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He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one. ~ Heraclitus
Psychology is the logos of experience. Psychology is the structure of the evidence, and hence psychology is the science of sciences. ~ Ronald David Laing
There are moments, as I myself have emphasized on different occasions, in which "kairos," the right time, is united with "logos," the "eternal truth," and in which the fate of philosophy is decided for a special period. ~ Paul Tillich

Logos (Greek: λόγος, lit. ‘word, discourse, or reason’) is a term used in philosophy, Jungian-psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion (notably Christianity), 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.

A

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  • When the Evangelist says, In the beginning was the Word, we cannot understand this as a human or angelic word, because both these words have been made since man and angel have a cause and principle of their existence and operation, and the word of a man or an angel cannot exist before they do. The word the Evangelist had in mind he shows by saying that this word was not made, since all things were made by it. Therefore, the word about which John speaks here is the Word of God.
We should note that this Word differs from our own word in three ways. The first difference, according to Augustine, is that our word is formable before being formed, for when I wish to conceive the notion of a stone, I must arrive at it by reasoning. And so it is in all other things that are understood by us, with the sole possible exception of the first principles which, since they are known in a simple manner, are known at once without any discourse of reason. So as long as the intellect, in so reasoning, casts about this way and that, the formation is not yet complete. It is only when it has conceived the notion of the thing perfectly that for the first time it has the notion of the complete thing and a word. Thus in our mind there is both a “cogitation,” meaning the discourse involved in an investigation, and a word, which is formed according to a perfect contemplation of the truth. So our word is first in potency before it is in act. But the Word of God is always in act. In consequence, the term “cogitation” does not properly speaking apply to the Word of God. For Augustine says (On the Trinity XV) : “The Word of God is spoken of in such a way that cogitation is not included, lest anything changeable be supposed in God.” Anselm was speaking improperly when he said: “For the supreme Spirit to speak is for him to look at something while cogitating.”
The second difference is that our word is imperfect, but the divine Word is most perfect. For since we cannot express all our conceptions in one word, we must form many imperfect words through which we separately express all that is in our knowledge. But it is not that way with God. For since he understands both himself and everything else through his essence, by one act, the single divine Word is expressive of all that is in God, not only of the Persons but also of creatures; otherwise it would be imperfect. So Augustine says: “If there were less in the Word than is contained in the knowledge of the One speaking it, the Word would be imperfect; but it is obvious that it is most perfect; therefore, it is only one.” “God speaks once” (Jb 33:14).
The third difference is that our word is not of the same nature as we; but the divine Word is of the same nature as God. And therefore it is something that subsists in the divine nature. For the understood notion which the intellect is seen to fonn about some thing has only an intelligible existence in our soul. Now in our soul, to understand is not the same as the nature of the soul, because our soul is not its own operation. Consequently, the word which our intellect forms is not of the essence of our soul, but is an accident of it. But in God, to understand and to be are the same; and so the Word of the divine intellect is not an accident but belongs to its nature. Thus it must be subsistent, because whatever is in the nature of God is God. Thus Damascene says that God is a substantial Word, and a hypostasis, but our words are concepts in our mind.
From the above it is clear that the Word, properly speaking, is always understood as a Person in the Divinity, since it implies only something expressed, by the one understanding; also, that in the Divinity the Word is the likeness of that from which it issues; and that it is co-eternal with that from which it issues, since it was not first formable before being formed, but was always in act; and that it is equal to the Father, since it is perfect and expressive of the whole being of the Father; and that it is co-essential and consubstantial with the Father, since it is his substance.
It is also clear that since in every nature that which issues forth and has a likeness to the nature from which it issues is called a son, and since this Word issues forth in a likeness and identity to the nature from which it issues, it is suitably and appropriately called a “Son,” and its production is called a generation.
  • Saint Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, translated by

James A. Weisheipl, O.P. Magi Books, Inc., Albany, N.Y. Letture 1

B

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  • From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, emperor Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.…

    Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? …

    Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word — a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.
    • Pope Benedict XVI, in "Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections" (12 September 2006)

Bible

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  • Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
    • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

H

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  • If only I was as eloquent as Demosthenes, I would have to do no more than repeat a single word three times. Reason is language — Logos; I gnaw on this marrowbone and will gnaw myself to death over it. It is still always dark over these depths for me: I am still always awaiting an apocalyptic angel with a key to this abyss.
    • Johann Georg Hamann, in Briefwechsel (1955-1975) edited by Walther Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel, Vol. V, p. 177, as quoted in Johann Georg Hamann's Relational Metacriticism (1995) by Gwen Griffith Dickson, p. 333
  • οὐκ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σο­φόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναί
    • It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one.
    • Variant translations:
      Listening not to me but to reason, it is wise to agree that all is one.
      Listening not to me but to the Word it is wise to agree that all things are one.
      He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one.

K

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Will, Wisdom and Love are the three aspects of the Logos; and you, who wish to enroll yourselves to serve Him, must show forth these aspects in the world.

    • Jiddu Krishnamurti, in At the Feet of the Master (1911), written under the pseudonym "Alcyone", § IV

L

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  • All men are invisible to one another. Experience used to be called The Soul. Experience as invisibility of man to man is at the same time more evident than anything. Only experience is evident. Experience is the only evidence. Psychology is the logos of experience. Psychology is the structure of the evidence, and hence psychology is the science of sciences.

M

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  • The demons have always effected that all those who ever so little strived to live by logos and shun vice be hated.
    • Justin Martyr, in "Second Apology", as translated in Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 40
  • It's strange — you know, the Net is denounced as austere, the product of the engineering mentality, so forth and so on. It's the most feminine influence that Western civilization has ever allowed itself to fall under the spell of. The troubadors of the fourteenth century were as nothing compared to the boundary-dissolving, feminizing, permitting, nurturing nature of the Net. Maybe that's why there is an overwhelming male preference for it, in its early form, because that's where that was needed. But it is Sophia, it is wisdom, it is the penetrating archetypal female logos of the world-soul, leading us away from what was very sharp-edged and uncomfortable and repressive to our creativity and our sexuality and our relationships to each other and to the Earth.
  • The space of early Greek cosmology was structured by logos – resonant utterance or word.
    • Marshall McLuhan, in Laws of Media: The New Science (1988), co-written with Eric McLuhan, p. 35
  • Logos is the formal cause of the kosmos and all things, responsible for their nature and configuration.
    • Marshall McLuhan, in Laws of Media: The New Science (1988), co-written with Eric McLuhan, p. 37
  • Formal cause, as logos, incorporates the patterns of side-effects as part of essential nature: tetrads restore poesis and the making process to the study of artefacts.
    • Marshall McLuhan, in Laws of Media: The New Science (1988), co-written with Eric McLuhan, p. 227

T

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  • The union of kairos and logos is the philosophical task set for us in philosophy and in all fields that are accessible to the philosophical attitude. The logos is to be taken up into the kairos, universal values into the fullness of time, truth into the fate of existence. The separation of idea and existence has to be brought to an end. It is the very nature of essence to come into existence, to enter into time and fate. This happens to essence not because of something extraneous to it; it is rather the expression of its own intrinsic character, of its freedom. And it is essential to philosophy to stand in existence, to create out of time and fate. It would be wrong if one were to characterize this as a knowledge bound to necessity. Since existence itself stands in fate, it is proper that philosophy should also stand in fate. Existence and knowledge both are subject to fate.
    • Paul Tillich, in his inaugural address as chair of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfort on the Main (June 1929), translated as "Philosophy and Fate" in The Protestant Era (1948)
  • From physics on up to the normative cultural sciences there is a gradation, the logos standing at the one end and the kairos at the other. But there is no point at which either logos or kairos alone is to be found. Hence even our knowledge of the fateful character of philosophy must at the same time stand in logos and in kairos. If it stood only in the kairos, it would be without validity and the assertion would be valid only for the one making it; if it stood only in the logos, it would be without fate and would therefore have no part in existence, for existence is involved in fate.
    • Paul Tillich, in his inaugural address as chair of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfort on the Main (June 1929), translated as "Philosophy and Fate" in The Protestant Era (1948)
  • As the Greeks devoted themselves to philosophy, obedient to the logos within the limits of the kairos; as the Middle Ages subordinated the logos to the great kairos upon which their culture was built; as modern philosophy through its kairos adapted itself to the logos of a world-dominating science and technique, so our task is to serve the logos out of the depths of our new kairos, a kairos that is now emerging in the crises and catastrophes of our day. Hence, the more deeply we understand fate — our own personal fate and that of our society — the more our intellectual work will have power and truth.
    • Paul Tillich, in his inaugural address as chair of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfort on the Main (June 1929), translated as "Philosophy and Fate" in The Protestant Era (1948)

V

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  • In the universe, Brahman or the Cosmic first manifested himself as name, and then as form, i.e. as this universe. All this expressed sensible universe is the form behind which stands…the manifester as Logos or Word. The manifester is the Logos. "The Word was with God and the Word was God" – and the Word IS God, and the Word is "Om".

See also

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