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2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos

[broad Greek concept of understanding or giving reasons]

19 ideas
Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Although the universal law (logos) is common to all, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B002), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.133.4-
     A reaction: Heraclitus mentions 'logos' in just three fragments - this one, and Idea 15660 and Idea 424.
Human beings, alone of the animals, have logos [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Human beings, alone of the animals, have logos.
     From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1253a09)
     A reaction: This may be a grand claim that we are the only animals that can think rationally, or a more obvious observation that we are the only ones that talk. Aristotle was well aware that logos is a very resonant word.
For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value.
     From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26
The Stoics distinguished spoken logos from logos within the mind [Stoic school, by Plotinus]
     Full Idea: The Stoics distinguished between logos prophorikos ('uttered reasoning') and logos endiathetos ('reason stored within').
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.03 n7
     A reaction: These seems required, since logos is often the 'giving of an account', but it is also the rational principle that rules nature.
Stoics study canons, criteria and definitions, in order to find the truth [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: They include the study of canons and criteria in order to discover the truth. This is to straighten out the differences among the presentations. And they also include the definitional part for the purposes of recognising the truth.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.42
     A reaction: Might we call this categorisation, justifications and definitions? This is part of the study of logos, which comes first in the stoic view of philosophy.
Stoics believed that rational capacity in man (logos) is embodied in the universe [Stoic school, by Long]
     Full Idea: The Stoics believed the faculty in man which enables him to think, to plan and to speak - which they called 'logos' - is literally embodied in the universe at large.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4 Intro
     A reaction: This is the stage where logos becomes something dramatically more grand than the logos found in Plato's 'Theaetetus' (but see Heraclitus). It is what is meant by St John's 'In the beginning was the logos' (which is straightforward stoicism).
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John]
     Full Idea: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.
     From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 01.01)
     A reaction: 'Word' translates the Greek word 'logos', which has come a long way since Heraclitus. The interesting contrast is with the later Platonist view that the essence of God is the Good. So is the source of everything to be found in reason, or in value?
Descartes impoverished the classical idea of logos, and it no longer covered human experience [Roochnik on Descartes]
     Full Idea: Descartes attacked and fundamentally altered classical logos. The result is an impoverished conception of reason, one that is unable to do justice to the significance and value of human experience.
     From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason Prol. Xii
'Logos' really means 'making something manifest' [Heidegger, by Polt]
     Full Idea: Heidegger concludes that 'logos' essentially means 'making something manifest'.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], 56/33) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 3.§7
     A reaction: It would at least seem to involve revealing the truth of something, though truth doesn't seem to be central to Heidegger's thought. 'Logos' is often translated as 'an account', as well as a 'reason', so Heidegger may be right.
The logos represents a demand for universal rationality [Hadot]
     Full Idea: The logos represents a demand for universal rationality.
     From: Pierre Hadot (Philosophy as a way of life [1987], 3.3)
     A reaction: That is at one end of the spectrum. At the other, in parts of 'Theaetetus', it is just a polite request to be given a few reasons, instead of a splattering of hopes and prejudices.
When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault]
     Full Idea: Plutarch says if you have mastered principles then logos will silence your desires like a master silencing a dog - in which case the logos functions without intervention on your part - you have become the logos, or the logos has become you.
     From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.286)
     A reaction: If you believe that logos is pure reason, you might be quite happy with this, but if you thought it was a cultural construct, you might feel that you had been cunningly enslaved. If I ask 'what is 7+6?', logos interrupts me to give the answer.
The logos enables us to track one particular among a network of objects [Nehamas]
     Full Idea: The logos (the definition) is a summary statement of the path within a network of objects that one will have to follow in order to locate a particular member of that network.
     From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
     A reaction: I like this because it confirms that Plato (as well as Aristotle) was interested in the particulars rather than in the kinds (which I take to be general truths about particulars).
A logos may be short, but it contains reference to the whole domain of the object [Nehamas]
     Full Idea: A thing's logos, apparently short as it may be, is implicitly a very rich statement since it ultimately involves familiarity with the whole domain to which that particular object belongs.
     From: Alexander Nehamas (Episteme and Logos in later Plato [1984], p.234)
     A reaction: He may be wrong that the logos is short, since Aristotle (Idea 12292) says a definition can contain many assertions.
'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: Logos can mean i) a thought or reasoning, ii) the word which expresses a thought, iii) a rational structure outside human thought. These meanings give 'logos' an extraordinary range.
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], Intro. 12)
In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: In the seventeenth century only a certain type of logos was deemed legitimate, namely that identified with technical knowledge (or 'techné').
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], Intro. 15)
The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: What is supposed to identify the person of logos from the one without is the commitment to giving reasons explaining why one opinion is superior to another.
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], Intro. 17)
Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: Logos cannot refute the radical, consistent and self-conscious relativist. Therefore it must admit that, like the relativist, it itself is essentially a matter of desire. It wants to say what is right and wrong, true and false, and for others to agree.
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], p.108)
Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle.
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], p.109)
Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik]
     Full Idea: Logos is not unconditionally good, but good contingent on there being some other person (out there) who is willing to talk with logos, to approach it even as an opponent.
     From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], p.175)