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§13. The possibility of λόγoς being false

“logical” in the strict sense of the word: not an ontology of beings, but a logic of beings.

Catchword determinations like this are always dangerous, and for the most part are usually false. What we have said should simply make us notice the fact that σύνθεσις [166] emerges when we characterize truth with regard to the thing itself that is to be shown-as.

Σύνθεσις is the structure not only of the λόγoς but of the subject matter qua that-about-which, insofar as the subject matter after all is and must be a being in the sense of something true. Thus, from the first characteristic of truth and falsehood we see that there is no basis or possibility for interpreting this definition in the sense of a copying. From the second characteristic we see that the thing itself, which is correlative to the indicative statement, is understood by way of synthesis. To be sure, we may expect an objection that might be drawn from De interpretatione (chap. 1), the treatise in which λόγoς itself is Aristotle’s theme. The second sentence of chapter 1 starts right off with a brief explanation that might actually tempt us to prove that Aristotle’s concept of truth does indeed intend something like the copying-of-things through mental processes. In fact, this passage is also the classical one that philosophers appeal to (usually in a variety of roundabout ways and always in ignorance of the context) in an effort to point out and prove that Aristotle introduced into philosophy this naïve concept of truth, as it is usually dubbed. I will discuss this passage very briefly. It is also important for our later discussions about the copula and negation.


ἔστι μὲν οὖν τὰ ἐν τῇ φωνῇ
  τῶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ παθημάτων σύμβολα,
  καὶ τὰ γραφόμενα τῶν ἐν τῇ φωνῇ.
καὶ ὥσπερ οὐδὲ γράμματα πᾶσι τὰ αὐτά,
  οὐδὲ φωναὶ αἱ αὐταί·
ὧν μέντοι ταῦτα σημεῖα πρώτων,
  ταὐτὰ πᾶσι παθήματα τῆς ψυχῆς,
καὶ ὧν ταῦτα ὁμοιώματα πράγματα ἤδη ταὐτά. (De interpretatione 1, 16a3–8)

In a translation, with explanations in brackets:


There are linguistic utterances {words} in which something that is found in our mental comportment {perception, reflection} is made known.
And what is written makes known the words. {So Aristotle begins with the spoken word wherein—to put it briefly—the meaning is made known.
And the spoken word can express itself in the written word.}And just as written signs are not the same for all peoples {the Egyptians

Martin Heidegger (GA 21) Logic : the question of truth

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