GA18 – 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 conceptlife” 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)

Heidegger – Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica

Responsáveis: João e Murilo Cardoso de Castro

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