Sallis (1996) – logos

(Sallis1996)

The second question is: What is logos? This question is less immediately appropriate. In posing it we have in mind the double meaning of the verbal form “legein,” which means both to say, to speak, and to lay in the sense of bringing things to lie together, collecting them, gathering them together; and we have in mind the question posed by this double meaning, namely, the question as to how it is that saying (and, in general, everything that we include under the title “language”) could have presented itself to the Greeks as a laying, a gathering together. We have in mind a primordial “experience” of language as “gathering lay,” an “experience” in which the early Greek thinkers were caught up and from out of which their speaking proceeded.¹ And we also have in mind the very serious question as to whether this “experience,” however much achieved in early Greek thought, still resounds at all in the Platonic writings or whether, on the contrary, in these writings the decisive steps have already been taken towards the reduction of logos to language in a sense which lacks any essential connection with letting things lie together. Thus, the more specific question which we pose for our reading is: To what extent and in what forms (if any) does the original sense of logos remain in force in the Platonic writings? The determination of this extent has important consequences for determining the degree of solidarity between the Platonic dialogues and the writings of the so-called “pre-Socratic” philosophers: to the extent that the “pre-Socratic” “experience” of logos shows itself in the Platonic writings—thus proving to be not “pre-Socratic” at all—to that degree the relevant solidarity is strengthened. And to the degree that this solidarity is strengthened, we are able to call into question the pre-dominant interpretation of Greek thought as having undergone its most drastic turn through the impact of Socrates and Plato. Furthermore, the question of logos is integrally attached to a host of other fundamental issues in the dialogues; in particular, the development of this question opens up the possibility for radically re-thinking that entire complex of issues that is usually designated, very inappropriately, as “the theory of ideas.” Finally, it should be remarked that in posing the question “What is logos?” we have also in mind the reference which this question (which is to be posed to the dialogues) has to the character of the dialogues themselves as peculiar presentations of logoi. We note that this back-reference extends even to the question itself, and we anticipate that by attending sufficiently to the issue indicated by the question we might eventually be forced even to drop our initial formulation of the question.

1. Cf. Martin Heidegger, “Logos (Heraklit, Fragment 50),” Vorträge und Aufsätze (Pfullingen: Verlag Günther Neske, 1954), pp. 207-229.[]