thereby making discernible [252], at least in some provisional way, in what way logic is concerned with λόγος: not, however, for the sake of ‘logic’ or the discipline thereof, but rather for the sake of the Λόγος. In order that we might gain a commensurate relation to the Λόγος, we began with considerations concerning ‘logic.’ We nevertheless remain far removed from a knowledge about the essence and scope of the origin of ‘logic.’ For now, we can only remark that in accordance with the origin of ‘logic’ as the science of λόγος delineated above, logic takes up λόγος itself according to particular perspectives, only then to investigate λόγος in its various forms within the strict limitations set out by those very perspectives. The particular perspectives according to which logic thinks about λόγος derive from the origin of ‘logic.’ For ‘logic’ owes its essence and its existence to the classification of knowledge and the knowable that became necessary within the context of Platonic and Aristotelian thinking. This classification yields the three ‘sciences’ of physics, ethics, and logic. Even Kant still claims that this classification is proper to the nature of the matter. If we were now to construe that particular thinking from out of which this classification had to arise as ‘metaphysics’—more precisely, as the decisive beginning of metaphysics, a notion that can for now neither be fully explored nor expressly justified—then logic is, to put it succinctly, nothing more than the metaphysical consideration and explanation of λόγος. At first, this assertion does not say much. In fact, at first it only replaces one still unclear thing (i.e., the essence of logic) with another equally unclear thing (i.e., what is now called ‘metaphysical consideration’). This determination of logic as the metaphysics of λόγος does not in fact bring clarity, but passes itself off as information only from out of a place of perplexity. But this perplexity in which we now find ourselves is unavoidable: for what metaphysics is can in large part only be illuminated through a clarification of the essence of ‘logic.’ At the same time, the opposite also holds true: what ‘logic’ is can only be clarified from out of the essence of metaphysics. [253] We move, therefore, in a circle. As soon as thinking enters into such a circular path, it is oft en—though not always—a sign that such thinking can abide in the realm of the essential, or can at least draw nearer to its outer precincts.

For the moment, we will stay with the sentence that at first may remain a mere allegation: logic is the metaphysics of λόγος. We take this sentence as a somewhat unmediated signpost, one that is almost forcefully erected, serving to guide our thinking toward the thought that logic considers λόγος from a particular perspective, namely a ‘metaphysical’ one. What this means, however, must allow itself to be merely provisionally indicated without our losing ourselves in an expansive elucidation ‘concerning’ metaphysics. This is indeed possible, but only with a number of reservations, and in such a way that much remains unclarified.

For ‘logic,’ λόγος is assertion—λέγειν τι κατά τινος, asserting something about something. In order that something may be asserted about something, the thing