λόγος

Category: Heidegger - Termos originais
Submitter: Murilo Cardoso de Castro

λόγος

Λόγος: “speaking,” not in the sense of uttering a sound but speaking about something in a way that exhibits the about-which of speaking by showing that which is spoken about. The genuine function of the λόγος is the άποφαίνεσθαι, the “bringing of a matter to sight.” Every speaking is, above all for the Greeks, a speaking to someone or with others, with oneself or to oneself. Speaking is in concrete being-there, where one does not exist alone, speaking with others about something. Speaking with others about something is, in each case, a speaking out of oneself In speaking about something with others, I express myself (spreche ich mich aus), whether explicitly or not.

What is this λόγος? It is the fundamental determination of the being of the human being as such. The human being is seen by the Greeks as ζωον λόγον εχον, not only philosophically but in concrete living: “a living thing that (as living) has language.” This definition should not be thought in biological, psychological, social-scientific, or any such terms. This determination lies before such distinctions. Ζωή is a concept of being; “life” refers to a mode of being, indeed a mode of being-in-a-world. A living thing is not simply at hand (vorhanden), but is in a world in that it has its world. An animal is not simply moving down the road, pushed along by some mechanism. It is in the world in the sense of having it. The being-in-the-world of the human being is determined in its ground through speaking. The fundamental mode of being in which the human being is in its world is in speaking with it, about it, of it. Thus is the human being determined precisely through the λόγος, and in this way you can see where, if definition is a λόγος, the matter of definition has its ground insofar as λόγος is the basic determination of the being of the human being. The λόγος as ορισμός addresses beings in their ούσία, in their being-there. Therefore, we must gain an understanding of ούσία.[See Hs. p. 340 f.] [GA:17-18]

Submitted on:  Sun, 04-Jul-2021, 17:53