to strip the term of its material connotations and used the concept of eudaimonía to describe a good inner disposition of the human soul (cf. Democritus in: Vorsokratiker 68 B 77, D-K; B 170, 171; Heraclitus 22 B…

Cite this page
Käppel, Lutz, “Eudaimonia,”, in: Religion Past and Present. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1877-5888_rpp_SIM_04711>
First published online: 2011
First print edition: ISBN: 9789004146662, 2006-2013



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