Third, and of greatest importance for his interpretation of Aristotle, Heidegger insists on the phenomenological correlation between εἶδος and λόγος. What and how something is (its being) shows up only in and to the human intellect, which is ineluctably discursive—λόγον ἔχον and μετὰ λογοῦ, respectively, “having λόγος” and “according to λόγος.”112 We are the sole site of intelligibility: “the locus of intelligible appearances” (τόπος εἰδῶν), the place where “intelligible appearances show up” (εἶδος εἰδῶν).113 Whatever emerges, emerges into a knowable appearance (ἐις τὸ εἶδος),114 one that shows up only in acts of taking-as. And when man’s discursive powers are operative (ἐνεργείᾳ, “in act”), the potentially intelligible phenomenon becomes actually known. In short, the rule is:
Μορϕή must be understood from εἶδος, and εἶδος must be understood in relation to λόγoς.115
The clue by which we can understand εἶδος—and so also μορϕή—is λόγoς.116
But what, then, is λόγoς? Heidegger cuts through the term’s usual meanings—“word” and “language” or, in mathematics, “relation, proportion, analogy, correspondence”117—and goes to its etymological roots in λέγειν: to gather, join together, and bring to light. For Heidegger, λέγειν, “to collect,” means the same as ἀληϑεύειν: to bring into intelligible presence.118
112. Nicomachean Ethics, respectively VI 1, 1139a4 and VI 4, 1149a7
113. De anima, respectively, III 4, 429a27–28 and III 8, 432a2. GA 51: 91.28–29 = 77.9–10: “Der Mensch ist das wesende Tier (– animal rationale–),” where “das wesende Tier” means “the animal that renders [things] present.”
114. Metaphysics IX 8, 1050a15.
115. GA 9: 275.5–6 = 210.15–16.
116. GA 9: 275.35–276.1 = 210.40–211.1.
118. See SZ 33.16–18 = 56.37–39.