listening to λόγος, and is thereby what is gleaned from λόγος. But how can ἓν πάντα εἶναι be derived from λόγος, if it does not belong to it? How can ἓν πάντα εἶναι belong to λόγος, if λόγος itself does not safeguard ἓν πάντα εἶναι within itself? And how can it preserve it within itself if it itself does not measure up to, or equate to, ἓν πάντα εἶναι? But, what can λόγος itself still be ‘outside of’ and ‘apart from’ ἓν πάντα εἶναι? πάντα, as the whole of beings, unfolds in being. At the same time, and emphatically, ἕν unfolds as the essential feature of all beings that are in being. Therefore, λόγος, which can be heard in ἓν πάντα εἶναι, cannot unfold as anything other than as being itself. However, given the exegesis up to this point, λόγος is, if nothing else, that which says, i.e., it is the word and the word-sense of the word. By contrast, ἕν, πάντα, and εἶναι have nothing λόγος -like (i.e., word-like) about them (in the above-specified sense): rather, at most they are what is said in λόγος. However, as long as we continue to think in this way, we are only unhesitatingly delving deeper toward that particular determination of λόγος established by ‘logic’ through its thinking of λόγος as assertion, and more generally as ‘saying,’ with logic thereby purporting to know what ‘saying’ is. Moreover, we find this determination of λόγος to be quite obvious, for it is indeed the case that already early on for the Greeks λέγειν and λόγος meant “to speak” and “to say.” But in contrast to all of this, the fact reveals itself that, in the saying of Heraclitus’s, ἓν πάντα εἶναι somehow and undeniably derives from λόγος itself. λόγος itself must therefore let ἕν, πάντα, and εἶναι each unfold in itself and all together in their relations to one another. λόγος itself must prevail in the way of their unfolding, and thereby in the unfolding of the One, the all, and of being.
Perhaps the time has finally come to ponder the fact that what reveals itself from out of λόγος—and perhaps reveals itself as λόγος itself—is the ἓν πάντα εἶναι. Perhaps this, and only this, gives us [266] the correct clue for grasping the essence of the Λόγος, purely based upon what it itself allows us to hear about it. Is it not perhaps time to set aside all of our customary perspectives and opinions belonging to all later and thoroughly metaphysical interpretations of λόγος?
What, then, does ἓν πάντα εἶναι say to us when, in this audible form, the Λόγος itself emerges and, in showing itself, makes itself heard? What, then, does ἓν πάντα εἶναι say to us about the Λόγος itself, if we ponder this and hold fast to it? If we now attempt to glimpse the essence of λόγος from out of ἓν πάντα εἶναι, we will surely recall that ἓν πάντα (εἶναι) has remained thoroughly ambiguous. Most importantly, however, we have abstained from also including the indeterminate ambiguity of the third word, εἶναι. Nevertheless, the following thing remains graspable even given the incomprehensibility of ἕν, πάντα, their relation, and the foundation thereof—namely, that which here is being called the unifying and uniting of the all, i.e., the unifying and uniting of what is, of the entirety of beings. The unifying and uniting in reference to beings as a whole—i.e., beings as such— must then also be the foundational character of the Λόγος, provided that ἓν πάντα εἶναι, as that which can be heard, becomes audible from out of, and as, the Λόγος.
202 Logic: Heraclitus’s Doctrine of the Logos