ZOON LOGON ECHON

zoon logon echon

This speaking [Sprechen], then, that I have comprehensively determined here, is utilized by the Greeks in order to determine the being of the human being [Sein des Menschen] itself in its peculiarity, and not only in the explicit consideration of the life and the being-there of humanity [Leben und Dasein des Menschen] as they are put forward in philosophy, but also in the natural view of them. The human being [Mensch] is determined as ζῷον λóγον ἔχον, a “living being,” [Lebewesen] though not in accordance with the modern biological concept. Life [Leben] is a how [Wie], a category of being [Kategorie des Seins], and not something wild, profound, and mystical. It is characteristic of the “philosophy of life” [Lebensphilosophie] that it never goes so far as to inquire into what is genuinely meant by the concept “life” as a category of being. Life is a being-in-a-world [Sein-in-einer-Welt]. Animals [Tier] and humans are not at hand next to one another, but are with one another; and (in the case of humans) they express themselves reciprocally. Self-expressing as speaking about . . . [Das Sichaussprechen als Sprechen über ...] is the basic mode of the being of life [Grundweise des Seins des Lebens], namely, of being-in-a-world [Seins-in-einer-Welt]. Where there is no speaking, where speaking stops, where the living being no longer speaks, we speak of “death.” [Tod] The being of life is to be generally understood, in its ultimate ground, through this basic possibility of life. Speaking, then, refers to the being-context of the life [Seinszusammenhang des Lebens] of a specific way of being.

Ἔχον is to be understood in the determination ζῷον λóγον ἔχον in a fully fundamental sense. Ἔχειν is determined in Book Δ, Chapter 23 of the Metaphysics as ἄγειν, “to conduct” [betreiben] a matter, to be in a way because of a “drive” [Antrieb] that originates from this way of being. Language is possessed, is spoken, in such a way that speaking belongs to the genuine drive of being of the human being. Living, for the human being, means speaking. Thus this preliminary clarification of λóγος refers to a being-context that is preliminarily described as the life of the human being. [GA18:20-21]