Logos
Logos is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion, that most broadly means reason, logic, order, or understanding. Among its connotations is that of a rational form of discourse that relies on inductive and deductive reasoning.
Aristotle first systematized the usage of the word, making it one of the three principles of rhetoric alongside ethos and pathos. This original use identifies the word closely to the structure and content of language or text. Both Plato and Aristotle used the term logos to refer to sentences and propositions.
Background
is related to which is cognate with. The word derives from a Proto-Indo-European root, *leǵ-, which can have the meanings "I put in order, arrange, gather, choose, count, reckon, discern, say, speak". In modern usage, it typically connotes the verbs "account", "measure", "reason" or "discourse". It is occasionally used in other contexts, such as for "ratio" in mathematics.Origins of the term
Logos became a technical term in Western philosophy beginning with Heraclitus, who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge. Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways. The sophists used the term to mean "discourse". Aristotle applied the term to refer to "reasoned discourse" or "the argument" in the field of rhetoric, and considered it one of the three modes of persuasion alongside ethos and pathos. Pyrrhonist philosophers used the term to refer to dogmatic accounts of non-evident matters. The Stoics spoke of the logos spermatikos which foreshadows related concepts in Neoplatonism.Within Hellenistic Judaism, Philo integrated the term into Jewish philosophy.
Philo distinguished between logos prophorikos, logos spermatikos and the logos endiathetos.
The Gospel of John identifies the Christian Logos, through which all things are made, as divine, and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos. Early translators of the Greek New Testament, such as Jerome, experienced frustration with the inadequacy of any single Latin word to convey the meaning of the word logos as used to describe Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John. The Vulgate Bible usage of in principio erat verbum was thus constrained to use the noun verbum for "word"; later Romance language translations had the advantage of nouns such as le Verbe in French. Reformation translators took another approach. Martin Luther rejected Zeitwort in favor of Wort, for instance, although later commentators repeatedly turned to a more dynamic use involving the living word as used by Jerome and Augustine. The term is also used in Sufism, and the analytical psychology of Carl Jung.
Despite the conventional translation as "word", logos is not used for a word in the grammatical sense—for that, the term lexis was used. However, both logos and lexis derive from the same verb , meaning " count, tell, say, speak".
In the ancient Greek context, the term logos in the sense of "word" or "discourse" also contrasted with mythos. Classical Greek usage sees reasoned argument as distinct from imaginative tales.
Ancient Greek philosophy
The writing of Heraclitus was the first place where the word logos was given special attention in ancient Greek philosophy, although Heraclitus seems to use the word with a meaning not significantly different from the way in which it was used in ordinary Greek of his time. For Heraclitus, logos provided the link between rational discourse and the world's rational structure.What logos means here is not certain; it may mean "reason" or "explanation" in the sense of an objective cosmic law, or it may signify nothing more than "saying" or "wisdom". Yet, an independent existence of a universal logos was clearly suggested by Heraclitus.
Following one of the other meanings of the word, Aristotle gave logos a different technical definition in the Rhetoric, using it as meaning argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasion. The other two modes are pathos, which refers to persuasion by means of emotional appeal, "putting the hearer into a certain frame of mind"; and ethos, persuasion through convincing listeners of one's "moral character". According to Aristotle, logos relates to "the speech itself, in so far as it proves or seems to prove". In the words of Paul Rahe:
Logos, pathos, and ethos can all be appropriate at different times. Arguments from reason have some advantages, namely that data are difficult to manipulate, so it is harder to argue against such an argument. On the other hand, trust in the speaker—built through ethos—enhances the appeal of arguments from reason.
Robert Wardy suggests that what Aristotle rejects in supporting the use of logos "is not emotional appeal per se, but rather emotional appeals that have no 'bearing on the issue', in that the pathē they stimulate lack, or at any rate are not shown to possess, any intrinsic connection with the point at issue—as if an advocate were to try to whip an antisemitic audience into a fury because the accused is Jewish; or as if another in drumming up support for a politician were to exploit his listeners's reverential feelings for the politician's ancestors".
Aristotle comments on the three modes by stating:
Stoic philosophy began with Zeno of Citium, in which the logos was the active reason pervading and animating the Universe. It was conceived as material and is usually identified with God or Nature. The Stoics also referred to the seminal logos, or the law of generation in the Universe, which was the principle of the active reason working in inanimate matter. Humans, too, each possess a portion of the divine logos.
The Stoics took all activity to imply a logos or spiritual principle. As the operative principle of the world, the logos was anima mundi to them, a concept which later influenced Philo of Alexandria, although he derived the contents of the term from Plato. In his Introduction to the 1964 edition of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth wrote that "Logos... had long been one of the leading terms of Stoicism, chosen originally for the purpose of explaining how deity came into relation with the universe".
Public discourse on ancient Greek rhetoric has historically emphasized Aristotle's appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos, while less attention has been directed to Isocrates' teachings about philosophy and logos, and their partnership in generating an ethical, mindful polis. Isocrates does not provide a single definition of logos in his work, but Isocratean logos characteristically focuses on speech, reason, and civic discourse. He was concerned with establishing the "common good" of Athenian citizens, which he believed could be achieved through the pursuit of philosophy and the application of logos.
In Hellenistic Judaism
Philo of Alexandria
, a Hellenized Jew, used the term logos to mean an intermediary divine being or demiurge. Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect Form, and therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world. The logos was the highest of these intermediary beings, and was called by Philo "the first-born of God".Philo also wrote that "the Logos of the living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated".
Plato's Theory of Forms was located within the logos, but the logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible was identified with the logos by Philo, who also said that the logos was God's instrument in the creation of the Universe.
Targums
The concept of logos also appears in the Targums, where the term memra is often used instead of 'the Lord', especially when referring to a manifestation of God that could be construed as anthropomorphic.Christianity
In Christology, the Logos is a name or title of Jesus Christ, seen as the preeminent expression in fulness of all the attributes, the complete thought, and the entire "knowable" reality of the infinite and spiritually transcendent Godhead. This concept is applied to John 1:1 in the Douay–Rheims, King James, as well as the New International and other versions of the Bible, where "logos" is capitalized in translation as "Word"; thereby rendering the verse as:Gnosticism
According to the Gnostic scriptures recorded in the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, the Logos is an emanation of the great spirit that is merged with the spiritual Adam called Adamas.Neoplatonism
philosophers such as Plotinus used logos in ways that drew on Plato and the Stoics, but the term logos was interpreted in different ways throughout Neoplatonism, and similarities to Philo's concept of logos appear to be accidental. The logos was a key element in the meditations of Plotinus regarded as the first neoplatonist. Plotinus referred back to Heraclitus and as far back as Thales in interpreting logos as the principle of meditation, existing as the interrelationship between the hypostases—the soul, the intellect, and the One.Plotinus used a trinity concept that consisted of "The One", the "Spirit", and "Soul". The comparison with the Christian Trinity is inescapable, but for Plotinus these were not equal and "The One" was at the highest level, with the "Soul" at the lowest. For Plotinus, the relationship between the three elements of his trinity is conducted by the outpouring of logos from the higher principle, and eros upward from the lower principle. Plotinus relied heavily on the concept of logos, but no explicit references to Christian thought can be found in his works, although there are significant traces of them in his doctrine. Plotinus specifically avoided using the term logos to refer to the second person of his trinity. However, Plotinus influenced Gaius Marius Victorinus, who then influenced Augustine of Hippo. Centuries later, Carl Jung acknowledged the influence of Plotinus in his use of the term.
Victorinus differentiated between the logos interior to God and the logos related to the world by creation and salvation.
Augustine of Hippo, often seen as the father of medieval philosophy, was also greatly influenced by Plato and is famous for his re-interpretation of Aristotle and Plato in the light of early Christian thought. A young Augustine experimented with, but failed to achieve ecstasy using the meditations of Plotinus. In his Confessions, Augustine described logos as the Divine Eternal Word, by which he, in part, was able to motivate the early Christian thought throughout the Hellenized world Augustine's logos ''had taken body in Christ, the man in whom the logos'' was present as in no other man.