To help Mr. Harrawood out a little and leaving aside Heidegger's
study of the term, legein has the seemingly problematic meaning of both "to
gather" and then to "lay out". Man is the being that has "logos", the
ability to both gather from experience and to lay out what is gathered as
something. Man is between experience of nature as both noein (thinking) and
physis (the way things work *1). Man, as the "Zoon logov eXon" ("living
thing having logos", i.e. the combination of reason and speech), arranges
what is gathered and presents the arrangement. When man speaks about
something, it is "as something", in the arranged form, so that Man mediates
(*2) in some way "to esti" (the things that are) and lays them out, "legei
kata tinos", as a laying out as something. The process is called by
Aristotle "kategorein" or "accusation". Things in experience and thought
are given a meaning and it is after this constitutive act that things are
nailed down as something by accusation.
The accusation seems to unify but, in fact, it selects. Gathering
involves a selection, be it of kinds, of classes, according to a
presupposition, or according to an intent, and delivers it "as something".
It can be delivered as the most concrete example of logos, which is Euclid's
_Elements_, or as an ideology, which is a gathering of half truths into a
totalizing vision.
Legein does a lot of work in Greek by denoting the gathering of
experience and the transformation of experience by thinking into something
to be laid out before someone as "as something".
*1 Physis is one of the most problematic terms in Greek philosophy.
It is usually translated as nature but carries with it dynamic baggage, so
it probably means more like "nature is-ing".
*2 The nature of this "mediating" is still an open question and
still open enough to keep paychecks flowing to metaphysicians despite
Heidegger and Derrida.
I have very few writings of Heidegger at my fingertips, so to help
Michael further with his question, I'll need to look at more of the text
Michael is contemplating in forming his question (perhaps H's "Logos" in the
_Festschrift fur Jantzen_, which I don't have), or its citation in case it
is in English in something I have at hand. In the meantime, my
interpretation of Greek philosophical concepts is neither mainstream nor
exactly following Brother Martin's, so I recommend the following text, which
can be read in an afternoon. It is out of print but thankfully short, so
that with some quality time with a copier and a pocketfull of dimes you'll
have what I consider a "skeleton key" to Heidegger's reading of Aristotle.
Werner Marx, _The Meaning of Aristotle's Ontology_, Martinus Nijhoff.
This text helps to highlight the debt Heidegger owes to Aristotle
and the philological groundwork on Greek terms that were laid in the late
19th Century. Toss in the influence of Nietszche, the reflective methods of
Phenomenology, and a little German romanticism and _Being and Time_ begins
to look like a development in the history of ideas instead of a text
delivered out of the blue like the Ten Commandments. How Heidegger
interprets Greek philosophical concepts and terms is fundamental to
understanding his work, perhaps more so than the other influences upon his
thought.
Stephen Whitehill
dasein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
study of the term, legein has the seemingly problematic meaning of both "to
gather" and then to "lay out". Man is the being that has "logos", the
ability to both gather from experience and to lay out what is gathered as
something. Man is between experience of nature as both noein (thinking) and
physis (the way things work *1). Man, as the "Zoon logov eXon" ("living
thing having logos", i.e. the combination of reason and speech), arranges
what is gathered and presents the arrangement. When man speaks about
something, it is "as something", in the arranged form, so that Man mediates
(*2) in some way "to esti" (the things that are) and lays them out, "legei
kata tinos", as a laying out as something. The process is called by
Aristotle "kategorein" or "accusation". Things in experience and thought
are given a meaning and it is after this constitutive act that things are
nailed down as something by accusation.
The accusation seems to unify but, in fact, it selects. Gathering
involves a selection, be it of kinds, of classes, according to a
presupposition, or according to an intent, and delivers it "as something".
It can be delivered as the most concrete example of logos, which is Euclid's
_Elements_, or as an ideology, which is a gathering of half truths into a
totalizing vision.
Legein does a lot of work in Greek by denoting the gathering of
experience and the transformation of experience by thinking into something
to be laid out before someone as "as something".
*1 Physis is one of the most problematic terms in Greek philosophy.
It is usually translated as nature but carries with it dynamic baggage, so
it probably means more like "nature is-ing".
*2 The nature of this "mediating" is still an open question and
still open enough to keep paychecks flowing to metaphysicians despite
Heidegger and Derrida.
I have very few writings of Heidegger at my fingertips, so to help
Michael further with his question, I'll need to look at more of the text
Michael is contemplating in forming his question (perhaps H's "Logos" in the
_Festschrift fur Jantzen_, which I don't have), or its citation in case it
is in English in something I have at hand. In the meantime, my
interpretation of Greek philosophical concepts is neither mainstream nor
exactly following Brother Martin's, so I recommend the following text, which
can be read in an afternoon. It is out of print but thankfully short, so
that with some quality time with a copier and a pocketfull of dimes you'll
have what I consider a "skeleton key" to Heidegger's reading of Aristotle.
Werner Marx, _The Meaning of Aristotle's Ontology_, Martinus Nijhoff.
This text helps to highlight the debt Heidegger owes to Aristotle
and the philological groundwork on Greek terms that were laid in the late
19th Century. Toss in the influence of Nietszche, the reflective methods of
Phenomenology, and a little German romanticism and _Being and Time_ begins
to look like a development in the history of ideas instead of a text
delivered out of the blue like the Ten Commandments. How Heidegger
interprets Greek philosophical concepts and terms is fundamental to
understanding his work, perhaps more so than the other influences upon his
thought.
Stephen Whitehill
dasein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---