case, in this relation the synthetic factor [that flattens out the “as”] presses to the fore ahead of the “analytic” moment. This synthetic relation can be isolated over against the primary function of λόγoς, which is to show-something-as. Then, when λόγoς gets cut loose, so to speak, from the specific relation of the subject matter (the about-which) and the predicate (the as-what), it gets passed off as the relation of anything to anything, equivalent to formal synthesizing as such.

In a certain sense, Aristotle uses the term λόγoς formally. But at the same time he endows it with the sense of the “apophantic,” i.e., [161] the showing-of-beings-as. Aristotle also sees in ἀπόφανσις the primary and essential relatedness of the λόγoς (taken as λόγoς τινός, speech about something) to beings, and this λόγoς has to indicatively show-something-as only via determining them [in statements]. As regards structure, this view of λόγoς is obviously quite close to that of an empty “relating and synthesizing.” What is more, the determining statement, taken as something uttered (a series of words related to each other and to a context), itself becomes just “something there.”

These observations make one thing very clear: we have not understood the phenomena of making a statement—qua showing-as, determining-as, etc.—as long as we simply characterize them as synthesis, and let it go at that. To do only that is to grope around and latch on to the first thing we come up with, no matter how irrelevant. But there is something even more fatal. If we think that synthesis, taken formally, is the structural meaning of λόγoς in general, we preclude any possibility of understanding sense-making, understanding, explication, and, more generally, even language. Of course, for the sake of shorthand characterizations, we can make use of these formal determinations, but only after we have first understood the complete structure of the phenomenon. Making an indicative statement has the sense of determining something in its mere thereness, and it characterizes the “as” in this way. To understand synthesis, when it is not taken formally, we have to begin with this.²² [162]

22. Nonetheless, taking the as-structure in its formal character has yet another consequence, not just for the interpretation of λόγος and for the concept of the “logical” (i.e., determining and determinedness), but also for the interpretation of being. The ontic is conceptualized in terms of logical structures (“logical” understood in the sense we have indicated). How does that come about? When we indicate something as something by way of what we have characterized as a statement, the thing comes to be seen. The subject matter (= what is simply there) gets shown as something, while the “as-what” gets shown as the “as-what” of what is simply there. This being has been synthesized as the synthetic being it is. The thing itself, as something that [de facto] is there-together, now gets [explicitly] brought together. It gets understood as simply out-there-together. It is apprehended