The attack upon this original unity between truth and being came from two sides. And the original notion of truth, delicate and fragile as it was, was totally unable to withstand such a two-pronged attack. As Heidegger says, the room made for truth as unconcealedness caved in, and all that could be salvaged from out of the ruins was Idea, statement, οὐσία, etc.

For after the pre-Socratics the question as to what being may be is no longer "Was ist das Sein?" but rather, "Was ist das Seiende? (τί τὸ ὄν)." And ultimately it becomes a mere questioning after the "thingliness" (Seiendheit) of things (Seienden), which as οὐσία becomes ἐνέργεια in Aristotle and ἰδέα in the philosophy of Plato. But in asking the question as to the meaning of being after the fashion of substance, the Logos is forced to vacate the premises it originally shared with being and comes to mean theoretical knowledge (ἐπιστήμη θεωρητική). Aristotle in reality answers the question as to what being is before he really asks it.

The original and authentic meaning of Logos was collection (Sammlung), the happening of uncovering, of revelation, of truth. As Heidegger says, originally the Logos was grounded in this truth and served it, whereas now Logos has come to mean statement (Aussage) in the sense of correctness or rightness (Richtigkeit), the exact opposite of the place of truth. For after this, as Heidegger explains in his study on Plato's allegory of the cave, when "substance" becomes "idea," truth is no more as unconcealedness the principal feature of being itself; rather, as subservient to idea, it becomes mere correctness, henceforward to be the mere marking out (Auszeichnung) of our knowledge of things. And with Plato's basically different view of Physis as Idea, the Logos can only come to be the tailor-made straitjacket of discourse.

¶ 7:40 PM